Kristina Marusic

On an oppressively humid night in the summer of 2005, I suited up in all black like a bank robber and headed out in an unmarked van to steal live chickens under the cover of darkness. I was twenty-one years old.

“I do a much better job now than I did in college of reminding myself that the entire weight of the world, and changing the world, doesn't actually lie on my shoulders,” says Kristina, who's a regular contributor at Women's Health, and has also written for Slate, The Advocate, MTV News, and Creative Nonfiction magazine.

Two mornings after the biggest lunar probe in NASA’s history had penetrated the moon’s surface, I shopped for vegetables.

Today is the last day of the great Creative Nonfiction Writers Conference 2016, and we’re giving you a special roundtable discussion that acknowledges that writers are an eclectic group of people and often have a range of interests. But how do they channel those interests into a writing career?

Saeed Jones is the editor of BuzzFeed LGBT and a Pushcart Prize-winning poet. His debut poetry collection Prelude To Bruise was described by Publishers Weekly as "a dark night of the soul presented as the finest of evening gowns," and NPR described his work as both "beautiful and unsparing."

Kristina Marusic sat down with Saeed to talk about the similarities between nonfiction and poetry, the beauty and treachery of social media, what makes him reject a pitch, and the importance of reading the work of other writers.

Rachel Ekstrom handled publicity campaigns for debut and bestselling authors at St. Martin’s Press and Penguin for more than a decade before becoming a literary agent with the Irene Goodman Agency. She represents a varied list of clients who write fiction and nonfiction, including former Operation Ivy frontman Jesse Michaels, Sandra Block, Jeff Garvin, and Nancy Redd.

Kristina Marusic sat down with Rachel to talk about the appeal of the first person, dealing with rejection, and which steps you should always take before you start querying agents.

Emily Loose is an independent book agent, editor and publishing consultant. She has worked as a senior acquisitions editor at three of the big five general trade publishing houses, Crown Publishers of Random House, The Penguin Press of Penguin Books, and Free Press of Simon & Schuster, signing and publishing seventeen New York Times bestsellers in that time.

Kristina Marusic spoke with her about the changing publishing landscape, the secret ingredients in a New York Times bestseller, and how to approach an agent.