Ivan Held, President
Overview
Putnam
For more than two decades, G.P. Putnam’s Sons has led the publishing industry with more hardcover New York Times bestsellers than any other imprint. With its rich history of publishing established franchises and new talent, as well as award winners, with an unrivaled bestselling track record, Putnam continues to be one of the most respected and prestigious imprints in the industry.
Putnam’s illustrious roster of bestselling fiction authors includes Megan Abbott, Ore Agbaje-Williams, Cristina Alger, Chloe Benjamin, C.J. Box, Eleanor Brown, Tom Clancy, Robin Cook, Robert Crais, Clive Cussler, Jeffery Deaver, Frederick Forsyth, Karen Joy Fowler, Sue Grafton, W.E.B. Griffin, Robert Jones, Jr., Jan Karon, Alma Katsu, John Kenney, Philip Kerr, Frances Liardet, Mike Lupica, Annabel Monaghan, Delia Owens, Robert B. Parker, Nick Petrie, Kiley Reid, Steven Rowley, John Sandford, Jill Santopolo, Lisa Scottoline, Paige Toon, M.O. Walsh, Stuart Woods, Sarah Winman, and David Yoon.
Among its distinguished nonfiction authors are Michele Borba, Kate Winkler Dawson, Dr. Marisa G. Franco, Cathy Guisewite, Spencer Johnson, Hoda Kotb, Laurence Leamer, Bobby Orr, Dolly Parton, Vienna Pharaon, and Eve Rodsky.
History of Putnam
In 1838 George Palmer Putnam, who began his career at a small New York bookstore, moved to London to establish the first American publishing branch of Wiley and Putnam in England. Ten years later, Putnam returned to the United States and the company became known as “George P. Putnam.” In 1849, Putnam published the revised works of his close friend, American author and historian Washington Irving. One year later, the house published Susan Warner’s The Wide, Wide World, which became known as America’s first bestseller, selling forty thousand copies in the first few months, and eventually more than one million over its life. Over the next century and a half, Putnam published works by President Theodore Roosevelt (who worked for a year at the house before turning to politics), William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Norman Mailer’s Deer Park, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, and Mario Puzo’s The Godfather.
In 2013 G.P. Putnam’s Sons celebrated its 175th year of publishing, culminating in an official “G.P. Putnam’s Sons Day” declared by the New York City mayor’s office on May 28, 2013. The history of Putnam is nearly as long as that of our country – and also as varied. The world is very different than it was in 1838, and the imprint is too, though many core values live on – an attendance to quality, honoring our authors, service to our readers, and of course a yen to create bestsellers. Putnam continues to hold industry dominance with an average of 30 to 35 New York Times bestsellers per year, applying aggressive marketing and sales acumen as it publishes established brands and new discoveries.
Bestsellers
New Releases
Meet the Team
Ivan Held, President
Ivan Held is President of Putnam, Dutton, and Berkley and currently oversees business and publishing strategies for the imprints.
Ivan started his career as a bookseller in Washington, DC, before moving to the publicity department at Random House, where he worked with authors ranging from Norman Mailer to General Colin Powell. In the late 1990s he was named VP/Associate Publisher and Marketing Director for the Viking imprint of Penguin. Before returning to Penguin in 2005, he founded the Random House Trade Paperbacks imprint at Random House.
Benjamin Lee, Senior Vice President, Associate Publisher, Paperbacks & Backlist
Ben Lee joined Dutton, Putnam, and Berkley as Vice President, Associate Publisher of paperbacks in March 2015. He oversees the paperback conversion program for all of Dutton and Putnam’s books. Prior to joining Dutton, Putnam, and Berkley, Ben was most recently VP, Associate Publisher of Atria Books at Simon & Schuster, overseeing campaigns for many New York Times bestselling authors including Brad Thor, Jennifer Weiner, Vince Flynn, Theresa Caputo, Rachael Ray and Buddy Valastro.
Prior to that at Simon, he sold the warehouse clubs and later handled Target, Readerlink, B&T, Ingram and the CBA. He started his publishing career at Random House, where he worked in sales with the warehouse clubs as well as in marketing with the Information Group.
Ashley Pattison McClay, Vice President, Associate Publisher, Director of Marketing
Ashley Pattison McClay is Associate Publisher, Director of Marketing for Putnam. She has been with Putnam since 2015, and with Penguin Random House since 2010. Prior to that she worked at Henry Holt & Company. Since joining Putnam, Ashley has overseen marketing campaigns for franchise bestsellers including John Sandford, Janet Evanovich, Sue Grafton, C.J. Box, Clive Cussler, Stuart Woods, and Lisa Scottoline, as well as for novels such as The Immortalists and Where the Crawdads Sing. Previously, she managed campaigns for award-winning and bestselling books by Karen Joy Fowler, Lev Grossman, Jonathan Tropper, and Hilary Mantel.
Alexis Welby, Vice President, Director of Publicity
Alexis Welby joined Putnam in 2011, and in addition to managing the imprint’s publicity team, she has overseen the campaigns for Cristina Alger, Chloe Benjamin, A. Scott Berg, Sue Grafton, Robert Jones, Jr., Jan Karon, Hoda Kotb, Jenny Lawson, Bobby Orr, Delia Owens, Dolly Parton, Kiley Reid, Burt Reynolds, and Lisa Scottoline, among others. After beginning her career at St. Martin’s Press, she was Associate Director of Publicity at Simon & Schuster where she worked for 11 years with authors including Mark Bittman, Taylor Branch, James Lee Burke, David Carr, President Jimmy Carter, Mary Higgins Clark, Chris Cleave, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Stephen Hunter, David Maraniss, Susan Orlean, Pearl Jam, Paul Simon and Martin Cruz Smith.
Lindsay Sagnette, Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Lindsay Sagnette joined Putnam in 2024. Prior to that she worked at Atria, where she helped the imprint achieve unprecedented commercial success, including overseeing the relaunch of Washington Square Press, and editing bestselling authors such as Rebecca Serle, Jamie Ford, Lisa Jewell, Patti Callahan Henry, and Zakiya Dalila Harris’s The Other Black Girl.
She also served as editorial director for fiction at Crown, Hogarth, and SJP for Hogarth imprints, where she edited and acquired such titles as Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra, I Almost Forgot About You by Terry McMillan, Ruby by Cynthia Bond, and A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza. She has also held roles at Grove/Atlantic, St. Martin’s Press, and Riverhead.
Michelle Howry, Executive Editor
Michelle Howry joined Putnam in 2018 and publishes an eclectic list of nonfiction – from the #1 New York Times bestseller I Really Needed This Today by Hoda Kotb; to the Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick Fair Play by Eve Rodsky; to the national bestseller Capote’s Women by Laurence Leamer; to true-crime historian and podcaster Kate Winkler Dawson’s acclaimed American Sherlock and Dr. Marisa Franco’s New York Times bestseller Platonic.
She acquires both expert-led prescriptive titles in categories like diet, health, wellness, self-help, personal finance, psychology, mindfulness, and parenting, as well as compelling narrative nonfiction titles in history, culture, popular science, nature, and memoir.
Michelle's Featured Titles
Tara Singh Carlson, Executive Editor
Tara Singh Carlson joined Putnam in 2014 from Viking, Penguin. Her focus is on women’s fiction that hits that sweet spot between commercial and literary, including historical fiction and contemporary women’s stories that are either wildly entertaining or filled with heart. She loves strong female characters that inspire.
She has edited New York Times bestsellers The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison, The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo, and Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, as well as the Today Show Read With Jenna pick The Family. She was the first editor to have two books selected by the Reese Witherspoon Book Club. She has worked with celebrated and bestselling authors Nigar Alam, KJ Dell’Antonia, Lizzy Dent, Eve Chase, Kim Fay, Bryn Greenwood, L.S. Hilton, Uzma Jalaluddin, Hisashi Kashiwai, Lauren Kate, Maggie Knox, Naomi Krupitsky, Frances Liardet, Annabel Monaghan, Beth Morrey, Nuala O’Connor, Robin Oliveira, Delia Owens, Amita Parikh, Theresa Rebeck, Richard Roper, Jill Santopolo, Shanthi Sekaran, Natasha Solomons, Marissa Stapley, Paige Toon, and Sara Weinman, among others.
Tara's Featured Titles
Daphne Ming Durham, Executive Editor
Daphne Ming Durham joined Putnam in 2023 from MCD / Farrar, Straus & Giroux and publishes twisty, genre-blurring fiction with sharp edges, diverse perspectives, and spiky protagonists. She loves voice-driven, surprising novels that readers devour in one sitting, but come away having learned something—vivid, gripping stories that upend familiar tropes and push boundaries in crime, mystery/thriller, suspense, horror, speculative fiction, and dark fantasy.
Daphne edits Megan Abbott, C. J. Box, Robert Crais, Rob Hart, Mason Coile, Susan Barker, Ron Currie, Ivy Pochoda, and Rachel Eve Moulton, and has published the New York Times bestseller Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone, winner of the LA Times Book Prize Sing Her Down by Ivy Pochoda, cult-favorite This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno and the critically adored graphic memoir Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls. She has worked with acclaimed and celebrated authors Andy Davidson, Araminta Hall, Asale Angel-Ajani, Johnny Compton, Sara Sligar, Jennifer Thorne, Kristi Coulter, and Louisa Luna. Prior to Putnam, Daphne was the founding Executive Editor of MCD / FSG. She also spent nearly sixteen years at Amazon.com in all manner of book-related roles, from Editorial Director of the bookstore to Editor-in-Chief and then Publisher for Amazon Publishing, where she launched core genre imprints and managed acquisitions across all categories.
Daphne's Featured Titles
Kate Dresser, Executive Editor
Kate Dresser joined Putnam in 2021, focusing on upmarket commercial fiction, especially romantic fiction for a mainstream reader. Always looking for the surprising and the clever, Kate loves stories with a strong sense of place, female characters who save themselves from disaster, and tight narrative timelines.
She edits New York Times bestsellers Sophie Cousens, Jenny Bayliss, and Sarah Hogle and has launched exciting new voices like Isa Arsén, Leanne Toshiko Simpson, and Jessie Rosen. Prior to Putnam, Kate worked at Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster, where she edited New York Times bestsellers by Christina Lauren, Kristy Woodson Harvey, The Betches, and S.C. Stephens, as well as a wide-ranging list of romance, women’s fiction, historical fiction, psychological suspense, and commercial nonfiction.
Kate's Featured Titles
Ashley Di Dio, Associate Editor
Ashley Di Dio joined Putnam in 2020 and publishes upmarket book club fiction across multiple genres that focuses on resilient characters, diverse perspectives, and asks big moral questions. Her nonfiction leans narrative in nature and includes memoir, self-help, psychology, and select history with a pop culture, millennial/gen-z, or feminist bent.
Ashley has worked with New York Times bestselling and acclaimed authors Jan Karon, Naomi Krupitsky, Jill Santopolo, Frances Liardet, Annabel Monaghan, KJ Dell’Antonia, and Amita Parikh, among others. Her recent and upcoming fiction includes Under the Tamarind Tree by Nigar Alam, Four Squares by Bobby Finger, While We Were Burning by Sara Koffi, The Price You Pay by Nick Petrie, The Christmas Countdown by Holly Cassidy, and Hot Summer by Elle Everhart. Her recent and upcoming nonfiction includes Too Tired to Fight by Erin and Stephen Mitchell, The Relaxed Woman by Nicola Jane Hobbs, and The Cost of Quiet by Colette Fehr.
Ashley's Featured Titles
Tarini Sipahimalani, Assistant Editor
Tarini Sipahimalani joined Putnam in 2021 and acquires bold, voice-driven upmarket fiction. She’s drawn to emotionally resonant and psychologically penetrating stories that speak to the universalities of the human experience, that don’t shy away from characters’ messy or darker depths, and narratives that heal, be it by connecting the peculiar with the sublime, a sweeping love story with a strong coming-of-self arc, or through a striking sardonic voice.
Tarini’s recent and upcoming titles include Japanese bestsellers in translation The Blanket Cats by Kiyoshi Shigematsu, The Convenience Store by the Sea by Sonoko Machida, and Messenger Cat in a Cafe by Nagi Shimeno; There’s Nothing Wrong with Her by acclaimed author and “Shelf Help” podcast host Kate Weinberg; vibrant queer Jewish coming-of-age debut Girls Girls Girls by Shoshana von Blanckensee; Winging It with You by beloved bookstagrammer Chip Pons; explosive literary thriller Until Alison by Kate Russo; Salomé by Leslie Baird, a contemporary gothic and feminist reclamation of the original femme fatale; wildly funny debut The Obsessed by Lizzie Buehler; and My Darling Boy by Helen Cooper. She also edits #1 New York Times bestseller John Sandford, Jeffery Deaver, and the Robert B. Parker and Stuart Woods estates.
Tarini's Featured Titles
