About the Staff

Jeffrey Lependorf
Executive Director
jlependorf@clmp.org


Jeffrey Lependorf, CLMP's Executive Director, has over twenty years of experience in development, fundraising, corporate sponsorship, and strategic planning. He serves as a "shared executive director" for Small Press Distribution (http://www.spdbooks.org). His past work experience includes Development Director for the Creative Capital Foundation, Bette Midler's New York Restoration Project, the Poetry Society of America, and In the Life Media. He is also a professional musician, active as a composer, a "certified master" of the shakuhachi (traditional Japanese bamboo flute), and serves as Director of Music Omi, an international music residency program in upstate New York. His Masterpieces of Western Music audiocourse is available through Barnes and Noble's "Portable Professor" series.


Steph Opitz
Membership Director
sopitz@clmp.org


As Membership Director, Steph organizes LPC}AWP, CLMP's literary publishers conference at AWP, and LWC}NYC, CLMP's literary writers conference at The New School. She edits The Literary Press and Magazine Directory, and she serves CLMP's members in every way possible. Her past work experience includes Operations and Marketing/Publicity Manager at Red Hen Press in Los Angeles. She holds a MA in English from California State University.


Jamie Schwartz
Managing Director
jschwartz@clmp.org

Jamie directs the New York Technical Assistance Program (NYTAP) for literary publishers, which includes publisher seminars, virtual roundtables, a literary mentorship program, the NYTAP regrant program, as well as travel grant awards. She also manages CLMP's national technical assistance program for independent literary publishers and organizes CLMP’s popular literary magazine and small press fairs across the country. Jamie holds an MFA from Bard College's Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts and currently serves as an Associate Fiction Editor at Fence magazine. One of her short stories recently debuted in The Literary Review.


Tasha Sorenson
Development Associate/Office Manager
tsorenson@clmp.org

Tasha Sorenson, Membership & Development Associate/Office Manager, handles the daily operations of CLMP while assisting all other aspects of the organization. She fields general queries and offers sound advice. She also co-curates the reading series Periodically Speaking: Literary Magazine Editors Introducing Emerging Writers at the New York Public Library. Before coming to CLMP, she interned at Hanging Loose and earned a BFA from Pratt Institute's Writing for Performance, Publication and Media program. Tasha is a member of The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, Oregon.


Ira Sher
Website Coordinator
webmaster@clmp.org


Ira Sher manages the ongoing maintenance and development of CLMP's site and advises on other technical matters. In addition to designing and maintaining numerous websites in the literary community, Ira writes fiction. He has two novels, Gentlemen of Space (Free Press, 2003) and Singer (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009), and his stories have appeared in many venues.


Board of Directors

Jim Bildner (ex-officio)
New Horizon Partners, LLC

Nicole Dewey (Co-Chair)
Executive Director of Publicity
Little, Brown and Co.

Gerald Howard (Co-Chair)
Doubleday Broadway

Constance B. Sayre (Secretary)
Market Partners International

Ellis B. Levine, Esq. (Treasurer)
Partner, Cowan DeBaets Abrahams & Sheppard, LLP

Suzanna de Baca
Vice-President, Affluent and Segment Strategies
Ameriprise Financial, Inc.

Julie Barer
Literary Agent
Barer Literary LLC

Jessica Stockton Bagnulo
Owner, Greenlight Bookstore

Patricia Grodd
Psychotherapist

David Kiefer
Managing Director
Jennison Associates

Binnie Kirshenbaum
Author / Columbia University Faculty

Sara Nelson
Contributor, The Daily Beast

Clarence Reynolds
Black Issues Book Review

Julie Schaper
President and Chief Operating Officer
Consortium Book Sales

Ira Silverberg
Sterling Lord Literistic

Rob Spillman
Editor, Tin House Magazine

Johnny Temple
Publisher
Akashic Books

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