Our Core Team
Samantha Kolber, Owner/Publisher
Samantha Kolber is the owner and publisher of Rootstock Publishing. She has worked with Rootstock since 2019 as poetry editor and marketing director, and she is thrilled to continue Rootstock’s success as the company heads into its 7th year of publishing fine books. She is the author of Birth of a Daughter (Kelsay Books, 2020), a 5-Star Readers’ Favorite, Gold Winner in Realistic Poetry in the Human Relations Indie Book Award, and Poetry Winner in the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, Rise Up Review, Hunger Mountain, Minerva Rising, and PoemCity, among other publications. Her poetry has won recognition including runner-up in the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize and first place in the J. Richard Barry Memorial Award from The Poetry Society of Vermont. She received her MFA in creative writing from Goddard College, and completed a post-grad semester at the Solstice MFA Program at Pine Manor College. Previous jobs include associate director of sales & marketing at Tupelo Press, managing editor of Hunger Mountain at VCFA, and publications and communications manager at Goddard College. Hobbies include baking, reading, writing, gardening, and walking with her dog Ziggy.
Email her to talk about how Rootstock can support you and your publishing goals! samantha@rootstockpublishing.com.
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Stephen McArthur, Co-Founding Publisher Emeritus
Stephen has been a producer and distributor of popular music and educational media (audiovisual, recorded music, and books) since 1985. Multicultural Media Inc., which he founded in 1991, is the creator of the Music of the Earth recordings series; the Rootstock Recordings series, featuring world music artists; the MCM DVD series of music documentaries and performance films; and the world-renowned JVC Smithsonian Folkways DVD world music and dance collections, consisting of forty-one video programs and twenty books.
In 2015, Stephen purchased Lyrichord Discs Inc., the venerable New York recording label founded in 1950, that owns over 3000 tracks of music from a wide range of genres, including world music, classical, baroque, early and renaissance music.
He and his wife, Rickey Gard Diamond, started Rootstock Publishing in 2016 to bring their skills to the world of book publishing. Stephen is now in a consulting role helping to acquire manuscripts, vote on book covers, and find new leads for marketing, among other tasks.
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Rickey Gard Diamond, Co-Founder, Editor
Rickey is the former editor of statewide newspapers The People's Voice and Vermont Woman. As Professor of Liberal Studies at Vermont College for over 20 years, she worked with scores of writing students—editing, advising, and assessing their work. She published her first novel, Second Sight, with Calyx Books, which was then re-issued by Harper Collins Publishers in 2000. In 2012, she wrote a series of six articles about women and the economy, which won her a National Newspaper Award. Her collection of short stories, Whole Worlds Could Pass Away, was released in July of 2017 by Rootstock Publishing. In 2016, she was awarded a Hedgebrook Writing Fellowship, where she spent her time working on her latest book, Screwnomics: How Our Economy Works Against Women and Real Ways To Make Lasting Change, released in April 2018 by She Writes Press. As a result of Screwnomics’ outstanding popularity, Rickey now writes a regular online column for Ms. Magazine, under the banner “Women Unscrewing Screwnomics.” Screwnomics was awarded the 2019 Independent Publishers (IPPY) Silver award for Best Women’s Issues book. In 2019, she founded the 501(c)(3) non-profit An Economy of Our Own.
Rickey reads manuscript submissions and provides editorial feedback on acquisitions, and also works with authors on developmental or copy edits.
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Jennifer Gennari , Marketing & Administrative Assistant
A longtime editor, author, and communications consultant, Jennifer is the author of Muffled, a Junior Library Guild selection and a Georgia Children's Book Award finalist, and My Mixed-Up Berry Blue Summer, a Bank Street Best Children’s Books of the Year selection and an American Library Association Rainbow List title. Her poems have appeared in The Lascaux Review, typishly, and numerous issues of the Marin Poetry Center Anthology. Her work experience includes working for newspapers and in nonprofit and corporate communications. An engaging speaker, she frequently teaches at the Writing Barn and the Highlights Foundation. A graduate of Vassar College and the University of Virginia, she holds a MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Learn more at www.jengennari.com.
Jen helps with writing press releases, updating the website, drafting the e-newsletter, and other duties as needed. She is also a skilled freelance editor and may take on manuscript editing for the right project.
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Eddie Vincent, Book Layout
Eddie Vincent is a book cover designer/formatter and has been in the publishing business for over thirty years. He is the co-owner of Encircle Publications and the current president of Independent Publishers of New England (IPNE, ipne.org).
Our Creative Partners
Editors
Amabel Kylee Síorghlas
Amabel finds joy in collaborating with writing clients as an editor to help their creative ideas and ambitions unfold. She offers in-depth and thoughtful comments, questions, and suggestions based on quintessential elements of craft. She has an MA in Fiction from the University of New Hampshire and an MFA in Poetry from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and has been editing—books, newspapers, graduate student works, journal articles, and marketing materials—for many years. Amabel supports writers during the creation, revision, or fine tuning of their work.
For many years she shared her passion for literature and writing as an English teacher at the secondary and college levels. Teaching taught her how to give feedback that enlightens and motivates writers, but is also honest. She believes that fearless revision is the heart of the writing process. Her own writing practice also informs the way she supports clients. Her poetry has appeared in the anthologies Writers and Artists Do Sleep (Red Claw Press), Wild Things (Outrider Press), and Our Last Walk: Using Poetry for Grieving and Remembering Our Pets (University Professors Press). She also writes fiction (YA/adult) and nonfiction. In her free time Amabel likes to closely observe nature’s activities, tend the land, play and perform acoustic music, engage in craft projects, and continue to learn curiously. Learn more about Amabel at her website.
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Gary Lee Miller
Gary is a writer, editor, and filmmaker with twenty years of writing and editing experience. His fiction editing work includes The Advent of Elizabeth and Lake Stories and Other Tales (Finns Way Books). His nonfiction editing work includes the award-winning A Secret History of the Ollie (Black Salt Press), Axis of Hope (Lumma Press), and the memoir The East Side of Addiction (privately published). Gary’s story collection Museum of the Americas was a fiction finalist for the 2015 Vermont Book Award.
He has been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize in Fiction, and his stories have appeared in a number of literary journals, including Missouri Review, Green Mountains Review, and Hunger Mountain. Gary has been nominated twice for a New England Emmy award for documentary screenwriting. He teaches at the Adirondack Center for Writing, and is co-founder and creative director of the Writers for Recovery writing workshops. You can learn more about him at his website, garyleemiller.com.
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Rebecca Davison
Rebecca is a native Californian who migrated to Vermont in the 1970s, with a stop in Washington D.C., for two years.
With degrees in Education, American Studies, and English Literature, she was a teacher for many years before becoming a freelance editor for environmental organizations. Rebecca then fell into book packaging in the 1980s and acted as a liaison between publishing houses and writers, researchers, editors, designers, and sometimes printers. This book packaging arrangement blended the roles of agent, editor, designer, and publisher.
In the 1990s, she embarked on writing the history of the National Organization for Women, which Viking picked up. In 2004, she and longtime friend, Linda Mirabile created RavenMark, working with non-profit organizations (mostly) producing print and digital communications. It was a good partnership filled with creativity, good food, and laughter. In 2018, Linda and Rebecca parted to pursue different paths.
Rebecca recently collaborated with the Virginia artist Suzanne Stryk on a book of her essays and art, The Middle of Somewhere, published by Trinity University Press.
You can find out more about what she’s up to at BrantaStudio.com. Branta Studio specializes in manuscript development, line editing, and design. Area of interest is non-fiction biography and autobiography, nature/environment, art, politics, and history, particularly women’s history.
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Nancy Disenhaus
As a longtime teacher of literature and writing, Nancy has coached thousands of writers through every stage of their work, from development of ideas to organization and style, through final editing for grammar, usage, mechanics, and spelling. Her goal has always been to nurture writers as they work through successive drafts, helping them bring their vision to light in its most satisfying final form. Nancy brings to her work enthusiasm, tact, deep knowledge of writing and literature, and a great respect for the writer's act of creation, caring about each writer's individual needs and goals.
Nancy offers specific, focused analysis and recommendations at every stage of a project, from manuscript development and organization through line editing and meticulous copyediting, to help the writer bring each piece to its perfectly polished final form. She believes that writers must allow themselves the freedom to inhabit the separate roles Betty Sue Flowers identified as “madman, architect, carpenter, judge,” taking time to linger on the creative and big-picture levels of their work—generating and playing with ideas, experimenting with organization and arrangement of material—before turning to a more fine-grained focus on elements such as crafting clean transitions and smoothing awkward syntax, and finally moving on to the copyediting stage, where her “perfectionista” eye will notice and correct the details that writers themselves may be too familiar with their own texts to see.
Nancy holds an Ed.D. from the University of Vermont in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (2015). Her dissertation, “Boys, Writing, and the Literacy Gender Gap: What We Know, What We Think We Know,” has been downloaded over 16,000 times and is available via Google Scholar. She also holds an M.A.T. in English from Cornell University and a B.A. in history from Mount Holyoke College. For further information, email her at nancy.disenhaus@gmail.com or visit her website: scriptoriumeditingservices.com.
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Lesley Allen
Lesley has more than twenty-five years of experience helping writers communicate clearly with their audiences. She provides perceptive, accurate, and on-time copyediting and proofreading to fiction authors, publishers, and businesses.
Working with words has been a theme throughout Lesley’s career as a journalist, communications professional, and editor. Her role as a copyeditor and proofreader is to polish an author’s work to the highest editorial standard before publication, leaving writers free to focus on writing. With thoughtfulness and tact, she corrects errors that might distract readers and offers constructive suggestions to smooth awkward language and flag inconsistencies. Lesley has a solid grasp of both American and British English, thanks to decades in the United States following her childhood and education in South Africa.
Lesley’s fiction editing—and personal reading—range is broad but leans toward mystery (the cozier the better), dystopian fiction, and contemporary fiction. For her business clients, she edits project deliverables and branded marketing materials to communicate complex topics to stakeholders.
She is a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association and the ACES: The Society for Editing. Learn more at www.perceptiveediting.com and contact Lesley at perceptiveediting@gmail.com.
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Sheryl Rapée-Adams
Sheryl is a freelance copy editor of fiction and nonfiction works. She polishes and shines writing while preserving author voice. With her acute ear for language, eye for detail, and compassionate attention, Sheryl minimizes distractions and hones each piece to sustain readers' engagement.
She copy edits fiction and nonfiction for hybrid and traditional publishers including Penguin Random House, as well as materials for nonprofit and for-profit organizations. She utilizes MS Word, The Chicago Manual of Style, house style guides, and your personal style. Sheryl gravitates to fiction and nonfiction in many genres, with cozy mystery, science fiction, and fantasy among her favorites.
Sheryl belongs to ACES: The Society for Editing and the Editorial Freelancers Association. She completed Editorial Arts Academy’s professional copy editing mentorship and the Snelling Center's Vermont Leadership Institute. Sheryl holds an MS in Organizational Leadership and Management from Antioch University New England, an MA in Liberal Studies from Keene State College, and a BA in English from the University of Miami.
Sheryl practices daily mindfulness meditation, teaches evidence-based breathwork, and has been a massage therapist and yoga teacher for decades. She has been a statewide social justice community organizer. Sheryl’s client-centered work emanates from core vegan values: to do the most good and least harm possible for all beings.
Learn more and contact Sheryl at www.catseyecopyediting.com.
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Michael Sherman
Michael is the editor of Vermont History, the journal of the Vermont Historical Society. His previous professional positions include Professor of Liberal Studies in the Adult Degree Program of Vermont College, Norwich University/Union Institute & University (1996-2006) and adjunct faculty in history for the graduate degree program of the Union Institute & University (2010-2015); Director of the Vermont Historical Society (1985-1995); Associate Director of the Wisconsin Humanities Committee (1978-1985); and Assistant Professor of History and Humanities at Lawrence University (1974-1978).
Mr. Sherman received his B.A. in Humanities at the University of Chicago, his M.A. and Ph.D. in history at the University of Chicago, and training in museum studies at the Milwaukee Public Museum and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
He is the co-author, with Gene Sessions and P. Jeffrey Potash, of Freedom and Unity: A History of Vermont, published in 2004, and author of articles and reviews on Vermont history, the humanities in public life, and the history of France in the sixteenth century. He edited and contributed to a volume on Vermont State Government and Administration since 1965, four books of essays on Vermont history, a book of essays on productivity, and three collections of essays on the humanities and public life. Reach Michael at mnsherms@sover.net.
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Simha Stubblefield
Evan “Simha” Stubblefield, MFA, is a developmental editor, sensitivity reader, and copyeditor who has worked with authors on fiction, poetry, self-help, and young adult manuscripts.
She has under her belt many semesters of teaching college composition and creative writing, experience as a managing editor for an online journal, and experience as a copywriter.
The books that line her shelves include Vanessa Veselka’s The Great Offshore Grounds, Toni Morrison’s Jazz, Tommy Orange’s There There, Brad Warner’s Don’t Be a Jerk, and Edward D. Johnson’s very old, but very good The Handbook of Good English.
You can contact Simha independently through her website: writingtheuntoldstory.com
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Kate Champlin
Kate strongly believes that her job as an editor is twofold: to preserve your voice, and to return to you a manuscript in which you can take pride. She approaches editing with humor, compassion, and honesty. She has a knack for fact-checking and does her best to leave comments that uplift as often as comments that detail what needs polishing. She enjoys working with both fiction and nonfiction writers and has worked on novels and shorter-length memoirs destined for self-publishing. She has also worked with small business owners to develop and edit online marketing content. She most recently finished ghostwriting articles for a comparative religion blog.
Kate's varied professional background includes careers in human services, academic publishing, and the healing arts. Over the years, she has written, edited, and designed press material, catalogs, newsletters, case studies, web/social media content, and an employee manual. When she is not deep into the editorial process for others, she works on her own short stories and self-help/memoir manuscript.
Kate has a BA in Psychology with a minor in Communication Arts. She is also a certified Massage Therapist, Reiki Master, and Yoga Teacher. In addition to interning with the Editorial Arts Academy, she also graduated from its rigorous six-month mentorship program.
Email: kathleenchamplin645@gmail.com.
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Deborah Heimann
Deb has spent thirty-plus years collaborating with authors, publishers, teachers, nonprofits, playwrights, and other editors. She currently offers manuscript evaluation, line editing, copy editing, proofreading, and indexing.
She has been a freelance editor since 2011. Before that, she was editorial director of an international web communication network based in British Columbia, Canada, with offices in Colombia, South Africa, and Vermont; the interim director of a small health foundation in Vermont; a TV commercial producer; and a director and dramaturg of new plays in New York City. She has been a bookseller at the biggest box bookstore in New York City and at a small independent bookstore in rural Vermont. Along the way, she’s worked with and provided support for people, words, and intentions across the globe.
Deb’s flower gardens usually look a little wild. Most mornings you’ll find her walking with her hound dogs in the woods nearby her house. You can contact Deb at dhremote@earthlink.net and through her website: deborahheimann.com.
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Nicole Alyssa Gabert
Nicole is a freelance book editor, writer, and published poet who has always considered her love of literature to be an inherent part of who she is. From the moment Nicole put pen to paper, she fell in love with the written word. As a child, she began creating short stories, and her passion for all things book-related never ceased.
Nicole offers a multitude of book editing services through her @nicolealyssaedits account (on Instagram) including developmental editing, line editing, copy editing, and proofreading. Nicole's additional services include editorial assessments, book blurb writing, and creating social media video advertisements for the purpose of book marketing. Nicole has experience editing both poetry books and novellas, novels, and book series (from various genres). Client reviews and editing tips can be found on her @nicolealyssaedits Instagram account.
Nicole is the Associate Editor for Instagram’s Poetry Battles, a world-wide poetry competition where she was awarded the title of Poetry Battles Champion, Game 2 (2018) and Game 19 (2020). Additionally, she has coached battle participants and served on the judges panel for both written and slam poetry competitions.
Nicole’s work has been published in the poetry anthologies, Survival (Magesoul Publishing), and Wildflower Warriors (all proceeds went to the victims of rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence).
To learn more about Nicole's freelance book editing services, email her at nicolealyssaedits@gmail.com.
Book Designers
Dana Dwinell-Yardley
Dana supports her clients with professional, high-quality graphic design delivered within a friendly, collaborative relationship. She has worked with hundreds of nonprofits, small businesses, and individuals to create everything from business cards to books.
Dana began her design career in the world of the small-town newspaper, where she worked for seven years honing her skill against unmovable press deadlines, the constraints of tiny black-and-white advertisements, and the neat consistency of newspaper layout. She then spent five years as the communications person for a small nonprofit, where she was a storyteller of all trades — writer, editor, photographer, and designer rolled into one.
Her experience has given her speed and efficiency, creativity within constraint, and an eye for perfect detail. She is attuned to language consistency, punctuation, and logical organization of text. Graphic design is work that she loves to do. It’s all about creating beauty through organization, telling a story with more than words — and supporting clients who are doing good work in the world. Learn more at https://ddydesign.com.
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Abby Clark
Abby has almost two decades of experience as a professional graphic designer. Her keen sense of color and meticulous attention to detail are critical components in successful designs across book projects, print materials, brand identity, and websites. By combining dynamic creative energy with a disciplined approach, she ensures that her design work is efficiently executed within the unique logistic parameters of each project. Her work has been appreciated by clients that range from nonprofits, educational institutions, corporations in the finance, outdoor recreation, and hospitality industries, as well as fledgling grassroots organizations.
Several of the children’s books Abby designed for Nomad Press have won a range of awards and have been translated into more than 30 languages. Her work manages to be playful, engaging, and sophisticated, drawing on a myriad of influences such as the natural world, movement, and an eclectic passion for the arts. Visit her website www.abbyclarkcreative.com.
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Tim Newcomb
Operating as Newcomb Studios, Tim is concentrated on the design and production of publications ranging from books and magazines to annual reports, catalogs, and brochures for clients worldwide. He is also a cartoonist, having had editorial and illustrative cartoons printed in newspapers including the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, to magazines including Newsweek, Forbes, and Vermont Life. He received a first place award for best regional political cartoon from the New England Press Association and was the 2019 winner in the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s Best Editorial Cartoons category for the US and Canada.
His professional career began on New York City’s Madison Avenue as assistant art director for Kenyon & Eckhardt Advertising, where Tim helped illustrate, design, and produce ads for clients including Ford Motor Company, Helena Rubinstein, Major League Baseball, Pabst Beer and many others. His primary account was Lincoln Continental. Following that, he was an art director at Forbes Magazine, helping to win a first place award for best-redesigned national magazine. Learn more at https://newcombstudios.com.
Audiobook Recording and Production
Mary Catherine Jones
Mary Catherine is the owner and executive producer of Voice Over Vermont, a recording studio dedicated exclusively to the spoken word. Her cozy studio is a warm, inviting place to bring your words to life. Here, you’ll record and produce your audiobook at your own pace using your voice with Mary Catherine’s expert guidance. If a different voice is needed for your project, she will pair you with the perfect professional narrator.
In addition to working with Rootstock authors, Mary Catherine produces audio for Green Writers Press, Magic Hill Press, the BBC, Harper Collins and countless others. You can reach her at mcjones@voiceoververmont.com.
Web Design & Digital Marketing
Buffy Aakaash
Buffy is a published poet and essayist and has spent a good deal of his life creating a heart-centered life. When confronted with the need to have an online web presence and marketing strategy for his own work, he discovered he enjoys designing and maintaining websites and managing offices remotely, helping other creative people blossom and grow and make our world a more beautiful and better place. His offerings and services, which include email, data, and social media management, can be viewed at his website, www.BuffyAakaashCompany.com.
Book Marketing
Rootstock Publishing is proud to be a partner with Book Award Pro, offering our authors unique book award matching, targeting, story marketing, and submission services!
Matching: Book Award Pro's matching technology researches the world of award and review possibilities, examines all the unique requirements for each award/review, and determines which of those opportunities are a possible fit for your book.
Targeting: Book Award Pro then conducts a thorough analysis of all the matches to determine the most valuable award or review opportunity for your book.
Submissions: When Book Award Pro handles a submission on your behalf, they will take care of everything from start to finish. This includes putting together all required documentation for the submission, reverifying all of the research, determining the best way to present your book to the specific requirements of the award/review (as they are all unique in their criteria), pay the entry fee, and complete the submission for you. They will also track the submission for you until the award is announced or the review is complete.
Story Marketing: Share updates from your award-winning journey with your audience easily and conveniently. With just a few clicks, you can share custom messages generated by Book Award Pro on your social media platforms that are specific to your current award progress, allowing your readers to stay engaged with your journey.
Awards & Review Research & Guidance: Every award and review they track in the system has been carefully researched by their team. Instead of combing through the Internet to find details on your matches, Book Award Pro gives you all the crucial information (such as announcement dates, restrictions, and more) in one easy-to-use platform.
This award and review services platform is available here for ROOTSTOCK AUTHORS ONLY: https://rootstockpublishing.awardmatch.com. Authors, create a login and start your account to have your book matched with awards today!
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Bedside Reading places books by the bedsides in luxury hotels, in the Hamptons, and in the Media. We love it when our influencers wake up with your book next to them by their bedside nightstand.
We are thrilled to be working with Samantha Kolber and her authors!
Rootstock Publishing Authors Apply Here for Discounted Rates.