This event is scheduled to accommodate the different time zones of our guest speakers. A recording and transcript will be available afterward for those who cannot attend live.

For this installment of the series From Manuscript to Marketplace, author and translator Anton Hur will join us to discuss his debut novel, Toward Eternity. Anton will be joined by his agent, Safae El-Ouahabi, and his editor, Tara Parsons, to discuss finding a home and champions for his manuscript at HarperVia and navigating the publication of his debut novel alongside the release of his bestselling literary translations. With moderator Lily Philpott, we’ll discuss Anton’s creative practice and what drew Safae and Tara to his work and manuscript. 

As a case study of the path to publication, From Manuscript to Marketplace offers candid talks between an author and members of their publishing team about each step of the publication process: acquisition, editorial, marketing, and more.

A Q&A will follow the presentation; you can pre-submit a question when registering for the event. A recording will be made available for those who cannot attend live.

The event will take place via Zoom with automatic closed captioning. To request any other accessibility features, please email support@authorsguild.org and we will make every effort to accommodate.

Panelists

Anton Hur’s translation from Korean of Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2022, and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature. His translation of Sang Young Park’s Love in the Big City was also longlisted for the International Booker in 2022, making him the third translator in history to be double-longlisted in the same year. His co-translation of Beyond the Story: 10-Year History of BTS debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List and his translations of Kyung-Sook Shin’s Violets and Lee Seong-bok’s Indeterminate Inflorescence were consecutively longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award. As a novelist in his own right, Hur is the author of Toward Eternity (HarperVia) and No One Told Me Not To (Across Books). He was born in Stockholm and currently lives in Seoul. Hur is a judge for the International Booker Prize 2025.

Since joining RCW in 2019, Safae El-Ouahabi has worked with Claire Wilson and Jon Wood and is building her own list. She has a strong interest in dynamic, voice-driven narratives with a sense of urgency—stories that are emotionally impactful and have a strong hook without being overwritten. Safae is dedicated to championing the work of translators and authors alike – and to fight for their space on the bestselling shelves. She welcomes submissions in the adult, YA, and crossover spaces, representing a wide range of books, including speculative fiction, YA romantasy, historical fiction and adult romcoms. Her clients include Anton Hur, Andy Darcy Theo, Chloe Ford, Shanna Tan and Clare Richards, among others.

Tara Parsons is Vice President, Deputy Publisher of the East Coast imprints of the HarperOne Group at HarperCollins Publishers. She is responsible for overseeing the overseeing the business office of the Publisher and the marketing departments for three of the HarperOne Group’s imprints: Amistad, HarperCollins Español, and HarperVia, an international imprint for which she also acquires and edits her own list of fiction. Her recent books include Indies Introduce Pick Only Here, Only Now by Tom Newlands, International Booker-Prize shortlisted The Details by Ia Genberg, and Indie Next and Amerie Book Club Pick Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda. She currently serves on the Board of Words Without Borders. Prior to HarperCollins, she worked as Editor-in-Chief of Touchstone Books at Simon & Schuster and Editorial Director of Fiction at Amazon Publishing.

Moderator: Born in Santiago, Chile and raised in New England, Lily Philpott is an Indigenous transracial adoptee. She has worked in the nonprofit sector in New York City for close to a decade, and is a member of the Starlings Collective, a group supporting BIPOC adoptee writers; a co-chair of the International Literature Committee at the Brooklyn Book Festival; and she volunteers as the Director of Programs with Singapore Unbound. She received her MFA in Fiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). 

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With support from the National Endowment for the Arts and our donors, the Authors Guild Foundation is pleased to offer this program free to the public.