Literary agent Sterling Lord, who has represented some of America's best-known authors including Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey and Gloria Naylor, will visit CMC for an informal discussion on the publishing industry on Thursday, Feb. 13, at 4 p.m. at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum. His visit is sponsored by The Family of Benjamin Z. Gould Center for Humanistic Studies and is open to all CMC students, faculty, and staff who wish to learn more about publishing.
A literary agent since 1951, Lord is recognized as an innovator in the publishing world. He was one of the first agents to sell major autobiographical books as films, beginning in 1953 with Somebody Up There Likes Me and Fear Strikes Out. He was also one of the first agents to break the book publishing tradition of single submission of materials, and move into multiple submissions and auctions. His persistence is credited with finding a publisher for Jack Kerouac's On the Road in 1950.
Lord is the author of two books and is chairman of the literary agency Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. He is currently at work on his memoirs.