James Levine

About the Agent

We were founded 36 years ago as a full-service agency: books, movies and television, podcasts and more. In the last two years we have had over 30 New York Times and national bestsellers.We pride ourselves on establishing long-term relationships and on being fully engaged as creative and business partners throughout the entire publishing process. We work with our authors at very stage: developing concepts, proposals and manuscripts through publicity, marketing, sale of film and television rights, and more, across every category of fiction, non-fiction, and books for young readers. Our interest is in our clients careers, not just individual projects.We are known for:Collaboration: We are fully engaged as creative and as business partners throughout the entire publishing process. We work with our authors at very stage of publishing: developing concepts, proposals and manuscripts through publicity, marketing, sale of film and television rights, and more, across every category of fiction, non-fiction, and books for young readers. We represent careers, not just individual projects. Culture: We’re known for trust, transparency, and teamwork – and for being a great place to work. People stay here for a long time, fully committed to serving our clients and supporting their colleagues. Success: We represent dozens of New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, in every category on the list, with even more bestsellers on other lists. Our clients have won PEN, Edgar, Newbery, MacArthur, and the Nobel Prize in Economics, among other awards. Numerous projects we represent have been produced for film and television, with many others optioned for development. While I tend to focus on thought leaders, my partners and colleagues represent many prominent novelists and figures in popular culture and journalism including Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, Newbery Medal-winning children’s author Kwame Alexander (The Undefeated), Grantland co-founder Chuck Klosterman, NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly (Anonymous Sources), Parks and Rec star Nick Offerman, Transparent creator/producer Jill Soloway, The Moth, and a host of comedic icons including Demetri Martin, Patton Oswalt, and The Onion.I represent thought leaders and change agents in business, academia, government and the non-profit sector, as well as journalists and writers of memoir and narrative non-fiction. In over three decades I have been privileged to represent and earn the trust of extremely talented people in many different fields, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, former United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz, former American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault, Xerox CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Nobel Laureate in Economics Al Roth, New York Times economics columnist Peter Coy, former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, legendary investor Ray Dalio, Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, journalists David Pogue and Aarti Shahani, and global thought leaders Jay Shetty and Scott Galloway. Here's a partial client list, in alphabetical order by last name within each category. • Business: former CEO of MetricStream Shellye Archambeau (Unapologetically Ambitious), former Levi Strauss Chip Bergh (Profits with Principles, forthcoming), former Cisco CEO/Chairman John Chambers (Connecting the Dots),former AmEx CEO/Chairman Kenneth Chenault (Equal to the Task, forthcoming), former global CEO of Chanel Maureen Chiquet, Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio (Principles), serial entrepreneur Scott Galloway (The Algebra of Wealth), chairman of Alphabet and President Emeritus of Stanford University John Hennessy (Leading Matters), Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes (Fair Shot), Boston Beer [Sam Adams] founder Jim Koch (Quench Your Own Thirst), Oaktree Capital founder Howard Marks (Mastering the Market Cycle), leadership coach Patrick Lencioni (The Five Dysfunctions of a Team), Square co-founder (with Jack Dorsey) Jim McKelvey (The Innovation Stack), former Tesla President Jon McNeill (The Algorithm, forthcoming), technology strategist Geoffrey Moore (Crossing the Chasm), United Airlines Executive Chairman and former CEO Oscar Munoz (Turnaround Time), Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (Hit Refresh), former YUM! Brands CEO/Chairman David Novak (Taking People with You), former Google CEO Eric Schmidt (How Google Works and Trillion Dollar Coach), venture capitalist Tony Tjan (Good People), serial entrepreneur Magdalena Yesil (Power Up!) • Academia: Yale psychologist Woo-kyoung Ahn (Thinking 101), behavioral economist Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational), Wharton social psychologist Jonah Berger (Contagious),social psychologist Robert Cialdini (Influence and PreSuasion), Stanford psychologist and author of Mindset Carol Dweck (untitled, forthcoming), Harvard Medical School neurobiologist E. Felton Earls (Voice, Choice and Action), urban economist Richard Florida (The Rise of the Creative Class), former Dean of the Yale School of Management, Jeffrey Garten (Three Days at Camp David), cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman (Transcend), behavioral scientist Jon Levy (You’re Invited), University of Chicago economist John List (The Voltage Effect), former director of the NIH Office of Complementary and Alternative Medicine Wayne Jonas, M.D. (How Healing Works), Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Robert Lefkowitz (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Stockholm), NYU neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux (Mists of Memory, forthcoming), Harvard Law School professor Robert Mnookin (Bargaining with the Devil), Indiana University and Stanford University social psychologist Mary Murphy (Cultures of Growth), Duke neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis (The True Creator of Everything), Nobel Laureate in Economics Al Roth (Who Gets What – and Why), Princeton neuroscientist Sebastian Seung (Connectome), negotiation expert William Ury (co-author of Getting to Yes), Princeton neuroscientist Sam Wang (Welcome to Your Brain) • Other: New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady (The TB 12 Method), philanthropist Howard Buffett (Our 50 State Border Crisis),supermodel Gisele Bundchen (Lessons), psychiatrist and co-author of the classic Black Rage, Price Cobbs (My American Dream,) New York Times economics writer Peter Coy (Economics Without Numbers, forthcoming), world championship poker winner Annie Duke (Thinking in Bets), former U.S. Senate Majority Leader and chairman of the Nature Conservancy William Frist, M.D. (forthcoming), psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell (Because I Come from a Crazy Family and ADHD 2.0), U.S. Congressional Representative Rohit Khanna (Progressive Capitalism), former president of Lincoln Center and of the International Rescue Committee Reynold Levy (Start Now), journalist Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods), founding artistic director of Shakespeare & Co. Tina Packer (Women of Will), Canadian best-selling creator of The Book of Awesome series Neil Pasricha (You Are Awesome), NYT cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth (This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends), CBS Sunday Morning/Nova reporter David Pogue (Pogue’s Basics and How to Prepare for Climate Change), former Navy aviator and now head of The Baldwin School Marisa Porges (What Girls Need), U.S. Ambassador Julissa Reynoso (Making a Difference, forthcoming), NPR’s former Silicon Valley reporter Aarti Shahani (Here We Are), former monk and mega social media influencer Jay Shetty (Think Like a Monk), MacArthur-winning community organizer Bill Strickland (Hope is the Answer, forthcoming), Finland’s President Alexander Stubb (Triangle of Power, forthcoming), Rosalind Wiseman (Queen Bees & Wannabes, the basis for the movie Mean Girls) Jim has spent most of his career putting together ideas, people, and money; identifying, nurturing, and marketing talent; and creating projects that make a difference. Before establishing his own agency in 1989, he taught at Wellesley College and spent almost a decade as Vice President at the Bank Street College of Education in New York City, where he developed a wide range of book, magazine, audio, video, and software products. He thinks of being an agent as a "continuing liberal arts education," an opportunity to engage with experts and thought leaders in a wide variety of fields and help shape their work to reach the broadest possible audience. Jim graduated Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude from Amherst College, winning Woodrow Wilson, Fulbright, and Ford Foundation Fellowships. He holds two advanced degrees in English Literature from UC Berkeley, where he specialized in Shakespeare and modern literary criticism, and a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he specialized in child development and social policy. Jim knows firsthand what it's like to be an author –- in print and digital media -- and what it takes to promote a creative work. He has written seven books and over 100 articles for popular and professional magazines. His productivity program, ForComment, was runner-up for the Software Publishing Association’s Most Innovative Product in 1986. A few years later he created and was executive producer for a two-hour PBS show, Fatherhood USA. Jim has appeared on most of the major television and radio shows, including Today, Good Morning America, and Oprah. In his November 24, 2023 interview for the How Leaders Lead podcast, Jim responded to host David Novak’s questions about his approach to agenting, leading, and parenting: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-leaders-lead-with-david-novak/id1223803642?i= Jim's non-profit work as founding director of The Fatherhood Project®, a 20-year-long foundation-supported initiative to increase men’s involvement in childrearing in all segments of society, has won national recognition. In 1984, Esquire magazine selected Jim as one of the "men and women under 40 who are changing America." In 1997, Working Mother magazine selected him as one of the "top 25 men in America who make a difference in the lives of working mothers." In 1998, The Wall Street Journal selected Jim's Working Fathers: New Strategies for Balancing Work and Family, as one of the best work-life books of the year. He served as a consultant to Vice President Al Gore in developing the bi-partisan federal fatherhood initiative. Jim is a voracious reader and is passionate about his hobbies: golf, photography, travel, and listening to music of all sorts, especially jazz. He is the married father of author Jessica Bacal (www.jessbacal.com), Director of The Narratives Project at Smith College, and Joshua Levine, a NYC-based jazz musician who specializes in Latin Jazz (Instagram: cuartetoguataca) and also composes and performs music for children (www.joshlevinemusic.com). Jim acquires and develops projects in a broad range of areas, including business, science, narrative non-fiction, memoir, social and political issues, psychology, health, spirituality, parenting, and more. He loves his work!

Represented authors

• Jenoyne Adams
• Marc Benioff
• Katherine Bouton
• Amanda Brown
• Michael Datcher
• Larry Dossey
• Gillian Flynn
• Anders Henriksson
• Martha Manning
• Geoffrey Moore
• Andrew Newberg
• Vince Rause
• Patricia Seybold
• Rosalind Wiseman