Helene Atwan

director, Beacon Press

Helene Atwan has been director of Beacon Press since October 1995. She holds a Master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Virginia. She began her career in publishing at Random House in 1976, and has worked at Alfred A. Knopf, Viking Press; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; and Simon and Schuster. Her acquisitions at Beacon include Gayl Jones’s *The Healing*, a National Book Award Finalist, Wendy Kaminer’s *Worst Instincts*, Danielle Ofri’s *Singular Intimacies*, Rashid Khalidi’s *Resurrecting Empire* and *The Iron Cage*, Meredith Hall’s *Without A Map*, as well as books by journalists Mitchell Zuckoff, Philip Winslow, Mark Hyman, and Beth Whitehouse, and nine volumes of poetry by Pulitzer-prize winner Mary Oliver. She served for eight years on the board of PEN-New England and is the Administrator of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.