ECC Board

Katie Bignell (Chair)
Assistant Editor, Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins Children’s Books
Katie originally moved to NYC from the San Francisco Bay Area to pursue a dance career on Broadway, but rediscovered her love for children’s books during shifts at B&N. She spent three years managing the HarperAudio children’s list before making the leap to editorial and Katherine Tegen Books. When she’s not editing picture books or middle grade novels, you can find her in a floured apron baking up something sweet. She still dances with a couple contemporary dance companies…and occasionally down the hallways at Harper.

Matt Poulter (CBC Liaison to the ECC)
Special Projects Assistant, The Children’s Book Council and Every Child A Reader
Matt grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey where he learned how to spell ‘cul-de-sac’ and avoid deer crossing the road. He is an avid cartoonist. His best work can be seen in the margins of his high school math notebook, which left him ill-prepared for a career in accounting, but well-suited for children’s publishing.

Faye Bi (Career Enrichment Director)
Publicity Assistant, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Originally hailing from the Great White North, Faye earned an honors degree in anthropology at Columbia University and has called New York home ever since. Her recent projects include Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman’s Why We Broke Up, Chris Colfer’s The Land of Stories, and Libba Bray’s The Diviners. When she isn’t pricing out custom golf pencils or researching teeth necklaces, Faye enjoys visual puns and wandering around the city in search of good ethnic food.

Matthew Dinda (Director of Networking and Social Events)
Sales Assistant, Abrams Books
Born in the generic suburb of Plainville, Matt first got his interest in publishing by days spent wishing he could only do things related to the Animorphs book series. Years later he found himself in working for Abrams Books and enjoys spending all day amongst gorgeous art books (and lots of Wimpy Kid). Matt enjoys film as well, and could never choose between a great book and a great film.

Anna Dobbin (Secretary)
Editorial Assistant, Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Books
Anna grew up in snowy Rochester, New York, before attending college in even-snowier New Hampshire. Her first publishing job was an editorial internship at Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, which convinced her in the first week that working with children’s books would be the right career path. When she’s not buried in manuscripts to read, Anna enjoys cooking, playing soccer, and seeing concerts and plays.

Annie Beth Ericsson (Designer/Public Relations Director)
Design Assistant, G.P. Putnam’s Sons and Nancy Paulsen Books/ Penguin Young Readers Group
A Communications Design graduate of Pratt Institute, Annie is also the published illustrator of several board books (What’s In My Garden? and What’s In My Toybox?, from Star Bright Books). In her free time, Annie can be found in Brooklyn, painting watercolors and illustrating children’s apps for the iPhone/iPad with Smart Cookie Studios.

Annie Nybo (Director of Outreach/Volunteer Programming)
Editorial Assistant, Margaret K. McElderry Books/Simon and Schuster
Annie previously worked at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She’s from San Diego, California, and the transition to thinking of herself as an editor came naturally after years of avidly reading and analyzing literature. Her favorite books change regularly, but she’ll always think fondly of Ella Enchanted, the first book she read so many times that the cover fell off.

Amy Allen
Editorial Assistant, Christy Ottaviano Books/Henry Holt Books for Young Readers at Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group
Amy grew up in various small towns in New England, reading incessantly and causing her mother much worry by walking up and down staircases while doing so. Now she gets to read at work, in coffee shops, on the subway, and in line at Trader Joe’s. Amy started her career in children’s publishing as an intern at Houghton Mifflin Books for Children in Boston.

Ayanna Coleman
Events Associate & Librarian, Children’s Book Council and Every Child A Reader
A Midwest transplant, Ayanna knew she wanted to work with children’s books since she was eight years old, how she would get into the industry, however, was a mystery. Her big break came after grad school in the form of a summer internship at Hachette Book Group. If Ayanna hadn’t followed her dream to work in children’s book publishing, she might have taken a different path and gone to culinary school.

Michael Coulter
Editorial Assistant, Dial Books/Penguin Young Readers Group
Michael hails from Flint, Michigan, a city as safe as Sunnydale, California. After studying literature at the University of Michigan, Michael decided to make a living reading, partly because it didn’t involve math. He began with an internship at Scholastic and continued to Skyhorse Publishing. He returned to Scholastic as a rights assistant and recently landed his current position at Dial. Michael enjoys yoga, The Shins, and periodic attempts to learn Japanese.

Nicole Deming
Communications Manager, The Children’s Book Council and Every Child A Reader
Nicole’s trajectory to children’s publishing was hilariously wholesome – she spent time working at FamilyFun, Wondertime, a motherwear catalog, and Cook’s Illustrated before landing a marketing/publicity assistant position at Candlewick Press. A Denver, Colorado native, Nicole also directs art for literary magazines.

Allegra Green
Marketing Assistant, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
A native New Yorker, Allegra left her beloved city to endure huge snow mounds in upstate New York, majoring in English and Political Science at Syracuse University. After completing her B.A, she pursued her passion for all things books and completed Pace University’s Masters of Science in Publishing program in 2011. When she is not juggling her time at work between PowerPoint and Excel, she’s out with friends spreading the word about her favorite reads and planning her next travel adventure.

Chris Hernandez
Assistant Editor, Harper Teen & HarperCollins Children’s Books
Chris grew up in New York City. He decided to pursue a career in publishing after completely ignoring the advice of his creative writing teacher at Columbia—who told Chris that, as an aspiring author, he should definitely not work in the industry. Now four years (and eight books) later, Chris is trying to prove you can edit your children’s books and write them too.

Svetlana Keselman
Subsidiary Rights Assistant, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Books
Svetlana was born in Ukraine, but grew up in Brooklyn – 2 blocks from the public library which started her journey to books. She loves traveling in the real world and the fantastical ones of their pages. When not working, she’s dancing, kickboxing and scouting coffee shops for espresso and reading nooks.

Laura Schreiber
Assistant Editor, Disney-Hyperion
Laura originally hails from Port Angeles, Washington and began her publishing career with an internship at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. She has collected Harry Potter books in over a dozen different languages, including Greek, Czech, and Gaelic.

Jennifer Ung
Editorial Assistant, Scholastic Inc.
The moment Jen picked up a Winnie-the-Pooh book as a kid, she knew she never, ever wanted to leave the world of children’s books. Her previous experience includes working as a teacher’s aid at an elementary school, interning at various literary agencies and children’s book publishers in New York and London, and hand-selling books and moderating events at Books of Wonder. When she’s not reading or talking about books, you can find her waxing poetic about food, exploring the city, and thinking of new ways to incorporate Mean Girls quotes into everyday conversation.

Mary Van Akin
Associate Publicist, Random House Children’s Books
Before coming to Random House, Mary worked at The Children’s Book Council where she enjoyed serving as the CBC liaison for the Early Career Committee. Professor J.R.R. Tolkien and The Great and Powerful J.K. Rowling are to blame (or, thank) for shaping her into the incorrigible nerd she is today. Mary is originally from Woodbury, Connecticut and graduated from Salve Regina University.