Janet Silver, the Literary Director of the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency,
brings more than three decades of experience as an editor and
publishing executive to her work as a literary agent. She joined the
agency after 25 years at Houghton Mifflin, where she was Publisher.
While there, she edited a roster of celebrated novelist, including
Philip Roth, Tim OÕBrien, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Jhumpa Lahiri,
winner of the Pulitzer Prize. She also oversaw the publication of such
ground-breaking works as Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser and Richard DawkinsÕ The God Delusion.
SilverÕs agency clients are writers of the highest quality fiction and
narrative nonfiction in a range of subjects, including memoir,
biography, history, philosophy, and science. Recent books by her
clients include Bitter in the Mouth by novelist Monique Truong, the acclaimed author The Book of Salt; award-winning novelist Michael ByersÕ PercivalÕs Planet; and science writer Brian ChristianÕs new national bestseller The Most Human Human.
Silver holds a B.A. from Brown University and an M.A. in literature
from the University of Chicago . She serves on the boards of The Fine
Arts Work Center in Provincetown and Ploughshares magazine.