Advisors for Book Program

Maria B. Campbell is the president of Maria B. Campbell Associates, Inc., a New York–based literary scouting company, which identifies books in the world market for translation and publication internationally, and for adaptation to film and television. Campbell Associates currently scouts adult and children’s books for a distinguished roster of publishers in fifteen countries. She also is the literary representative for Warner Bros. Feature Films and Warner Bros. Television. In addition, Campbell works selectively as an agent to introduce international writers in the United States. She is a Trustee of Words Without Borders and of the PEN American Center.

Jeff Gomez has been involved in electronic books and the world of digital reading since the industry’s beginning in 1999 and has been a frequent speaker and panelist at publishing industry events. He is the author of Print is Dead: Books in Our Digital Age (Macmillan, 2000). Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do?, called Print is Dead, "A must-read for people who care about reading."

A frequent speaker on digital media, Leslie Hulse has presented at the International Digital Publishing Forum's Digital Book Conference, the O'Reilly "Tools of Change" Conference, "Making Information Pay", and other events. Hulse is actively involved in a number of industry groups and serves as a Co-Chair of the Association of American Publisher's Digital Issues Working Group. In 2009, she was named one of the Top 50 Women in Book Publishing by Book Business Magazine. Hulse received her B.A. from Dartmouth College and her M.B.A. from Columbia University.

Martin Levin is Counsel at Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, a New York City law firm specializing in intellectual property, international co-ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and editorial rights and development. Levin began his career in publishing at Grosset & Dunlap, where he would serve as senior vice president and board member in the early 1960s. He later joined Times-Mirror Book Company in 1966, and retired as president and CEO at the end of 1983. In June 1999, Levin received the highest award for lifetime achievement in publishing given by the Association of American Publishers. He has been a consultant to the Ford Foundation on book publishing in India and was chairman of Franklin Book Programs. In his law practice, Levin represents sellers and buyers of businesses, and authors. In addition to his regular practice, Levin teaches publishing law at New York Law School. Levin graduated from Temple University with a B.S. in 1949 and from New York Law School with a J.D. in 1983. 

Charles Melcher initially became interested in publishing when, as a college student at Yale, he created the photography magazine Black & White. As publisher of Callaway Editions, he oversaw the publishing of Madonna’s SEX, David Kirk’s Miss Spider’s Tea Party, and Irving Penn’s life work, Passage. He launched Melcher Media Inc. in 1994, and one of its first projects was to create a publishing imprint for MTV. Over the past 16 years, Melcher has focused his business on producing books and other custom content for media companies such as Condé Nast, Time Warner, NBC, Autodesk and HBO, for national brands such as Harley-Davidson, Lexus, Neiman Marcus, Gap, Nike, and General Electric, and for individual authors such as Al Gore. With more than 125 titles and 12.5 million books in print, Melcher Media has recently begun to diversify into digital publishing platforms such as websites, e-books and applications for the iPhone and iPad.