ABOUT OUR AGENCY

The Gelfman Schneider Literary Agency has established a thirty year tradition of excellence rooted in a diverse client list and commitment to our authors across all platforms of the publishing experience. We are passionate about the writers we represent and devoted to their professional success across all platforms. We have the power to stay competitive and efficient in the changing marketplace, and offer our clients continuity long into the future with a full range of services to maximize the publishing experience, from Film & Television rights to Foreign and Translation sales, to domestic and foreign sub-rights, to affiliates in Publicity & Marketing.

Gelfman Schneider represents a wide range of national and international award-winning authors, as well as many international and national bestsellers. Among our diverse list of clients are novelists, journalists, playwrights, scientists, activists & humorists writing narrative non-fiction, memoir, political & current affairs, popular science and popular culture non-fiction, as well as literary & commercial fiction, women’s fiction, and historical fiction.  

We are in a unique position to offer a full service experience, with boutique literary attention, exploiting sub-rights like Foreign & Translation, Audio, First Serial as well as Film, Television and online media rights, and we have been privileged to form working relationships with various co-agents through our affiliation with Curtis Brown UK. We are dedicated to veterans of the business & emerging voices, which maintains our longstanding traditions while ensuring that we and our clients thrive in the future.  
  

WHO WE ARE

Deborah Schneider Deborah Schneider grew up in Chicago. In 1981, seeking a less corporate environment, Deborah partnered with Jane Gelfman as an agent in the New York office of the venerable British Literary Agency, John Farquharson Ltd. Deborah began building her American client list and in 1992, she and Jane bought the agency and established the Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents Inc. that exists today.  Deborah represents a large variety of prominent and bestselling writers, across all categories of literary and commercial fiction and nonfiction.  She is a member of the AALA--the Association of American Literary Agents, served two terms on their Board, and has served on their Royalty Committee for twenty-five years. You can follow Deborah on twitter.

Jane Gelfman was  born in New York, and after attending an out of-town college, couldn’t wait to move back to the city and work in Publishing. After a small flirtation with Simon and Schuster, and as a “story editor” in film production, she formed an alliance with a British publisher as acquisitions editor and agent for its US rights, and then seguéd into full-time agenting in partnership with Deborah Schneider. The agency has prospered harmoniously for decades, representing a multifaceted array of wonderful writers.

Heather Mitchell was born in Montreal, Canada. She started her career in Paris as a sports agent and continued for 15 years before the allure of books brought her skills as an agent to New York and to Gelfman Schneider in 2006. Heather represents a number of best selling authors, but she is particularly interested in narrative non-fiction, historical fiction and young debut authors with strong voices.

Cathy Gleason is our contracts, rights and accounts manager. She moved to New York from Virginia just after college and entered directly into publishing as an assistant at our agency. She has always been interested in literary fiction and mysteries as well as narrative non-fiction focusing on international politics, but she also follows science and technology, especially as it regards the future of digital publishing. Cathy is not accepting queries. 

Penelope Burns is the newest member of Gelfman Schneider. She came to the agency as an intern after graduating from Colgate University and attending the Denver Publishing Institute in 2012. Penelope is looking to a build a list of her own. She is interested in Literary and Commercial fiction and non-fiction, as well as a variety of Young Adult and Middle Grade.