Emma Kantor is a Brooklyn-based writer and Senior Editor, Children’s Books, at Publishers Weekly. Her essays and humor writing have been featured in the New York Times Magazine, the Millions, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, Pigeon Pages, Hey Alma, and Points in Case, among other outlets. Her interests include film; comedy (writing and performing); and Italian language and literature.

The Whole Spiel

Emma Kantor serves as Senior Editor, Children’s Books, at Publishers Weekly, the trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Her main responsibilities include co-editing and producing Children’s Bookshelf—the twice-weekly e-newsletter dedicated to kids’ and young adult publishing news—and contributing features for the magazine, both online and in print.

Previously, as Publicity and Digital Content Manager at the Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader, she oversaw all PR and social media campaigns for the trade association and its literacy initiatives. 

She graduated cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar College, with a degree in English and Italian. She’s also a graduate of the Upright Citizen Brigade’s Advanced Study Improv program.

Emma’s essays and humor writing have been published both online and in print in the New York Times Magazine, the Millions, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, Pigeon Pages, Hey Alma, the Jane Austen Society of North America newsletter, the Belladonna, Little Old Lady Comedy, Points in Case, Slackjaw, the Madison Journal of Literary Criticism, and the Journal of Italian Translation, among others. She has workshopped with Michele Filgate and Alisson Wood at Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop in Brooklyn, NY.