Agents & Editors - Summer Words 2026

Ryan Harbage founded The Fischer-Harbage Agency in2007 and has represented ten #1 New York Times bestselling authors of fiction and nonfiction. Books represented by the agency have received many accolades, among them: the American Bookseller’s Association Indies Choice Book of the Year Award, American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book, Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award, Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, Nautilus Book Award, The Palmer Prize, Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, Women’s Way Book Prize; and finalists for the Desmond Elliot Prize, the Thurber Prize, Books for a Better Life Award, Goodreads Best Books of the Year, Lambda Award, Langum Prize in Historical Fiction, and The National Book Award (fiction). He was an editor at Simon & Schuster where he helped create and launch a new imprint, now Gallery Books. He also worked as an editor for Little, Brown & Company as well as Penguin Random House (where he edited books for Plume, Dutton, and Viking). He hasanMFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Ashley Lopez is a literary agent with Massie McQuilkin & Altman Literary Agents. She received her MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and has over a decade of publishing experience. Formerly the director of foreign rights and an agent at WLA Books, she has worked on international and New York Times bestsellers. She is a member of AALA. Ashley loves writers who aren’t afraid to raise the stakes and smart people sharing their obsessions. She represents literary and book club fiction, grounded speculative, horror, thrillers, narrative, and practical nonfiction, as well as select poetry and YA.

Cecilia “CeCe” Lyra is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates representing adult fiction and nonfiction. She is drawn to books with strong hooks and smooth writing, told with originality, nuance and authenticity. A long-term strategic thinker, CeCe prioritizes the creative reach and sustainable longevity of her authors’ careers, and she is especially looking for clients with whom she can build fruitful, lasting relationships.

CeCe believes that stories are empathy-generating machines capable of healing, connecting and enacting true change. As a mixed-race Latinx immigrant, CeCe understands the power of seeing oneself reflected in books, hence her passion for championing under or misrepresented voices and narratives that contribute to a larger cultural conversation. CeCe is a member of the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA). The popular podcast “The Shit No One Tells You About Writing,” for which CeCe is a co-host, has over four million downloads. CeCe is also a recovering lawyer but asks that you do not hold that against her.

Abby Walters joined the David Black Literary Agency in 2026 after nearly a decade of experience in book publishing and talent representation at Creative Artists Agency. Since her promotion to literary agent in 2020, her authors have appeared on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller lists and received Read with Jenna, Barnes & Noble Discover, and Indie Next picks, as well as starred reviews in Kirkus and Publishers Weekly.

At David Black, Abby is focused on representing upmarket and literary fiction and is most interested in novels that privilege voice and psychological depth. She is especially eager for character-driven narratives centered on flawed, searching people at moments of rupture — the burgeoning or aftermath of love, the reckoning of ambition, the slow unraveling of identity. She is interested in novels that feel intimate and precise, but that open outward: stories rooted in interiority that nonetheless speak to larger social, cultural, or moral questions or hot-button issues. She is particularly compelled by books that examine desire, power, class, addiction, creativity, and self-mythologizing and appreciates a strong sense of place (especially settings outside of the United States) and narrative momentum. She is also drawn to women’s fiction that is either witty and confident or soapy with a compelling scandal at the center.

Abby also represents select memoir and her taste in that category mirrors her fiction sensibility. More specifically, she gravitates toward late coming-of-age stories that employ a lyrical style. She’s also fascinated with personal stories that explore our relationship with work and ambition as well as narratives that explore mental and physical health. She also appreciates astrong sense of place and sensory detail.