WRITER * EDITOR * PUBLISHER

CREATIVE FUNDING EXPERT

Margot Atwell (she/her/hers) was most recently the Director of Outreach and International at Kickstarter, PBC, where she works with the team that helps authors, publishers, musicians, artists, designers, game makers, and more use the site to build community and find support for their creative projects. Between 2014-2020, Margot led Kickstarter’s Publishing, Comics, and Journalism categories, helping over one thousand creative people raise tens of millions of dollars.

Previously, she was Publisher of Beaufort Books, an independent book publisher based in New York, where she helped produce four national bestsellers , including Hide!!! by Jeff Foxworthy, and a new edition of I'm Dancing As Fast as I Can by Barbara Gordon. She also founded and ran the micro-press, Gutpunch Press.

She co-created and led The Next Page conference, Kickstarter’s first-ever free digital conference focused on the publishing, comics, and journalism industries.

Atwell frequently speaks at national and international publishing industry events such as Book Expo, The London Book Fair, the American Library Association Annual Conference, New York Comic Con, the Nebula Awards Conference, WorldCon, FlameCon, and many others. She spoke about the future of publishing at London Book Fair 2019, Book Expo America 2019, and the 2019 Digital Book World conference. She has lectured about publishing at The New School, The Columbia Publishing Course, and Chapman University.

Atwell is regularly featured in general interest and publishing industry publications such as Literary Hub, The Guardian, Publishers Weekly, Forbes, The Bookseller, and numerous others. In 2015 she was chosen as a Publishers Weekly Notable of the Year, and in 2019 she was selected as a Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree. Digital Book World awarded her the special award for outstanding achievement in publishing for her work creating The Next Page conference, and selected her as a finalist for the Publishing Executive of the Year in 2019.

Her perspectives about Kickstarter and community building were featured in the book New Routes to Library Success: 100+ Ideas from Outside the Stacks by Elizabeth Doucett, published by the American Library Association in 2015.

Her first book, The Insider’s Guide to Book Publishing Success, was published in February 2013. Her second book, Derby Life: A Crash Course in the Incredible Sport of Roller Derby was published in 2015 Gutpunch Press, the micro-press she founded. 

Margot is a freelance writer, editor, and book reviewer. Her writing has been published in The Creative Independent, Clarkesworld, The Huffington Post, Moviefone.com, Publishers Weekly, and Derbylife.com.

Margot has also been involved in Gotham Roller Derby for fifteen years, as a skater, coach, co-captain, manager, Head of Finance and Head of PR, among other roles. She has spent the last four years on the Gotham Board of Directors as Treasurer and a leading member of the Space Search committee.