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Administration

Aida Herrera

Chief Financial and Administrative Officer

Aida Herrera is the Chief Financial and Administrative Officer, where her focus lies in preparing financial reports, managing the company budget, filing taxes, supervising royalty calculations, managing subsidiary rights for signed contracts, and handling payroll and benefits.

Aida has a BA in business from the University of Mexico, as well as a certificate in accounting from San Diego State University. She has thirty-plus years of experience managing financial forecasting, budget creation, cost reduction, financial reporting, logistics, project management, sales, and international trade. She has worked in financial, insurance, electronics, non-profit and food industries.

She is a Mexico City native and enjoys traveling all over the world. Aida’s favorite person in the world is her son Max, and she’s a very proud Texas Tech mom.

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Mallory Frost

Customer Service/Administrative Associate

Mallory Frost is the Customer Service/Administrative Associate at BenBella Books. Her primary responsibilities are to create monthly sales reports, reconcile bank statements, address customer needs, and monitor inventory requirements for website sales. She is originally from Las Vegas, Nevada, and moved to the Dallas area in 2019. When not working Mallory enjoys sewing, baking, crocheting, and spending time with her husband and two children.

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Jen Velasquez

Accounting Specialist

Jen has lived her whole life in NJ. She graduated from Rutgers University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting. She obtained her CPA in 2022 after a long battle of trying to take the exam through the pandemic. She worked over six years in the SaaS software industry and two years in the construction industry. When she is not working, she enjoys traveling, baking, watching a lot of Netflix, and trying to learn new hobbies.

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Dayna Lupica

Controller

Dayna Lupica is the Controller at BenBella Books. Her responsibilities include managing royalty calculations, processing contractual agreements, and preparing forecast, budget and sales reports. She graduated from University of Houston-Clear Lake with a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting. Dayna has worked in the financial, staffing, and food industry and brings 14 years of accounting experience. She lives in the Texas Hill Country and enjoys traveling with her family.

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Raquel Moreno

Customer Service Representative

Raquel Moreno is the customer service representative and her main focus is addressing customer issues and resolving them in a timely and efficient manner. She handles everything from bulk orders and bulk pricing to responses for the most commonly asked questions and specific guidelines for dealing with requests or complaints. Raquel has a BA in International Business and a Masters in Marketing from the University of Sonora. Raquel enjoys outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, kayaking, or any activity that involves being around nature. She is married and the mother of two very friendly dogs, Sofi and Ramona.

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Debbie Petersen

Subsidiary Rights Associate

Debbie Petersen is the Subsidiary Rights Associate at BenBella Books.  Her responsibilities include tracking subsidiary rights records.  Debbie has a BS degree in Parks, Recreation and Tourism from the University of Missouri and an MBA from St. Louis University. Prior to joining BenBella in January 2020, Debbie stayed at home for several years with her teenage daughter, Nina.  Most of her former work experience was in the commercial banking field in St. Louis and Dallas.  When not working, she enjoys spending time with her family (including two cats and one dog), reading novels, cooking, and working out. 

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Art & Covers

Sarah Avinger

Art Director

Sarah Avinger is the Art Director at BenBella Books. As many people really do judge a book by its cover, Sarah’s focus is developing cover art to best position BenBella titles in the competitive book marketplace through strong creative direction and design. In addition to designing covers in-house, she also works with a talented team of freelancers and is always looking for new talent. (If interested, please submit your portfolio to sarah@benbellabooks.com!) Sarah is located in beautiful Charlotte, NC, and graduated summa cum laude from Texas Christian University before joining the BenBella team. She loves city life, great food, art in its many forms, and as for books, her childhood favorite Ella Enchanted will always hold top billing.

 

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Morgan Carr

Book Cover Junior Designer

Morgan Carr is the Book Cover Junior Designer and has a hand in just about every cover. She graduated from Georgia Southern University in 2021 with a B.F.A. in Graphic Design. She’s a mood reader, but has recently found a love for modern sci-fi and horror, her favorite authors being Grady Hendrix, Becky Chambers, and Erin Morgenstern. Morgan spends the rest of her free time cross stitching, axe throwing, and designing Christmas light shows. She currently lives in Newnan, Georgia.

Brigid Pearson

Senior Designer

Brigid Pearson is a Senior Designer at BenBella Books, where she creates book covers for all imprints. She earned a BA in Fine Art from U.C.L.A. Before joining the BenBella team, she designed book covers at several large and small publishing houses. She can be found cycling, planning travel adventures, playing ukulele (badly) on the front porch, making weird tiny art, listening to LPs (look it up, kids), twisting into yoga poses, hunting for mushrooms, pondering the lives of groundhogs and other woodland creatures, or reading just about anything in front of her face. She currently resides in the woods of upstate New York.

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Editorial

Leah Wilson

Editor-in-Chief of BenBella Books

Leah Wilson is Editor-in-Chief of BenBella Books. With BenBella since 2003, she has edited a number of the company’s most successful titles, including the New York Times bestseller Whole, Demigods and Monsters, and The Zen of Social Media Marketing. Her responsibilities include overseeing BenBella’s editorial department as well as working directly with authors editorially. Leah has a BA in Culture and Modern Fiction from Duke University.

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Rick Chillot

Senior Editor

Rick Chillot, senior editor at BenBella, has worked as a writer and
editor in various print and digital formats, including books,
magazines, newspapers, newsletters, graphic novels, academic journals,
websites, ebooks, video, and one tote bag. He’s worked with writers of
all experience levels, from first-time authors to seasoned
professionals. Rick lives near Philadelphia, PA, the origin point for
both book publishing and democracy in the USA.

Lydia Choi

Associate Editor
Lydia Choi is the Associate Editor of the Matt Holt Books imprint and brings her background in freelance copyediting and proofreading to nearly every stage of the editorial process. Lydia is a 2021 graduate of Princeton University, where she majored in English and minored in Spanish. When she’s not working, she likes to read all kinds of books, play all kinds of video games, and drink all kinds of tea.

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Katie Dickman

Executive Editor

Katie Dickman is the Executive Editor of the BenBella imprint Matt Holt Books. She loves partnering with authors to help their visions come to life on the page. Katie earned a PhD in English from Saint Louis University, where she also taught writing and rhetoric courses. She lives in Chicago where she enjoys long walks (especially in non-winter months) with her husband and sweet pup, Lucy, exploring the city via its restaurants, and perfecting her home barista skills.

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Matt Holt

Editor-in-Chief of Matt Holt Books

Matt Holt is Editor-in-Chief of the BenBella imprint Matt Holt Books. Holt was previously Senior Vice President and Executive Publisher at John Wiley & Sons, where he oversaw a team of 85 staff. Over Holt’s 27-year career, he’s acquired over 1,000 titles and published 10,000 titles including: Jon Gordon’s Energy Bus, Larry Winget’s Shut Up, Stop Whining and Get a Life, Patrick Lencioni’s The Ideal Team Player, Jeffrey Gitomer’s The Sales Bible, Ben Stein’s What Would Ben Stein Do?, Joe Calloway’s Becoming a Category of One, and David Meerman Scott’s New Rules of Marketing and PR. Holt acquires roughly 20 titles per year in business, finance, and professional development spaces.

Rachel Phares

Rights Manager

Rachel Phares is the Rights Manager at BenBella Books. She considers herself a nonfiction generalist and is actively building a list of smart, diverse, and commercial authors and books. She’s particularly interested in pop psychology and sociology, self-help, cultural criticism, music, and mental health. If it’s funny, or is somehow related to a cult, all the better. Rachel has a degree in cello performance from Wichita State University and a certificate from the Denver Publishing Institute, and lives in Dallas, TX with her family, musical instruments, and many unfinished cross-stitch projects.

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Claire Schulz

Executive Editor

Claire Schulz is the Executive Editor at BenBella Books. Claire joined BenBella in 2018, after holding editorial positions at Hachette Book Group and the Perseus Books Group. She works with authors across a range of categories, though her favorites are books that inform, inspire, and offer a path to a better life–whether a reader is navigating a health challenge, contemplating a life/career move, or looking for a tasty recipe. At BenBella, Claire edited Why We Get Sick by Benjamin Bikman, I Never Thought of It That Way by Mónica Guzmán, Sacred Cow by Diana Rodgers and Robb Wolf, and Plant-Based on a Budget: Quick & Easy by Toni Okamoto, among many others. Claire is also a primary point of contact for freelance editors. She lives in Central Pennsylvania with her family, her sourdough starter, and an ever-growing assortment of potted plants.

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Marketing

Jennifer Canzoneri

Chief Marketing Officer

Jennifer Canzoneri is the Chief Marketing Officer at BenBella Books. She heads the marketing department, and has been with BenBella for fourteen years. Jennifer graduated from Texas A&M University in 2005 with degrees in History and English. She lives with her husband and son in a Fort Worth suburb, and she enjoys hand-lettering when she’s not at work.

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Heather Butterfield

Marketing Director, Smart Pop

Heather Butterfield is a Marketing Director at BenBella Books, and she oversees big-picture and title marketing for BenBella’s pop culture imprint, Smart Pop, along with their plant-based living platform, BenBella Vegan. She earned her BA in Communication and Rhetoric from Nazareth College, and while working on her MA in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College in 2009, she started interning with BenBella and has been with the company ever since. She currently lives in Los Angeles where she loves being a homebody with her cats and plants.

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Kellie Doherty

Marketing Associate

Kellie Doherty is the Marketing Associate to the Senior Marketing staff at BenBella Books. She graduated from Portland State University with her masters in book publishing in 2016 and was an office assistant by day, freelance editor by night until 2022 when she joined BenBella. In her free time, Kellie enjoys reading, taking photos of nature, writing science fiction and fantasy books, and watching way too much YouTube. She currently lives in Alaska with her sister, mother, and their four cats and two dogs. (And yes it’s chaos…but the fun kind.)

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Mallory Hyde

Senior Marketing Manager

Mallory Hyde is the Senior Marketing Manager for the Matt Holt Books imprint at BenBella Books. She handles all marketing needs for the Matt Holt Books line by overseeing big-picture and title-specific marketing efforts for the imprint. Mallory brings over six years of publishing and marketing experience to her role and is proud to have worked on numerous New York Times bestsellers. When not working, Mallory enjoys discovering new restaurants, going on runs with her Golden Retriever, Graham, and playing first base on her rec league softball team. Mallory is based in the Chicago area and regrets this decision every winter.

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Lindsay Marshall

Marketing Director

Lindsay Marshall is the Marketing Director at BenBella Books. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Lindsay has over six years of book marketing experience and helped develop BenBella’s plant-based imprint, BenBella Vegan. When not helping authors build their platforms and promote their books, Lindsay is likely planning her next travel adventure, reading in her hammock at White Rock Lake, or listening to live music at one of Dallas’ many music venues. One of her favorite reads is From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg.

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Kerri Stebbins

Marketing Manager

Kerri Stebbins is the Marketing Manager for the Matt Holt Books imprint at BenBella Books. After providing consistent and enthusiastic freelance marketing, production, and sales support for BenBella since 2016, Kerri joined the house full-time in 2022 to assist the Matt Holt team with all marketing efforts for the growing imprint. She also manages select titles for the main line of BenBella. Kerri has been writing and reading stories of all shapes and sizes since she was a little girl and still sometimes can’t believe she gets to help other people share their stories for a living. When she’s not celebrating books, Kerri is probably walking into cold water, painting, or looking for ever more alpine lakes to swim in with her husband and adventure pup Toya.

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Production

Monica Lowry

Production Director

Monica Lowry is the Production Director at BenBella Books. Her main responsibilities include creating and managing design and typesetting schedules for both BenBella and Smart Pop lines; working with authors, editors, and proofreaders to produce an error-free book; and coordinating with printers on everything from project estimates to distribution of final printed books. Monica graduated from Texas A&M University with a BA in English and a minor in Business Administration. When she’s not at work, she’s either walking her dog or saving the universe (in one of her sci-fi video games).

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Kim Broderick

Production Editor

Kim Broderick is a Production Editor at BenBella Books. She graduated from Villanova University, where she majored in English with a minor in Writing and Rhetoric. She then earned her Masters in Publishing: Digital and Print Media from New York University. Kim worked at two book publishers in the NYC area before joining BenBella, and she continues to do freelance proofreading and copyediting on the side. In her free time, she enjoys reading (all types of fiction!) and spending time with her husband, son, and daughter.

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Aaron Edmiston

Aaron Edmiston

Graphic Design & Production Associate

Aaron Edmiston is the Graphic Design & Production Associate at BenBella Books, where he focuses on various marketing design and book production roles. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Dallas and with a BA in Emerging Media and Communications. When not at work, Aaron enjoys spending time with his wife, Dana, and their son, Riley. Aaron is also an avid comic reader, gamer, foodie, musician, and lover of all things related. His favorite reads are anything by the crime/noir comic duo of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (especially Sleeper and Fatale), Punk Rock Jesus by Sean Murphy, and Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra.

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Jessika Rieck

Jessika Rieck

Deputy Production Manager

Jessika Rieck is the Deputy Production Manager at BenBella Books. She supports the Production Director in producing beautiful, error-free, and on-time books. Jessika graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a BA in English literature and an enduring love for the German language. (Her favorite word is herumtollen: to cavort.) When not at work, Jessika is probably reading (YA, science fiction, or fantasy—preferably a combination of the three), baking, or shopping for dresses with pockets.

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Isabelle Rubio

Production Associate

Isabelle Rubio is the Production Associate at BenBella Books. Her responsibilities include overseeing eBook production, applying for CIP and copyright, handling reprints and book corrections, and overall, supporting the production team where needed. Isabelle received her BA from UCLA in 2021, where she majored in English and minored in Professional Writing. In her free time, Isabelle enjoys reading a variety of genres, baking a bunch, and playing (and watching her boyfriend play) video games. Isabelle currently resides in Los Angeles with her succulents.

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Publisher

Glenn Yeffeth

CEO

Glenn Yeffeth is CEO of BenBella Books. For 15 years, Glenn was a corporate strategist and marketer who ran companies in Chicago, London, and Dallas. In 2001, Glenn formed BenBella Books (named after Glenn’s children Benjamin and Isabella) to combine his love for books with his passion for marketing. Glenn has an MBA in Marketing and Finance from the University of Chicago and a BA in History from Oberlin College. His favorite book is The DaVinci Mole, a little-known work by the eminent philosopher Dr. Ian Browne. More about Glenn can be found at LinkedIn.

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SPP (Strategic Packaging & Positioning)

Adrienne Lang

Publisher

Adrienne Lang is the Publisher at BenBella Books and oversees the packaging and positioning of titles. Among many things, she is in charge of sales and publication information, cover development, vendor site listings, coordination of audio and foreign rights, and co-op opportunities. A proud native and fan of all things Kansas City, she somehow found herself in Fort Worth, where she graduated from Texas Christian University with a degree in news-editorial journalism and political science, a jaded view of the BCS’ inner workings, and a devotion to Horned Frog football. She has been with BenBella for fifteen years and has held a variety of positions. She, of course, has many favorite books, but will just list The Poisonwood Bible in this instance.

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Madeline Grigg

Publishing Associate

Madeline Grigg is a Publishing Associate within the strategic packaging and positioning department, where she primarily assists the main BenBella imprint. Before joining the BenBella team, she earned an MFA in poetry from Bowling Green State University. A longtime reader of speculative fiction, her favorite authors include Becky Chambers, Martha Wells, Amal El-Mohtar, and Katherine Addison. Madeline lives on the foggy coast of Maine, where she spends her free time writing, doing aikido, growing herbs and veggies, and playing tabletop RPGs with friends.

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Ariel Jewett

Publishing Associate

Ariel Jewett is a Publishing Associate within the the strategic packaging and positioning department, where she assists the Matt Holt Books and Smart Pop imprints, and the acquisitions team. She graduated from the University of Denver with a Bachelors in English and earned a publishing certificate from the Denver Publishing Institute. A few of her favorite authors are Stephen Graham Jones, Ottessa Moshfegh, Haruki Murakami, Virginia Woolf, and Cormac McCarthy. Other than reading, she likes to get too excited while talking about whatever show she’s currently watching, obsessing over how cute her dog and cat are, and spending time outside. She lives in Beacon, New York.

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Alicia Kania

Vendor Content Manager

Alicia Kania is the Vendor Content Manager at BenBella Books. She handles all product information needed for retailer listings, including sales copy development, endorsements outreach, and metadata coordination. Alicia has a BA in Advertising from the University of Texas at Arlington, which is located in her hometown. An avid sci-fi/fantasy reader, a few of Alicia’s favorite authors are Becky Chambers, Fletcher DeLancey, and Naomi Novik. In her free time, Alicia is likely on a new travel adventure, visiting art festivals, freelance writing, or maybe just relaxing at home with her cat.

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Susan Welte

Sales Manager

Susan Welte is the Sales Manager at BenBella Books, where she assists primarily in strategic packaging and positioning. Susan holds both a master’s and bachelor’s degree in English literature from Emporia State University, where she also competed in cross country and track and field. In 2017, she obtained a publishing certificate from the Denver Publishing Institute. When not at work, she can be found playing with her pet rabbit, curled up with a cup of tea, or writing (and rewriting) her own fiction.