Noah Perkins
Founder and Chairman
Young Publishers Association

Noah Perkins finds himself in the business of changing minds—but it wasn’t an intentional career choice. But after founding the Young Publishers Association in 2023 and amid his efforts to cement in-person relationships as a priority among a new generation of publishing professionals, that’s exactly what he’s doing.

The energy at YPA events, according to literary agent and YPA advisory board member Amelia Sheldon, “dispels everything I have heard from other people about this ‘next generation,’ you know, how people don’t like to work.” In her letter to PW nominating Perkins for Star Watch, Sheldon and fellow YPA advisory board member Stacey Glick wrote, “Noah has not only provided a vision but been successful in executing his dream of creating an organization that provides opportunities for those new to publishing to talk, laugh, learn, and grow in their knowledge together.”

Perkins matriculated to the Columbia Publishing Course in 2020 after falling in love with editing in a playwriting workshop as an undergraduate at Northwestern, where he was a theater major. But upon scoring a position in 2021 as managing editorial assistant at publisher services company Neuwirth & Associates—where he now works part-time as an editorial and production associate—Perkins says his spirit was quashed by the “incredibly isolating” realities of remote employment.

Craving what he calls the “human aspect of work” and realizing how ubiquitous his struggles were, Perkins started organizing a bar meetup for young publishers in Midtown Manhattan. The first YPA organizing meeting took place in November 2023.

After its initial event in February 2024, YPA quickly solidified into a collective featuring 30 volunteers, a handful of committees, and a popular newsletter. In addition to the monthly bar mixer, the YPA also hosts editor-agent “speed dating” sessions, lunch-and-learn events, and outings to the Morgan Library and other literary landmarks around the city.

The YPA is now “incorporated, a registered charity, just all these things that I never dreamed or conceived of,” Perkins says, adding that the organization is in the process of applying for 501(c)(3) status.

Perkins notes he takes after his community-organizer father in his inclination toward uplifting the collective. But his work for the YPA goes unpaid, and to thrive in publishing is a challenge in its own right. As Perkins prepares to delegate some of his responsibilities, he calls the YPA “the thing I am most proud to have ever done in my life.” He recalls a conversation with a YPA member who told him that YPA connections had scored her a full-time job in publishing. “I had a really long and difficult road to get to where I am,” Perkins says, “and the idea that I am making it just a little bit less difficult for the people who come after me means the world to me.”

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