To celebrate Star Watch’s decennial, PW checked in with our alumni to find out what they’ve been doing since being named Star Watch superstars. Reflecting on their careers, our superstars looked to the future and offered advice about today’s multifaceted book industry.
Madison Jacobs, associate publisher at Crown Publishing Group and 2023’s superstar, is “firmly reestablishing our independent publishing group identity” at CPG, she says. “There’s not yet been a single stagnant moment in my role.”
Jacobs, the global project manager for Prince Harry’s Spare, among other high-visibility assignments, says her Star Watch recognition led other project managers to contact her. “I am thrilled to share when processes and templates I created from scratch can be adapted and make other people’s jobs easier,” says Jacobs, who counsels young people in publishing to seek opportunities for conversation. “Be bold about inviting anyone and everyone you work with for a coffee, drink, lunch—they’re not scary, only busy, and most people are happy to share their story and advice if you just ask.”
Gabriella Page-Fort, executive editor at HarperOne and PW’s 2017 superstar, did just that when she was coming up in the industry. “I joined the HarperOne Group to learn from president and publisher Judith Curr, a visionary leader with global perspective,” Page-Fort says. And this helped her develop a specialty in publishing works in translation, including Argentine journalist Ana Elena Correa’s What Happened to Belén, with a foreword by Margaret Atwood.
When she meets young editors or teaches at New York University’s Center for Publishing, Page-Fort’s advice is simple yet profound: “Align your publishing to your values and find the data you need to support your proposals so others share your commitment.”
The personal commitments of several Star Watch superstars can be seen in the books they write and publish. In 2018, Francesca Cavallo and Elena Favilli were named superstars; the pair authored Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, a collection of tales about feminist leaders. Favilli encourages entrepreneurs to identify their deepest purpose. “Don’t be afraid to do things in a way that nobody has tried before,” she says. Her revised edition of Good Night Stories, with a foreword by philanthropist Melinda French Gates, will be released by Rebel Girls and DK in March 2025.
Jennifer Baker, the Star Watch superstar in 2019, advocates for social justice and promotes stories of underrepresented communities through her writing—her debut YA novel, Forgive Me Not (PRH/Paulsen), just came out in paperback—and via her Minorities in Publishing podcast, which celebrated its own 10-year anniversary in August. She’s also a senior program manager at Narrative Initiatives, overseeing programming for the Changemakers Authors Cohort. Echoing Favilli, Jacobs, and Page-Fort, she advises publishing professionals to innovate and think outside of the traditional methods. “Connect with people on a genuine level as much as possible,” Baker says, “because your career may look very different from what you anticipated.”
“Things will always be changing, whether at a micro level like staff retirement or a macro level, like the pandemic,” says Wes Lukes of A Room of One’s Own bookstore in Madison, Wis. Lukes and bookstore co-owner Gretchen Treu earned superstar status in 2021. “Flexibility and diversity are huge assets” in the book industry, Lukes adds. In any given season at the store, “an employee’s ‘pet section’ starts becoming a destination” and a trend is born.
Andrew Eliopulos, spotlighted in Star Watch 2016, now writes full-time, after having served as executive editor at HarperCollins. “I’m hard at work on a middle grade novel with Quill Tree Books—a return to speculative fiction,” says Eliopulos, who published Will on the Inside, the story of a gay Georgia teen, in 2023.
Having succeeded in the Big Five and pursued his goal of authorship, Eliopulos advocates an interpersonal, empathic approach. “You are not AI,” he advises young editors and authors. “Your ability to connect with other humans will enable you to see the beating heart in a new manuscript and present it to readers in a way that will make them care.”
And while Star Watch superstars offered advice for publishing success, they also pointed out that the industry is, as Baker says, “a layered entity. There’s so much that goes into the development, production, promotion, distribution, and selling of titles, especially in an ever-changing world.”
Riverhead Books art director Helen Yentus, who garnered accolades in the first-ever Star Watch in 2015, also advises publishing professionals to “take an interest in the bigger picture. Understanding where your job fits in the larger scheme of the publishing program can give you perspective on your little part in the larger whole.”
Like CPG’s Jacobs, Yentus encourages junior staff members to get to know editors and publishers—“I wish I had been braver about that when I was starting out,” she says—and spend time in the office to get a sense of the culture and feel connected to people across departments. “Sharing ideas and impressions,” she says, “is so much of the learning process.”
Two science fiction and fantasy editors—Ruoxi Chen, 2022 superstar, and Nivia Evans, 2020 superstar—say Star Watch also brings positive attention to popular genre categories. Hugo Award winner Chen, a former editor at Tor, is currently a freelance editor and consultant, while Evans moved from her senior editorship at Hachette imprint Orbit Books to become senior editor at Simon & Schuster’s Saga Press in 2023.
Chen recommends that those advancing in the book industry set up informational interviews and do their research. “There are so many resources” on book deals and forthcoming lists, Chen says, so in addition to being a superfan of an author, agent, or imprint, a self-starter can develop “a comprehensive sense of where an editorial team is prioritizing. Set up the informational interviews, come in with examples of titles they’ve published in the last six months, and know what they have coming up in the next six to nine months.”
With their shared interest in SFF, both Chen and Evans emphasize that trust and affinity matter, too. “People talk a lot about networking, but having the space to make genuine friends to me is key to having a successful publishing career,” Evans says. “When you are having specific problems, friends can be sounding boards” as well as sources of insider knowhow and job leads.
Evans stressed the visibility Star Watch gives to successful early- and midcareer professionals and behind-the-scenes contributions. “So much of publishing externally is author focused because that is just the nature of our business,” she says. That’s why, every year, she checks the Star Watch honorees for people she knows. “It’s almost less about the winners than the nominees. I always love to send the screenshot to a friend and say, ‘You’re there! You made it!’ ”
