We are a full service literary agency with a focus on nonfiction, particularly in the categories of physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being.
Stephanie Tade
President & Principal Agent
Colleen Martell, Ph.D. Editorial Director
Ericka T. Phillips Director of Publicity and Brand Development & Agent
Gretchen van Nuys Office and Foreign Rights Manager
Amanda Hepp Jackson Associate Agent & Asst. to ST
More on Stephanie Tade
President and Principal Agent
Books have been at the center of Stephanie Tade’s life since she was a little kid reading under the covers, with a flashlight, way past bedtime. It was no surprise to anyone that she went directly into publishing after graduating Cornell University with a degree in psychology. “The degree will help with authors!” she heard, and having come from a family of artists, musicians and writers, she knew there was truth in that.
She started her career in publicity and subsidiary rights at Bantam Books, learning how to negotiate rights, promote books, and becoming deeply familiar with all the moving parts of a publishing company. Her next chapter was a nearly two-decade stint at one of the most successful literary agencies in the world, the Jane Rotrosen Agency. There she managed her own list of authors while growing the agency’s international department tenfold as Director of film and international rights. From there, she answered the siren song of Rodale Books, and accepted the challenge of running the newly formed editorial book group, where she published such authors as Master Yogi BKS Iyengar, bestselling diet & fitness author Jorge Cruise, and many more. Rodale was boot camp in learning what would make a book profitable, and what levers needed to be pulled in order to make a publisher, and a general market, sit up and take notice.
But the entrepreneur in Stephanie kept her up at night, and the ambition to form her own agency won out in March 2005, when she established the Stephanie Tade Agency, LLC. These days, Stephanie combines her strong business savvy with that childhood love of reading. She excels at strategic career and book planning as well as thoughtful and competitive negotiating. As the years have gone by, the list at STA has been marked by many intelligent, creative authors and experts with something fresh to say to the world. Motivated by an earnest desire to work with books that will benefit individuals, communities, and the world, she has been fortunate to represent and help to build many NYT bestselling authors, including Judith Beck, PhD, Will Bulsiewicz, MD, Frank Lipman, MD, Amy Myers, MD, Chade Meng Tan, and others. Currently, she is on the lookout for major authors on a mission to make the world happier, healthier, and more whole.
More on Colleen Martell, Ph.D.
Editorial Director
Colleen’s voice is often one of the first you will hear when talking to the agency about representation, offering her editorial insights with regard to positioning, shaping, and otherwise developing a book concept, proposal, or manuscript. She is passionate about working with authors on still-germinating first proposal drafts, as well as suggesting those final tweaks to make a proposal or a book sing. For her, each part of the book making journey is an opportunity to find the synergy between an author’s voice and their vision for a better world.
Colleen is a New York Times Bestselling collaborator, for books ranging from health and wellness to memoir and narrative non-fiction. Her first foray into publishing was in middle school, when she published a poem in a vegetarian kids’ magazine. Since then she has published peer reviewed articles, been a staff writer for a popular feminist film blog, written LGBTQIA training workshops, and edited research for a major international institute, among other things. She also has a decade of experience teaching writing to both graduate and undergraduate students. She holds a Ph.D. in English with a graduate certificate in Women’s Studies from Lehigh University.
More on Ericka T. Phillips
Director of Publicity and Brand Development
and Agent
Ericka is interested in non-fiction authors working in the Buddhist and mindfulness arena with a focus on health and spiritual well-being. She has a passion for developing projects and building platforms that help amplify the voices of women of color and black women writers in particular. She is experienced in platform development, marketing, and publicity and helps authors translate their message into brand strategy.
Before joining the Stephanie Tade Agency, Ericka has worked as a development consultant for social mission-driven businesses and foundations such as the Eileen Fisher Community Foundation and Buddhist Peace Fellowship. She has held several leadership positions in the mindfulness sector including serving as Executive Director at both New York Insight Meditation Center and the New York Shambhala Center - two of the largest meditation communities in the US. Ericka also serves as the Board President of MNDFL Ed, an organization founded to support positive transformation in the educational system, bringing mindfulness to schools.
For over a decade Ericka has produced retreats, training programs and workshops with foremost leaders in mindfulness, yoga and personal development including: Pema Chodron, Mark Epstein, Rodney Yee, Rev. angel Kyodo Williams, Dan Siegel, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Sharon Salzberg, Byron Katie, Colleen Saidman, Daniel Goleman, Lama Rod Owens and many more.
Ericka has been studying meditation and other contemplative practices since the early nineties. Her father introduced her to yoga and meditation when she was a teenager. She studied Movements for Social Justice at Hampshire College and Creative Writing at Columbia University.
Ericka joined the Stephanie Tade Agency in 2020.
More on Gretchen van Nuys
Office and Foreign Rights Manager
Originally from western Pennsylvania, Gretchen headed to New York City to work in book publishing after attending West Virginia University (BA in English and Journalism) and the University of Denver Publishing Institute. She was fortunate to land a job as an assistant at the Jane Rotrosen Agency, where Stephanie Tade, then Stephanie Laidman, happened to be starting the same week after leaving Bantam Books. The two became fast friends and used to joke about forming their own agency someday, with Stephanie being the star agent and with Gretchen running the back office and reading manuscripts.
After spending several years at Jane Rotrosen, Gretchen moved on to other endeavors, which included becoming a certified English teacher, writing for daily and weekly newspapers in northwestern New Jersey, where she now lives, and reporting and then editing for a research company connected with a brokerage firm … all while continuing to read manuscripts for her former colleagues at the agency and keeping in touch with Stephanie.
When the opportunity arose to join Stephanie at her own literary agency and to run the back office, manage the foreign rights department, and read manuscripts, Gretchen, now a widow with two grown daughters, jumped at the opportunity.
For inquires regarding foreign rights, please contact her at gvannuys@stadeagency.com
More on Amanda Hepp Jackson
Associate Agent & Assistant to ST
Amanda is a two-time graduate of The College of William & Mary with a Bachelor’s in English and a Master’s of Secondary English Education. After spending over a decade as a high school English teacher (and coach, advisor, club sponsor, and project mentor), Amanda decided to engage with books in a new way—by getting them out into the world instead of teaching them. What Amanda loved about teaching English was discussing big ideas and the human condition with her students—all through our most powerful connector: story. And now it’s her favorite part of her job at the Agency.
She is passionate about books (obviously), coffee, the Oxford comma, plants, cats, walks with her dog, paddle boarding, learning what it means to be a good human, learning how to raise her kids to be good humans, and anything that encourages us to leave this place gentler than we found it. In her opinion, the best books teach us how to be better stewards of the earth and more compassionate companions for ourselves and each other. A great book leaves us better than we were before we read it.
In the office, Amanda’s is a jack of all trades kind of role: she assists in agenting, reads proposals, handles some office correspondence, manages the calendar, runs social media, offers tech support, and waters (and propagates) the plants. She has been known to rearrange the furniture.
