Staff & Board

Mary Gannon, CLMP's Executive Director, is a veteran nonprofit administrator with more than twenty years of experience in the literary field. Prior to joining CLMP she served as the Associate Director/Director of Content for the Academy of American Poets for five years, where she oversaw the production of the organization's award-winning website, Poets.org, its popular Poem-a-Day series, and its Education Program, including Teach This Poem, a weekly offering that received the 2018 National Book Foundation's Innovations in Reading Prize. She also served as Editorial Director of Poets & Writers, Inc., the country’s largest nonprofit organization serving poets and writers of literary prose, where she headed up Poets & Writers Magazine and pw.org. Also an award-winning poet whose poems have been published widely, Mary has published numerous articles about publishing and the literary field and has profiled such notable authors as The New Yorker editor David Remnick and nonfiction writer John Haskell, fiction writers Jay McInerney and Heidi Julavits, and poets Anne Carson and Major Jackson. She is co-author with her husband, Kevin Larimer, of The Poets & Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer, published by Avid Reader Press in 2020.

Montana Agte-Studier is a writer, musician, sculptor, and artist based in Washington Heights, NYC. As the Senior Membership Director, she oversees CLMP's membership department—supporting, consulting with, and nurturing independent publishers across the country and around the world—and directs the NYSCA NYTAP program. Prior to joining CLMP, Montana worked in the membership department at MoMA. She holds a BFA in Jazz Flute Performance and a BA in Arts in Context with a focus on Literature from The New School University and has studied abroad in Verona, Italy; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Valladolid, Mexico. Montana is the recipient of a John Coltrane Scholarship from The John Coltrane Foundation and a Michael Kamen Solo Award from The Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation. Her writing is published in/forthcoming from Epiphany, The Ocotillo Review, New South, and The New Guard, among others. Montana is currently working on her first poetry collection, growing pomegranate trees, and pursuing a private pilot's license. You can find her on Instagram as @theycallhermontana.

Chelsea Oei Kern is the Director of Programs at CLMP, where she oversees CLMP's events, programs, and grants and awards offerings. Chelsea holds a PhD in English from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she taught and wrote about contemporary U.S. fiction. Her writing on literature and technology has appeared in Arizona Quarterly and Postmodern Culture. Previously, she worked with the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, Illuminations Arts Publishing, and blue moon, the annual literary magazine of Whitman College.

Lauren Rosemary Hook is a Project Director at CLMP, hired temporarily to help develop services and programs for presses impacted by the closure of Small Press Distribution (SPD), as well as other CLMP members. She was previously Editorial Director of the Feminist Press.

Claire Russell is a Program Assistant at CLMP. She is a graduate from Smith College, where she earned a B.A. in English as well as the Mary Augusta Jordan Prize for student writing. She has previously interned for the Amityville Record, the Nominate Group, and Neilson Library, and her writing has been published in The Sophian, Night Picnic Press, Emulate, and Penny Magazine.

Usman Chaudhary, CLMP’s Accounting Consultant is from Accounting Solutions for Not-for-Profit Organizations. He has over five years of experience in not-for-profit accounting. Prior to joining CLMP in 2018, he has supported various not-for-profit organizations with accounting, finance, and operations related functions, including financial reporting, payroll, accounts payable, reporting of monthly cash-flows, and audit preparation. Usman has extensive knowledge of nonprofit best practices and regulations and frequently serves as an advisor to clients on such matters.

Publishing Director / Spiegel & Grau

Associate Publisher / Grove Atlantic

Partner / Cowan DeBaets Abrahams & Sheppard, LLP

Associate Publisher / Graywolf Press

Partner / Morgan Lewis

General Counsel / New York Botanical Garden

Author & Editor

Director / Two Rivers Distribution

Former Director of Literary Programs / The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College CUNY

Owner / Creative Management Partners, LLC (Booktrix)