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For our 2027 1st Quarter Office Hours with Heather and Maggie, meet author Bonnie Kistler and her literary agent Jennifer Weltz as they talk about their work together to bring Bonnie’s many novels to Publication. Don’t miss this discussion and Q & A and be sure to bring your burning questions about the author-agent relationship! 

Bonnie Kistler is the author of the Edgar-nominated suspense thriller, SHELL GAMES. Her other novels include HER, TOO; THE CAGE; and HOUSE ON FIRE. Her books have been optioned for film and TV adaptations and have been translated into numerous foreign languages. Her next novel, WITH HER OWN EYES, will be published in August of 2027.Before becoming a full-time novelist, she practiced for many years with major Philadelphia law firms. She specialized in business litigation and tried countless cases in courts across the country. She and her husband now divide their time between Asheville and Sarasota, Florida.

As President of The Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc. (JVNLA), Jennifer Weltz oversees the running of an almost 50 year old agency.  She has served as President of the national literary agent’s association – the AALA - and is on the Board of the Pace University Publishing Program and previously on the BISG. She has been a panelist and guest speaker at various conferences including the Historical Novels Society where she was a keynote speaker. Jennifer has sold books domestically, internationally, and for film for over three decades, with an eclectic taste that ranges from Adult to Kids, Fiction to Non-fiction, Literary to Commercial as well as Illustrated and Graphic novels. The key for representation is that she finds a creator that she can feel passionate about and a path forward for a successful career.  For more specific information on the authors she represents, please go to www.jvnla.com.

Maggie Marshall moved to Asheville from Los Angeles in 2006. Her first career was as a professional actress, which she spent performing on regional stages throughout the U.S., as well as Broadway, Los Angeles, and Dublin, Ireland. She then shifted into screenwriting, eventually landing in television and writing for numerous cable and syndicated one-hour drama series. She is the recipient of the Carl Sautter Memorial Screenwriting Award and a Scriptapalooza Award, both for One-Hour Drama. She has been a fiction contributor at the Tin House Writer's Workshop, a fellow at the Hambidge Creative Residency Program, a Writer-in-Residence at the Weymouth Center for the Arts, and a proud member of the Flatiron Writers group. She recently completed work on a novel which is currently being shopped to publishers, and has had fiction and nonfiction pieces published in The Great Smokies Review. 

Heather Newton’s novel The Puppeteer's Daughters (Turner Publishing 2022) won the NC Indie Author Project book award for adult fiction, was a finalist for the Forword INDIES Book of the Year and has been optioned for television. Her short story collection McMullen Circle (Regal House 2022), was a finalist for both the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award and the W.S. Porter prize. Her novel Under The Mercy Trees (HarperCollins 2011) won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award, was chosen by the Women’s National Book Association as a Great Group Reads Selection and by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance as an Okra Pick (“great southern fiction fresh off the vine”). Her newest novel THE BOOK OF TEARS will be published by Regal House in the spring of 2028. She teaches for Charlotte Lit as well as the Flatiron Writers Room.