The NYU MS in Publishing is kicking off 2024 by welcoming five new adjunct faculty! Check out their brief bios below, along with some fun facts about their lives beyond their careers. Here are a few teasers: one has traveled to 33 states and intends to visit all 50, while another has a pet lizard named Godzilla!
January 10, 2024
Meet the New Spring 2024 Faculty!
Jin Auh (The Role of the Literary Agent) is a literary agent at The Wylie Agency, which has offices in New York and London. She serves on the board of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. She was born in Seoul and lives in New York.
Fun Fact: She has traveled to 33 states in America and hopes to visit the rest, like Nixon.
Annie Stone (Publishing Startups: Strategies for Success) has been working in digital publishing and innovation for the better part of a decade. Currently, Annie is an Acquisitions Director at Podium Publishing, a publisher focused on digital publishing and the self-publishing market, where she acquires for both the audio and all-formats programs across a range of fiction and non-fiction genres. Most recently before Podium, Annie was Director of Content Acquisitions for YONDER, a serial fiction mobile reading app launched by the teams that created WEBTOON and Wattpad. Annie also spent several years as the Head of Business Development at BookBub, a Cambridge-based publishing startup. Her team helped authors and publishers all over the world leverage BookBub's marketing platform to reach new readers and find more fans. In addition to her digital publishing experience, Annie has worked as an editor of fiction for adults and young people at several major publishing groups, including Harlequin and HarperCollins.
Fun Fact: I once spent 2 weeks in Scotland running a tiny bookshop by the sea -- the perfect working vacation!
Stephen Twilliger (Multimedia Financial Analysis II) is Finance Director at Hachette Book Group, where he provides a broad range of financial support to both the corporate and creative teams. He has worked in the publishing industry for over twenty years, including stints as CFO of Rodale, Inc. and Dorling Kindersley (DK Books), and in various other roles at Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster. He has a wealthy of experience across all aspects of digital and print publishing, with a strong background in strategy, budgeting, and financial analysis/modeling. Stephen has an M.B.A. from the London Business School and an Accounting degree from Lehigh University.
Fun Fact: Stephen has dual US/UK citizenship and has a pet lizard named Godzilla.
Helen Wan (Publishing and Law) is a lawyer and author who writes about diversity, equity and inclusion. Her debut novel, THE PARTNER TRACK (Macmillan/St. Martin's Press), about a woman of color navigating the alien culture at an elite New York law firm, was a Book Club selection of The National Association of Women Lawyers and REAL SIMPLE Magazine, and became a Washington Post Magazine cover story on shattering glass ceilings. The book is now taught in law schools and colleges and used in DEI trainings by companies, law schools, and law firms. THE PARTNER TRACK was also adapted for television, and is now an original TV series on Netflix.
Before this, Helen practiced media and publishing law in New York, both at law firms and as in-house counsel at Time Inc., A+E Television Networks, and Hachette Book Group. She is a graduate of Amherst College and The University of Virginia School of Law, and has taught "Intro to the Novel," "Fiction as Activism," and other classes in and around NYC. Helen has served on the Amherst College Executive Committee and the Boards of The New York Women's Bar Association Foundation, Pen Parentis, and The Asian American Arts Alliance.
Fun Fact: The office scenes in the TV adaptation of PARTNER TRACK were shot in midtown, just four blocks from the offices of my old law firm.
David Wolfson (The Global Marketplace: Challenges and Opportunities) has had a 40-year career in publishing, starting in marketing and publicity for an academic publisher. He moved to HarperCollins, where he began importing books published in Canada, UK, India, and Australia/New Zealand to the U.S. market. For almost 35 years, David held a variety of positions in sales at the company. Most recently, he was Senior Vice President of International Sales, where he oversaw the sales, marketing, and publicity of HarperCollins US titles in all formats outside the United States. David earned his degree from Clark University.
Fun Fact: He is always happy to play ping pong or tennis but at this point refuses to play pickleball.
For more information about the NYU SPS Center for Publishing, please visit our website.