Chapter Board
2025-2026
A volunteer Board of Directors governs the WNBA Boston. We thank our dedicated board members for serving!
Are you a chapter member who wants to get more involved in membership, programs, or newsletter activities?
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boston@wnba-books.org
Deborah Norkin, President
Deborah Norkin is a chef, editor, writer and teacher. Her features, essays and fiction have appeared in magazines, literary journals, and newspapers. In addition to being President of the Boston chapter of the WNBA, she is the Editor For Zest!, the food writing section Pangyrus Literary Magazine and is Editor for the book, A Table to Hold the World (March 2026) She holds a BS in Nutrition from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a Professional Chef’s Diploma from the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, and an MBA in Marketing from Rutgers Business School. Deborah doesn’t only write about food, but she will always write about food. deborahnorkin.com
Annie Stone, Past President
Annie Stone is a writer and consultant who has worked all across the publishing business. She spent 6 years as an editor of children's and young adult books at HarperCollins, Harlequin, and Alloy Entertainment, before joining marketing startup BookBub's business development team, where she worked with authors and publishers to help them reach new audiences for their ebooks. Annie has also held leadership roles in licensing and acquisitions at audiobook publisher Podium Entertainment and at Webtoon's serial fiction app Yonder. Now she splits time between consulting and working on her own projects, including the bestselling romantasy series The Wolves of Ruin, which she co-authored under a penname.
Rebecca Blanchfield, Treasurer
Rebecca Blanchfield is an avid reader and writer who loves both getting lost in stories and crafting her own narratives. A lifelong empath, Rebecca is now pursuing her Master of Social Work at Columbia University after a long career in the finance industry. As past Treasurer for Lincoln Nursery School and the Lincoln METCO Coordinating Committee, Rebecca has extensive non-profit Treasurer experience. When not in class, practicum, or deep into a good book, Rebecca enjoys spending time with her partner, three children, and Bernedoodle.
Lisa Paige, Recording Secretary
Lisa divides her professional time among three passions: editing book-length nonfiction, particularly memoir, writing fiction and poetry, and helping high school students gain admission to the perfect colleges for them. As all three of these things involve learning more about oneself by telling stories, her business name is InSight Learning. She is grateful to once again live in the Boston area, where she grew up and attended college at Harvard. She also holds a Ph.D. in English literature from Bryn Mawr College and has had a long career in academia and publishing. One of Lisa’s earliest memories is being lifted up by her dad so she could write her name and address on the application for a library card. Although she is now tall enough to reach most counters, she still feels that same weightless thrill every time she purchases or takes out a book. When not working or reading, she practices yoga, plays piano and chess, and luxuriates in time well spent with her partner, her three grown children, and her many far-flung friends. A German major in college, she still dreams of doing the foreign exchange program she didn’t do then.
Nicole Angeloro, Membership Chair
Nicole Angeloro is a senior editor at Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. She edits both fiction and nonfiction and oversees the long-running Best American series, including the bestselling The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Essays. In both her personal and professional lives, she’s always looking for books that illuminate the past and uncover little-known stories. A graduate of Brown University with a B.A. in history, she attended the Columbia Publishing Course before moving to Boston.
Perpetua Cannistraro, Publishing Industry Chair
Perpetua Cannistraro has been a Publicist at Beacon Press since 2015. She is a graduate of Florida Southern College and earned her MA in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College. She has extensive publicity experience in the areas of race and culture, memoir, education, and history. Some of her favorite things include the Lord, TV, Disney princesses, books, 90s-00s teen pop, and the color pink. Connect with Perpetua on Instagram at @princessperpetuaa. Encounter her writing at her Substack, Golden Undertones.
Kelsey Costa, Programs Chair Manager
Kelsey Costa (she/hers) is a Boston-based speculative fiction and nonfiction writer. She holds a BFA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. She loves volunteering her time at Grubstreet and as a first reader for khōréō Magazine. Her nonfiction is forthcoming in Pangyrus Literary Magazine's Zest! A Table to Hold the World and has been published in Ruminate Magazine, and her personal essay Trapped Spirit placed as a semi-finalist in the 2021 Ruminate VanderMey Nonfiction Prize.
Taylor McTootle, Program Chair
Taylor Lena McTootle is a writer, educator, and a May 2025 graduate of Emerson College's MFA Creative Writing program. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in Torch Literary Arts, The Periplus 2023 Call-and-Response Anthology, and Boston Compass. Through storytelling, she explores the contradictions and congruences of Black movement and belonging. A Boston transplant by way of Washington, DC
C.H. Barron, Program Chair
C.H. Barron is a Filipina writer addicted to creating fantastical worlds and fierce characters based on Filipino myths, folklore, and culture. She holds a BA in Communications and has served as a mentor for WriteMentor and a college essay tutor with 826 Boston. Her personal essays have most recently appeared on Cold Tea Collective. When not writing, she can be found running her own content marketing consultancy, shouting answers at the TV during Jeopardy!, and trying to outwit a toddler that’s definitely smarter than her.
Robin Van Impe, Program Chair
Robin Van Impe is a queer Belgian writer with an MFA Creative Writing from Emerson College, where she served as the Fiction Editor for Redivider. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from the Boston Globe, Fourteen Hills, Bending Genres, and others. She was a 2024 finalist of the Arts & Letters Unclassifiable Contest and was shortlisted for the Smokelong Grand Micro Contest.
Laurie Spadea, Program Chair
Laurie Hilburn (she/her) is an editor, proofreader, and writer with more than a decade of experience in the communications industry. By day, she toils as a brand copy editor, and by night, she runs down research rabbit holes about women writers and their stories instead of sleeping — absolutely fascinating and, yes, she is so tired. She holds an MA from Emerson College, and her work has appeared in print and online. When she’s not staring at words for too long, you can find her bothering her cats.
Lizzy DiGrande, Communications Chair
Elizabeth “Lizzy” DiGrande is a graduate student in Emerson College’s Publishing and Writing program, where she also serves as a Transformational Leaders Fellow and Writing Assistant for the Emerson Grad Life Blog. She is an editorial intern for Sundress Publications and is passionate about amplifying women’s voices in publishing. Originally from New Jersey, she now resides in Boston and can often be found perusing the city’s public libraries or exploring new restaurants. She hopes to build a career as both a food writer and literary agent championing female-identifying authors.
Kay Rollins, Communications Chairs
Kay Rollins is a writer who loves to experiment with form and different genres. Whether in poetry, creative nonfiction, or longer prose, her work explores complex family dynamics and emphasizes authentic mental health representation. Her writing has been published in her undergraduate literary magazine, The Bridge, and she was a panelist at Bridgewater State University's Intercollegiate Literature Conference, where she presented one of her creative nonfiction essays. An avid reader and animal lover as well, she can often be found curled up with a book and her two Poodles, Serendipity and LuLu.
Anne Gray, Partnership Chair
Annie Gray is a Graduate Student at Emerson College’s Publishing and Writing Program. Her passions included reading Romance and Fantasy books as well as Feminist Classics. She also has a poem published in her undergraduate literary magazine, Currents. In her personal time she loves checking out new exhibits in museums and finding the best sweet treat. Originally from Missouri, she came out to the east coast to further her education, make working connections and new friends along the way.
Keera Lydon, Outreach Chair
Keera Lydon is an editor and proofreader with an MA in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College. A lifelong book lover, she is especially passionate about untold stories of women in history. When she’s not busy reading or exploring one of Boston’s many independent bookstores, you can find her watching TV and crafting or playing in one of her multiple D&D campaigns.
Alejandra Loperena, Outreach Chair
Alejandra Loperena is a Mexican copy editor, copywriter, and translator with an MA in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College. She has been working in communications for six years and has been translating between English and Spanish for closer to ten. She has translated everything under the sun except a novel, which is her dream. Alejandra is an avid fan of gothic and horror fiction, with the occasional fantasy novel here and there. When not working and reading, you can catch her on the living room bean bag surrounded by whichever crafting project she’s undertaking.
Lauren Tiedemann, Board Member at Large
Lauren Tiedemann is the owner and store manager of Book Ends in Winchester, MA, an independent bookstore with frequent book and wine events. Lauren has been a bookseller since age 16, spending most of her career at Barnes and Noble. Lauren graduated from Harvard with a degree in history, focusing her studies on medieval English history and archaeology. A lifelong book lover, Lauren discovered Harry Potter at age 8 and has not taken her nose out of a book since.
Virginia Pye, Board Member at Large
Virginia Pye is the author of five books of fiction: Marriage and Other Monuments, a multigenerational drama set against a tumultuous time of racial tension in the South; The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann, a love story to writers and readers set in Gilded Age Boston; two post-colonial novels, River of Dust and Dreams of the Red Phoenix; and the award-winning story collection, Shelf Life of Happiness. Virginia’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, Literary Hub, Publisher’s Weekly, Writer’s Digest, and elsewhere. She is Fiction Editor of the literary journal Pangyrus. To learn more, please visit: www.virginia@virginiapye.com
Morgan Hillman, Board Member at Large
Morgan Hillman spent most of her career in trade book publishing at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, working across sales channels and categories. She is now the Director of Sales at the boutique children’s publisher Holiday House, Pixel+Ink, and Peachtree. She graduated from UC San Diego with a Bachelor of Arts in World Literature before moving east, and completed a Project Management course at BU. She loves to read snuggled up with her beagle, Dixie, about whom she hopes to write a children’s book someday.