Our Staff

Deb Futter, president and publisher

Deb Futter (she/her) is the President and Publisher of Flatiron Books and Celadon Books.

Prior to those roles, she was the Publisher of Twelve and Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of Grand Central Publishing, where she acquired and edited numerous bestselling and acclaimed books including Before The Fall by Noah Hawley, Innocent, Identical and Testimony by Scott Turow, Seriously, I'm Kidding by Ellen DeGeneres, A Natural Woman by Carole King, An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin, Spooner by Pete Dexter, You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, and The Excellent Lombards by Jane Hamilton.  

Among the books she acquired for the Twelve list are Living With a Wild God by Barbara Ehrenreich, Drinking in America by Susan Cheever, Let's Be Less Stupid by Patricia Marx, and Twenty-Six Seconds by Alexandra Zapruder.  

Deb joined Grand Central in 2007, after spending 25 years at various imprints at Random House. Some of the authors she edited there include Peggy Orenstein, Jonathan Dee, Katie Couric, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Patrick McGrath, and Deborah Tannen, among many others. 

MEgan Lynch, executive Vice president and publisher

Megan Lynch has served as Publisher since 2019 and acquires a broad range of fiction and select nonfiction. She came to Flatiron from Ecco, where she was Vice President and Editorial Director, and before that she worked for 11 years at Riverhead Books. Among the books she's edited are the #1 New York Times bestsellers Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry, Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo, and Beyond the Story by BTS and Myeongseok Kang, as well as the bestsellers Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez, Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia, Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam, The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, The Vacationers by Emma Straub and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. Among the other authors she’s worked with are Ben Fountain, Emma Rosenblum, Alissa Nutting, Patrick DeWitt, Carrie Brownstein, Helen Oyeyemi, Meghan O’Rourke and Dinaw Mengestu. Her authors have won or been finalists for numerous awards including the MacArthur "Genius" grant, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the Booker Prize.

Marlena Bittner, Vice President, Executive Director of Marketing & Publicity

Marlena Bittner joined Flatiron Books in May 2014, before we had published our first book. Since then, Marlena has grown the department from two people to a team of six and has overseen publicity efforts for all the titles. She has worked on all of the Oprah Winfrey titles, helmed the campaigns for Liane Moriarty’s and Jenny Lawson’s books, Glennon Doyle’s Love Warrior, and handled the massive international rollout for James Comey’s A Higher Loyalty. Marlena started her career in the publicity department at Little, Brown and Company in 2001. While there, she worked with a wide range of authors and genres, including bestselling humorists David Sedaris and Tina Fey; novels by David Foster Wallace, Tom Wolfe, Chad Harbach, Eowyn Ivey, and Kate Atkinson; thriller/crime novels by George Pelecanos, J. J. Abrams, and Ian Rankin; and a number of bestselling nonfiction books including titles by sportswriter John Feinstein, The Beatles by Bob Spitz, and Gail Collins’s When Everything Changed.

Malati Chavali, Senior vice president, Associate Publisher

Malati Chavali joined the team in August 2020. As Associate Publisher, Malati helps lead our overall publishing strategy at Flatiron Books with an eye toward balancing our list, setting financial goals for the near and long-term, and ensuring our marketing and publicity efforts are in sync with the needs of our sales team. She is also a member of Macmillan's D&I leadership council and part of Macmillan's newly created trade management committee. Prior to her role at Flatiron Books, Malati was an SVP of Publishing Strategy for Macmillan. She joined Macmillan in 2011 as our eBook Channel head and later led the creation of the sales strategies department, becoming a vice president and key member of the sales management team.

Kate keating, Senior director, marketing

Kate Keating joined Flatiron Books in September 2024. In her role as Senior Director of Marketing, she oversees marketing strategy for all titles with a goal of reaching new and existing readers through all marketing touchpoints. Previously, she has held publicity, marketing and digital strategy roles in both adult and children's publishing at Simon & Schuster, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, and Random House Children's Books where she worked for over 8 years and formed the first dedicated Digital Marketing department and GetUnderlined.com YA brand, and worked on authors such as: Nicola Yoon, Karen M. McManus, Kathleen Glasgow, Kiersten White, Brandon Sanderson, and Philip Pullman. She has also worked in roles at L'Oreal USA in both Integrated Communications and Social Media. Kate is constantly reading two or more books at once.

julie will, SVP & Editor in Chief, Nonfiction

Julie Will joined Flatiron Books in 2023. In her role as SVP & Editor in Chief, Nonfiction, she acquires and oversees strategy for the nonfiction list. Previously, she has held editorial roles at Random House, Rodale Books, and HarperCollins, where she served as cofounder and VP, Editorial Director of one of the industry’s leading wellness imprints, Harper Wave, for 11 years. She has published dozens of New York Times bestselling and award-winning titles, including several #1 New York Times bestsellers. Her authors at Wave included Dr. Becky Kennedy, Dr. Nicole LePera, Cameron Diaz, Dr. Steven Gundry, Jessica Bennett, Dr. Jason Fung, Dr. Mona Delahooke, Angela Garbes, Julia Turshen, The Pollan Family, Texas Monthly magazine, Rocco DiSpirito, and Garden & Gun magazine. At Flatiron she is looking forward to publishing upcoming works from Brooke Shields, Dr. Dale Bredesen, former FDA Commissioner Dr. David Kessler, Wharton economist Corinne Low, sex educator Cory Silverberg, and more. Julie is excited by projects that inspire, uplift, and empower readers, and is particularly invested in publishing women's voices. 

Zachary Wagman, Vice President and Editorial Director

Zachary Wagman joined Flatiron in 2020. He has published bestsellers by Jason Rekulak (Hidden Pictures, The Last One at the Wedding), Politico reporter and MSNBC host Jonathan Lemire (The Big Lie) and Vulture blogger Brian Moylan (The Housewives). He has also worked with Alex Segura (Secret Identity, Alter Ego); Lauren Nossett (The Resemblance, The Professor); Erika Wurth (White Horse, The Haunting of Room 904); and Abraham Chang (888 Love and the Divine Burden of Numbers). He has forthcoming novels from Eric Heisserer, Jason Diamond, Jeff Boyd, Sarah Tomlinson, Adam Sternbergh, and James A. McLaughlin, among others. His nonfiction includes books by Beto O’Rourke (We’ve Got to Try), CNN’s Abby Phillip (A Dream Deferred), former Washington Post editor Marty Baron (Collision of Power), and Pulitzer Prize-winner Gilbert King (Bone Valley). He has previously worked with authors like Dennis Lehane, Kevin Wilson, Jonathan Lethem, David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Steph Cha, and Steve Kornacki.

CHRISTINE KOPPRASCH, Vice President and Publisher, Pine & Cedar Books

In her decade at Flatiron Books, Christine Kopprasch has acquired and edited bestselling novels by S. A. Cosby (All the Sinners Bleed, Razorblade Tears), Alice Feeney (Rock Paper Scissors, Beautiful Ugly), Jane Harper (The Dry, Exiles), Sarah Pinborough (Behind Her Eyes, We Live Here Now), Chandler Baker (Whisper Network, The Husbands), M. L. Rio (If We Were Villains, Graveyard Shift) and Kate Alice Marshall (What Lies in the Woods, A Killing Cold), among others. Books she has acquired and edited at Flatiron have been New York Times bestsellers, #1 international bestsellers, Goodreads Choice Award Finalists, New York Times Notable Books, Reese Witherspoon Book Club and GMA Book Club picks, and have won awards including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, ITW Thriller Award, Lambda Literary Award, Barry Award, and many more. Kopprasch was formerly an editor at Crown, where her acquisitions included Miranda Beverly-Whittemore’s NYT bestseller Bittersweet, Nina George’s #1 Indie bestseller The Little Paris Bookshop, and Nobel laureate Han Kang’s Man Booker International winner The Vegetarian. She is looking for upmarket, plot-driven, and compulsively readable fiction for Pine & Cedar Books, mostly in the suspense, mystery, and thriller space, and the occasional high-concept romance. 

CAROLINE BLEEKE, executive Editor

Caroline Bleeke publishes literary and upmarket fiction and select nonfiction at Flatiron Books, with an emphasis on underrepresented voices, historical fiction, clever retellings, family sagas, coming-of-age stories, innovative structure and style, writing with a strong sense of place, and lots of heart. Her authors at Flatiron include Angie Cruz, Saraciea Fennell, Nina LaCour, Charlotte McConaghy, Margarita Montimore, Melinda Moustakis, Neel Patel, Bushra Rehman, Jennifer Saint, Jenny Tinghui Zhang, and many others. Originally from St. Louis, she began her career at Alfred A. Knopf and holds a Master’s degree in Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Literature.

Lee Oglesby, Senior Editor

Lee Oglesby joined Flatiron Books in July 2021 and is acquiring idea-driven nonfiction. She’s drawn to compelling books that make unexpected connections in science, the environment, food and agriculture, health and wellbeing, and transformational justice. Previously, she was the managing editor at Milkweed Editions, and at Oxford University Press she worked as a developmental editor. Authors she has published include Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Ada Limón. She began her career in medical publishing.

Kukuwa Fraser, Editor

Kukuwa Fraser (née Ashun) is an editor at Flatiron Books looking to build a list of literary, historical, and/or contemporary fiction that primarily centers a cast of nuanced, dynamic Black/Afro-identifying or BIPOC characters. She is an avid advocate for historically underrepresented voices, intergenerational stories, and is drawn to fun, engaging narratives that have a balance of humor and heart at its core. Her authors at Flatiron currently include debut writers İnci Atrek, Ruthvika Rao, and Rufaro Faith Mazarura. Prior to joining the team in 2020, Kukuwa worked with Writopia Lab, One Story Inc., the National Book Foundation, and received her MFA in fiction from NYU.

maxine charles, assistant editor

Prior to joining Flatiron in 2020, Maxine Charles was an editorial intern at literary agencies Writers House and Aevitas Creative Management. She has a passion for genre fiction and uplifting marginalized voices. She gravitates toward thought-provoking fantasy, science fiction, horror, and thrillers that use genre elements to present social commentary and subvert expectations. Her authors at Flatiron include Yume Kitasei and Amy Avery.

Sydney Jeon, Assistant Editor

Sydney Jeon is building a list of upmarket and literary fiction with a particular interest in voice-driven narratives about coming of age, identity, and diaspora, especially stories from and about women of color and marginalized voices. Fiction with absurd, speculative, and horror elements are a plus, and she loves writing that is visceral, vulnerable, and poignant. A graduate of UCLA, she is originally from Los Angeles.

mary retta, editorial Assistant

Mary Retta is interested in books that explore identity, pop culture, friendship, and music. Before starting at Flatiron she was a journalist and essayist for Teen Vogue, Pitchfork, The Nation, and elsewhere. She also enjoys reading speculative and literary fiction that is strongly grounded in transformative politics.

Kate Lucas, editorial Assistant

Before joining Flatiron in 2023, Kate Lucas was part of the international sales team at Ingram Content Group, selling their distribution clients into Latin America and the Caribbean. As an editorial assistant, she is passionate about exploring uncharted niches and uplifting underrepresented voices. She is interested in linguistics, pop culture, memoir, and narrative nonfiction, as well as quirky, offbeat fiction with a strong sense of place. Originally from Central Florida, she is now based in Hoboken.

Kara McAndrew, editorial Assistant

Kara McAndrew is drawn to literary and contemporary fiction that centers Black and queer
voices. She’s interested in narratives that focus on identity, displacement and coming of age,
especially those written by and about women of color. She’s also interested in stories that utilize distinct humor and wit to address underlying systemic inequalities. Prior to joining Flatiron in 2024 she was an editorial intern at Folio Literary Management.

Sophie Garcia-Cubas Assemat, editorial Assistant

Sophie Garcia-Cubas Assemat is drawn to works in translation that play with the English language, science fiction with a speculative tinge, literary horror, and nonfiction that makes history and science accessible to a general audience. They are passionate about bringing more Latinx and queer voices to readers. Before joining Flatiron, they interned at Mariner Books, Penguin Random House, and Grove Atlantic. Born in Mexico, Sophie is now located in NYC.