2021 Moderators | Speakers

Jennifer Romanello began her career in book publishing as a publicity assistant at Macmillan and its imprints, Scribner and Atheneum. She then moved on to Dutton, where she eventually rose to Associate Director of Publicity and worked with a roster of critically acclaimed authors including Julia Alvarez, Joyce Carol Oates, and Jamaica Kincaid. In 1995 she joined Warner Books, now Grand Central Publishing, an imprint of Hachette. She was VP, Executive Director of Publicity there for many years and worked with a wide range of bestselling authors including Nicholas Sparks, David Baldacci, Nelson DeMille and Brad Meltzer, among others. She was most recently VP, Director of Publicity at Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing and oversaw the publicity for the following imprints: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, Atheneum, Margaret K. McElderry, Aladdin, Simon Pulse, Paula Wiseman, Beach Lane Books, Little Simon and Simon Spotlight. Jennifer is currently a Lecturer in the MS in Publishing Program at Pace University. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing with Distinction from Hofstra University and her poems have been published in Ovunque Siamo and VIA: Voices in Italiana-Americana. Her poems “Omphalos” (2018) and “I terri” (2015) received first place in the Concorso Internationale di Poesia held in Messina, Sicily. She is working on a novel and poetry collection.