Joe Spieler (joe@TheSpielerAgency.com) has been a writer (The Village Voice, Penthouse, The SoHo Weekly News, Harper’s Monthly) and an editor (The New York Times, The SoHo Weekly News). He began the agency in 1982 and represents nonfiction and fiction and books for children and young adults.
Among the writers he represents are the cultural historian Thomas Frank (What’s the Matter with Kansas?, One Market Under God, The Wrecking Crew ), the historian Walter Laqueur (A History of Zionism, Weimar, The Holocaust Encyclopedia, After the Fall: The End of the European Dream and the Decline of a Continent), the late Akio Morita, the founder of Sony (Made in Japan), Paul Hawken (Growing a Business, Blessed Unrest, Natural Capitalism), the historians Richard Breitman and Allan Lichtman (FDR and the Jews), Peter Senge (The Fifth Discipline), Joe Kane (Running the Amazon), and Marc Reisner (Cadillac Desert).
His children’s list includes Amy Ehrlich (With a Mighty Hand), David Martin (the forthcoming Shhh! Bears Sleeping), and Rebecca Rupp (After Eli).
John Thornton (john@TheSpielerAgency.com) has been with the Spieler Agency since 1994, after a thirty-year career as an editor, publishing executive and editorial director of the Book-of-the-Month Club. Though he does not handle fiction projects, his nonfiction tastes are eclectic. They fall along two axes: excellent writing and high-quality subject matter. Of late his clients have written on topics such as memoir (Richard Lischer, Stations of the Heart, recollections of losing a beloved adult child), biography (Phillip Schewe, Maverick Genius, a life of Freeman Dyson), natural history (Richard Conniff, The Species Seekers, a history of man’s searches to record life on Earth; a history of Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, forthcoming), social issues (Ira Rosofsky, Nasty, Brutish, and Long, a psychologist’s memoir of life in the eldercare business), consumer guidebooks (Carol Levine, Long-Term Care for Dummies—she’s a MacArthur Fellow), history (Thomas Madden, Venice: A New History; a history of Istanbul, forthcoming), belles lettres (Susan Cahill, The Hidden Gardens of Paris), spirituality (Heidi Neumark, Breathing Space, her two decades of pastoring in the South Bronx; a memoir of her newly discovered German-Jewish heritage, Googling Moses, forthcoming), cultural history (George Cotkin, Dive Deeper: Journeys with Moby-Dick), among various others.
Victoria Shoemaker (victoria@TheSpielerAgency.com) joined The Spieler Agency in 1994 as the West Coast representative. Her areas of interest include environment and natural history, popular culture, memoir, photography and film, literary fiction and poetry, and books on food and cooking. With over 35 years in bookselling and publishing, her experience includes retail bookselling, book development, editing, promotion and publicity. Among her authors are Kate Horsley (The Confessions of a Pagan Nun, A Killing in a New Town, Careless Love), William Fox (Aereality: Essays on the World, Terra Antarctica: Looking into the Emptiest Continent), Kazuaki Tanahashi (The Heart of the Brush: Exploring East Asian Calligraphy, Selected Zen Chants, The Heart Sutra – Exploring Wisdom Beyond Wisdom), Peter Dale Scott (The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America, American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection), Taigen Daniel Leighton (Cultivating the Empty Field: The Silent Illuminations of Zen Master Hongzhi). Forthcoming books include Mary Street Alinder (Group f.64: Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham…, Ansel Adams: A Biography, revised edition)
Anne Glusker (anne@TheSpielerAgency.com) is a long-time editor, at publications ranging from the Washington Post to Forbes to the American Lawyer; she has overseen stories and projects on everything from food to business, fashion to politics, health care to education. As an agent, her interests lie in nonfiction with a strong narrative that treats of-the-moment social & political issues and in can’t-put-it-down memoir and fiction that features strong storytelling. She is particularly interested in stories and situations featuring women, disability issues, people of color, and LGBTQ issues. She loves a contrarian point of view and a look into rarely seen worlds.
The Spieler Agency 