the team

rob weisbach

Rob Weisbach attended Phillips Academy Andover and Stanford University, where he studied American literature and poetry. Weisbach began his publishing career as an editorial assistant at Bantam Doubleday Dell in 1989 and was named Senior Editor in 1992. There he published three consecutive #1 New York Times bestsellers: Seinlanguage by Jerry Seinfeld; Couplehood by Paul Reiser; and My Point...And I Do Have One by Ellen DeGeneres. His other titles at BDD included Feeling the Spirit by New York Times photographer Chester Higgins, Jr. and Alice, an urban fairy tale by Whoopi Goldberg.

In 1996 Weisbach was named President and Publisher of Rob Weisbach Books at William Morrow, where he oversaw the editorial, publicity, and sales strategy for a list of highly original fiction and nonfiction. The imprint's first title, The Tenth Justice, launched the career of lawyer turned novelist Brad Meltzer and became an instant New York Times bestseller, as did Babyhood by Paul Reiser and Book by Whoopi Goldberg. Other bestselling and critically acclaimed writers Weisbach published at the imprint included The Daily Show's Jon Stewart; literary fiction stars A.M. Homes, Dale Peck, and Amanda Davis; director and screenwriter Ethan Coen; humorist Sandra Bernhard; painter and nature writer James Prosek; and U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky.

Rob Weisbach Books received industry honors for innovation in marketing and jacket and catalogue design. The imprint also became known for reaching the next generation of readers through its Virgin Fiction series for first-time writers and cutting-edge visual books including Tim Burton's cult classic The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy; The Pop-Up Book of Phobias; and the companion to Jonathan Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Rent. Other imprint titles included The Nazi Officer's Wife, the Holocaust memoir by Edith Hahn; Openly Bob, the Lamda Award-winning collection of essays by pioneer gay comedian Bob Smith; and Use Me, the acclaimed literary fiction debut of Vanity Fair contributor Elissa Schappell.

In 2002 Weisbach was named Vice President and Editor-at-Large at Simon & Schuster. There he developed cross-platform projects with other divisions of parent company Viacom and published select fiction and nonfiction titles with the Simon & Schuster adult trade division, among them the New York Times bestsellers The Funny Thing Is...by Ellen DeGeneres; The Know-It-All by Esquire contributor A.J. Jacobs; and Without You by Anthony Rapp.

In 2005 Weisbach was named to the dual role of President and CEO of Miramax Books and President and CEO of The Weinstein Company's new book division. There he oversaw the publication of the existing Miramax Books list and built a new infrastructure and publishing program for Weinstein Books. Miramax Books titles he published included the New York Times bestsellers The Debutante Divorcee by Plum Sykes and Ptolemy's Gate by Jonathan Stroud as well as Lighting the Way by Karenna Gore Schiff, My Father's Secret War by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lucinda Franks, and SPY: The Funny Years by Graydon Carter, George Kalogerakis, and Kurt Andersen. Weinstein Books titles included the Giller Prize-winning Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Dr. Vincent Lam; the New York Times bestseller Quantum Wellness by Kathy Freston; The Gift of Rain, the Man Booker-nominated literary debut by Tan Twan Eng; We Bought a Zoo, a family memoir by Guardian columnist Benjamin Mee, and The Journal of Helene Berr, the recently discovered Holocaust diary.

In 2008, Weisbach represented the literary survival memoir Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad, selling world rights to HarperCollins's Ecco imprint. Ollestad's book became a New York Times bestseller, sold around the world, was chosen by Starbucks as their summer selection and by Amazon as one of the Ten Best Books of 2009, and was optioned by Warner Brothers for film.

In 2009, Weisbach launched Rob Weisbach Creative Management, which represents an extraordinary range of award-winning and internationally bestselling talent.

erin l. cox

Erin L. Cox develops and represents writers for the company, provides publicity expertise to company clients, offers individualized publicity and promotion services for outside clients, and works with corporate clients including Conde Nast Digital and the Frankfurt Book Fair. Erin was most recently Book Publishing Director at The New Yorker where she oversaw book advertising and developed support for books on the business and editorial sides of the magazine. Erin generated new promotional opportunities and partnerships between publishers and iconic brands including Saks Fifth Avenue, Mont Blanc, and Eileen Fisher, and new promotional opportunities through The New Yorker Book Club, email newsletter campaigns, expanded review coverage, and author event programming.

Erin began her career in book publishing in 1999 in the publicity department at Scribner, where she worked with New York Times bestselling authors Frank McCourt, Linda Fairstein, Kathy Reichs, and Al Roker, and critically-acclaimed writers Colm Toibin, Meg Wolitzer, Maile Meloy, and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. In addition to creating and implementing traditional book campaigns, Erin also worked on the publicity team responsible for innovative e-book initiatives for Stephen King and Robert Jordan. In 2005, Erin was named Associate Director of Publicity at HarperCollins, where she worked on bestsellers by Lisa Scottoline, Janet Evanovich, and Tony Hillerman, among others.

richard florest

Richard Florest develops and represents fiction, non-fiction, and children’s fiction writers for the company. He previously held editorial positions at Putnam/Penguin Group, Miramax Books, and The Weinstein Company, where he published authors such as Man Asian Prize winner and Man Booker Prize nominee Tan Twan Eng. Richard was the Director of Acquisitions at Open Road Integrated Media before joining Rob Weisbach Creative Management in 2012. Born and raised in Massachusetts, Richard now lives in Manhattan with his wife and daughter. He is a graduate of Saint Anselm College.

david groff

David Groff scouts and develops fiction and nonfiction writers for the company, provides editorial expertise to company clients, and offers editorial services to outside clients. David is a veteran book editor, creative writing professor, and published poet with more than thirty years of experience in the publishing business. As a senior editor at Crown he acquired and edited such celebrated authors as Dave Barry, Jim Dwyer, Patrice Gaines, and Colin Harrison. As an independent editor and publishing consultant, he has worked directly with authors, literary agents, and publishers. Writers whose books he edited have been published by Basic, Crown, Hachette, HarperCollins, St. Martin’s, Simon & Schuster, William Morrow, and Wiley, among other houses, and several of his authors — including Homer Hickam, Gregory Maguire, and Christopher Rice — have become New York Times bestsellers.

David has taught at the University of Iowa, New York University, and Rutgers, and has led seminars in publishing at the New School, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, Antioch University, and Poets House. An award-winning writer and poet, David is the recipient of the National Poetry Series prize for his book Theory of Devolution and received the Louise Bogan Prize for his second book of poems, Clay. A graduate of Princeton, he received his MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop and his MA in nonfiction from the University of Iowa.  He teaches poetry, nonfiction, and publishing in the MFA Program in Creative Writing of the City College of New York.