About

Sean has been an editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux since 2011, and is also the co-founder and publisher of FSG Originals, FSG’s noted line of paperback and digital originals. He previously worked as an Executive Editor and Online Creative Director at Riverhead Books, as an editor at Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, and at Arcade Publishing. He has worked with such writers as Sloane Crosley, John Darnielle, Junot Díaz, Warren Ellis, Nuruddin Farah, Gorillaz, Nicola Griffith, Aleksandar Hemon, Marlon James, Walter Mosley, Tyler Perry, the RZA, George Saunders, Tamara Shopsin, Robin Sloan, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Héctor Tobar, Ellen Ullman, Jeff VanderMeer, and Hideo Yokoyama. Sean was born and raised in southern California and now lives in New York City with his wife and young son.

Daphne came to Farrar, Straus and Giroux after more than fifteen years at Amazon.com. During her tenure there as Editorial Director in Books, her team developed and curated the Best Books programs and launched the blog Omnivoracious. In her roles as Editor-in-Chief and Publisher for Amazon Publishing, Daphne launched and developed core genre imprints, managed acquisitions across all categories, including genre, literary fiction, and children’s books, and created Amazon’s first digital literary journal, Day One. She publishes Ryan Gattis, Liska Jacobs, Araminta Hall, Kristi Coulter, Shirley Barrett, Katrina Carrasco, Rachel Selfon, Andy Davidson, and Sara Sligar, among others. Daphne was born in New York, but lives in Seattle and works in New York.

Jackson grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from the University of Michigan. He publishes Catherine Lacey, Judith Butler, Fernando A. Flores, Brontez Purnell, Thomas Grattan, Sarah Schulman, Chet’la Sebree, Venita Blackburn, Susan Straight, Jonathan Escoffery, Missouri Williams, and Morgan Thomas, among others. His reviews, profiles, and essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Ringer, them., Pitchfork, i-D, The FADER, W. and elsewhere.

Lydia Zoells was born in Geneva, Switzerland but grew up in Chicago, IL. Prior to joining the editorial team at MCD×FSG, she was an assistant at The Wylie Agency. She has also worked in a yarn shop, in university administration, and as a copyeditor.

Ben joined MCD after serving for two years as a Fulbright Scholar in Brazil, where he published his own fiction and translations. As he looks towards building his list, Ben is excited to read transgressive literary fiction with heart, and non-fiction that critiques or aims to dismantle oppressive systems. He’s especially interested in translated work from Latin America, and projects centering the black experience here and abroad. He reads in Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian.