In 2007, Foundry Literary + Media was co-founded by Yfat Reiss Gendell and Peter McGuigan, but they’ve now decided to part ways. Gendell has started a new agency, YRG Partners, with offices in New York and Los Angeles. McGuigan is setting up Ultra Literary and also launching a packaging company, Aardvark: We Build Books, with author Bret Witter.
Joining Gendell will be Foundry agents Tanusri Prasanna, Peter Steinberg, and Adriann Ranta Zurhellen. Joining McGuigan will be former Foundry staffers Kirsten Neuhaus and Alička Pistek.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
