Meet Our Team

Sarah Russo (she/her) is a publishing professional with over twenty years of experience working across the spectrum of publicity, communications, traditional marketing, social media marketing, branding, and business development. Sarah has worked in-house for Alfred A. Knopf, Doubleday, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and Oxford University Press, and as a consultant for organizations and companies like the National Book Critics Circle, the Association of University Presses, the American Booksellers Association, Scribd, Curtis Brown, Ltd., The Oxford American, And Other Stories, Coffee House Press, Europa Editions, and with authors too numerous to count but that include Lindsay Chervinsky, Simon Winchester, Jeffrey Sachs, Nadine Strossen, Benjamin Moser, Diane Cook, Kathleen Hall Jamison, James McPherson, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Valeria Luiselli, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Amartya Sen, Harvey J. Kaye, Richard White, Donna Freitas, Lidia Yuknavitch, and David Kilcullen.

Most recently, Sarah was the Global Head of Audience Engagement, Publicity, and Social Media for Oxford University Press, the largest not-for-profit publisher of trade and academic books in the world. She was also the Global Head of Trade Marketing from 2016–2018. Her work at OUP spanned trade books, the dictionaries program, journals, and online products as well as major launches for publications like the AIA Guide to the City of New York, Greater Gotham by Mike Wallace, the 80th anniversary celebration of the Oxford English Dictionary, and programming the annual Bryant Park Oxford World’s Classics Book Club. She is currently a mentor in the 92nd Street Y’s Women inPower fellowship program and faculty at the Columbia Publishing Program.

Sarah is a regular speaker at conferences, book festivals, and universities. She has been a speaker at Social Media Week, the Association of American Historians and the Organization of American Historians, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Brooklyn Book Festival, the Louisiana Book Festival, Johns Hopkins University, The New School, Adelphi University, Pace University, and many others. You can connect with her on BlueSky, LinkedIn, or Instagram.

Laura Di Giovine (she/her) joined Page One Media in September 2022 as the Publicity Manager. A publishing professional with 15+ years of industry experience, she started her career in publicity at Independent Publishers Group (IPG) and most recently worked at Smith Publicity, where she handled numerous book publicity and expert positioning campaigns.

Laura has a wide range of experience promoting authors across many genres, including fiction, business, health & wellness, politics, sports, and more. Laura has garnered national media placements for authors in outlets such as NBC’s TODAY, All Things Considered, CNN.com, Ebony, Elle, FOX & Friends, Fortune, Here & Now, The Hill, Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, Men’s Journal, New York Times, New Yorker, Oprah Daily, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Vanity Fair. Laura’s most recent campaigns include The Postcard by Anne Berest (Europa Editions), Wolfish by Erica Berry (Flatiron), Loot by Tania James (Knopf), Bright Kids Who Couldn’t Care Less by Dr. Ellen Braaten (Guilford Press), and The Common Flaw by Thomas Moukawsher (Brandeis University Press). She is currently working on Remedies for Sorrow by Megan Nix (Doubleday), Year Zero by Christopher Liddell (UVA Press), The Bishop and the Butterfly by Michael Wolraich (Union Square & Co.), “Are You Calling Me a Racist?” by Sarita Srivastava (NYU Press), Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis by Greg Wrenn (Regalo Press), and A Good Life by Virginie Grimaldi (Europa Editions).

She is also a freelance editor and writer, and graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English Literature from the University of San Francisco. Born in Rome and a dual US-Italian citizen, she was raised in Portland, Oregon, and enjoys returning to the Pacific NW with her family every year. You can connect with her on Bluesky, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.

Laci Durham (she/her) is an Associate Marketing Manager and Associate Publicist for Page One Media. She joined the company in November 2021 as the Publicity and Marketing Assistant. With a passion for contemporary literature, marketing, and social media, Laci works to help our authors and their books find the audiences that most need them.

Laci leads all marketing efforts for Page One Media. A few of her current campaigns include a full marketing campaign for Making the Presidency by Lindsay Chervinsky, as well as influencer campaigns for Relinquished by Gretchen Sisson, Mothership by Greg Wrenn, and The Forgetters by Greg Sarris.

Some of her previous work includes: publicity campaigns for A Volga Tale by Guzel Yakhina (Europa Editions), Mrs. Sby K Patrick (Europa Editions), and Alma: The Wind Rises by Timothée de Fombelle (Europa Editions). She has earned coverage in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Vulture, and Cosmopolitan, among others. She has also lead influencer marketing campaigns for  My Brilliant Friend: The Graphic Novel (Europa Editions), The Postcard by Anne Berest (Europa Editions), Loot by Tania James (Knopf), and The Storm of Echoes: Book Four of the Mirror Visitor Series by Christelle Dabos (Europa Editions).

She is a native of Colorado with a degree in English Literature from the University of Northern Colorado and a graduate certificate in publishing from the Denver Publishing Institute. She now lives in Astoria, Queens with her dog Bingley. Laci is an active bookstagrammer and you can find her at @literature.and.lace on Instagram,  on X (formerly Twitter) at @lacildurham, or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Isabella Nugent (she/her) is a Senior Publicist at Page One Media, where she manages publicity campaigns for a diverse list of authors, experts, and high-profile clients. She joined the team in June 2023 as a Senior Publicist, having previously worked as a Senior Publicist at Blackstone Publishing and as a Publicist at Hachette Book Group.  

Isabella has five years of experience promoting books across multiple genres, including nonfiction, literary fiction, health and wellness, commercial fiction, and more. Isabella has earned national placements in outlets such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Associated Press, NPR, Good Morning America, Tamron Hall Show, PEOPLE, among others.   

Isabella graduated magna cum laude with a degree in International Studies from Bryn Mawr College. She writes in her free time, and her work has appeared in Your Impossible Voice and Bridge Eight Press.   

Gene Taft (he/him) is Senior Publicity and Communications Strategist at Page One Media. Gene is a thirty-year veteran of the book publishing industry, specializing in the promotion of serious nonfiction books in the areas of history, biography, politics, and current events, as well as pop-culture topics including sports and music. Gene began his career at Columbia University Press, and during his fifteen years at New York publishers, he worked for Simon & Schuster, Penguin, and The Overlook Press. He was Vice President, Assistant Publisher and Director of Publicity at PublicAffairs/Perseus Books Group. Upon moving to the Washington, DC area, Gene was the founder of GTPR, LLC, a marketing and public relations firm which he ran for ten years. He was also the Publicity Manager at Johns Hopkins University Press. Most recently, Gene managed two black and queer owned independent bookstores, Loyalty Books in Silver Spring, MD and Washington, DC.

Over the course of his career, Gene has had the good fortunate to work with major institutions such as: New York Times, C-SPAN, Washington Post, Boston Globe, The Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for Politics at UVA, and the Library of Congress. He has worked with many authors, including: General Wesley Clark, Ray Davies, Richard Gephardt, Newt Gingrich, Katharine Graham, Gary Hart, Andy Rooney, Joe Jackson, Vernon Jordan, Madeleine Kunin, Brian Lamb, Jim Lehrer, Richard Lewis, Robert McNamara, Larry Sabato, Pierre Salinger, George Soros, and Katarina Witt. Some of the books he has promoted include the bestsellers: Blind Man’s Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Black Mass by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill, The Kennedy Half-Century by Larry Sabato, Monsters by Rich Cohen and the #1 New York Times bestseller The Starr Report with analysis by the staff of the Washington Post. Some of his personal favorites are: Why Not Us?: The 86 Year Journey of the Boston Red Sox Fans from Unparalleled Suffering to the Promised Land of the 2004 World Series by Leigh Montville, Sea Change: Alone Across the Atlantic in a Wooden Boat by Peter Nichols, The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for People Who Have Alzheimer Disease, Related Dementias, and Memory Loss by Nancy L. Mace, MA & Peter V. Rabins, MD, MPH and Killer Show: The Station Nightclub Fire, America’s Deadliest Rock Concert by John Barylick.

A current resident of Silver Spring, MD, Gene was born in Massachusetts and is a graduate of Boston University. He has lived in the Washington, DC area since 2006. Gene has proudly served for fifteen years on the Gaithersburg (Maryland) Book Festival’s organizing Committee