Who

With Suzanne Gluck, Walsh co-heads the literary department at the mega-agency William Morris.

Backstory

New York native Walsh interned at the Virginia Barber Literary Agency while she was a student at Kenyon College, joining the firm as an assistant after graduation and moving up to full agent by 1990. She later went out on her own and founded a small agency called The Writers Shop; when it was acquired by mega-agency William Morris in 2001, she and Suzanne Gluck replaced Robert Gottlieb as the heads of WMA's literary department.

Today Walsh is one of the most powerful agents in publishing. Prominent people on (or formerly on) her roster include Harvey Weinstein, Alice Munro, Ken Burns, Kathy Reichs, Ann Brashares, Suzan-Lori Parks, Quentin Tarantino, and Ethan Hawke, who landed a $400,000 advance for his debut novel, 1997's The Hottest State. She represents companies, too. Starbucks tapped her to help get its book retailing venture off the ground, giving customers the opportunity to sip their $5 lattes and read about African child soldiers at the same time.

But Walsh has had a handful of setbacks over the past year or two. She was the agent for Harvard undergrad Kaavya Viswanathan's How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got A Life, which was yanked from shelves in April 2006 after it was found to contain multiple instances of plagiarism. In March 2007, Walsh got dumped by her biggest client, mega-author James Patterson (Kiss the Girls, Along Came a Spider), for DC-based attorney Robert Barnett. (Patterson figured he'd save by paying a lawyer by the hour, rather than giving his agent the customary 15 percent.) Most recently, her client Jessica Seinfeld was on the defensive after it was alleged she'd lifted recipes from another cookbook published months earlier.

Personal

Walsh's husband, Patrick, is a physical therapist; they have three kids. In 2005, the couple purchased a 3,700-square-foot Greek Revival-style row house in Chelsea for $4.25 million. In 2006, the local community board scolded Walsh for altering the façade and constructing a backyard deck without prior approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission.