About Our Team
Faculty and Staff
Sherman Raskin
Director, Professor of English
Sherman Raskin has been the Director of the Pace University Press, an academic press that is well known for its studies of Virginia Woolf and medieval literature, since it was founded in 1987. He is a Professor of English at Pace and has served as the Director of the MS in Publishing Program since its inception in 1985.
As Director of the Press he has worked with scholars across the country and around the world to develop journals and single title books in the humanities and social sciences.
Professor Raskin is a member of the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees at Pace University and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Philips Beth Israel School of Nursing. He also serves on the University Curriculum Committee and the executive council for the Dean of Dyson College. In September 2000, he received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Dyson College of Arts and Sciences for his service and contribution to the university. In 2005, he received recognition for twenty years of leadership as Director of the Publishing Program.
Professor Raskin holds a BFA degree in Dramatic Arts and a MA degree in English from Columbia University.
Manuela Soares
Associate Director, Lecturer
As Associate Director of the Pace University Press, Manuela Soares reviews new submissions and oversees the day-to-day activities of the Press from manuscript to bound book, supervising the Graduate Assistants and Student Aide, and working with the editors.
Since 2004, she has been a full-time faculty member at Pace University’s MS in Publishing Program. Her 30-year career in the publishing industry encompassed both books and magazines. Most recently, she was Managing Editor for the Scholastic Trade Book division (overseeing eight hardcover imprints and the publication of the first five Harry Potter books) and previously as a Senior Editor at Rizzoli.
As the Director of the Graduate Seminar (690A and B), she works with students writing their Master’s thesis. In addition to the thesis courses, she teaches Marketing, Children’s Book Publishing, General Interest Books, Entrepreneurship, and Ethics in Publishing.
Patricia Hinds
Marketing Manager
Patricia Hinds is an accomplished editor, writer, educator, and publishing executive. She owns a book producing and publishing services company, Mignon Communications, LLC, whose clients over more than three decades include an impressive list of Fortune 500 and publishing companies. And she is an adjunct associate professor of English at Pace University.
Professor Hinds is the author of the widely acclaimed The Good Sense Handbook: 52 Weeks of Inspired Thought, and nine children’s books, including the very popular What I Want To Be, published by Golden Books, which also published My Best Friend and Baby Face. A Day in the Life of Morgan Freeman, Actor, was published by Macmillan/McGraw Hill.
Hinds was selected by Essence Communications to create Essence Books, which includes sixteen titles. As editor, her books were published by Random House, Harry N. Abrams, and Time Inc. She also created and edited Essence Books for Children, which includes nineteen original titles. Mignon Communications published With These Hands, poetic and photographic reflections of old and new South Africa by Donna Katzin, which includes a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and introduction by Danny Glover.
Rachel Diebel
Graduate Assistant
Rachel Diebel graduated from Pacific Lutheran University with a BA in English Literature in May of 2016, where she enjoyed analyzing Edith Wharton, accidentally founding a student filmmaking program, and hiking in the Olympics. She hails from a tiny town of 500 people in Eastern Oregon and is now pursuing her masters degree in the (much) bigger city of New York, where she is living with two other Oregonians to ensure that she doesn’t forget her Pacific Northwest roots. Rachel hopes to work as an editor at a young adult publishing imprint because she believes that the books we read when we are young are the ones that change us the most.
Taylor Lear
Graduate Assistant
Taylor Lear is a recent graduate from the University of Georgia, where she received bachelor degrees in English and Advertising. She spent her undergraduate career working at an independent bookstore, studying abroad in Oxford, and watching arguably too much Jeopardy. She is currently working on her masters degree in Publishing at Pace University, and is optimistic that she will fall in love with New York City as much as she fell in love with Athens, Georgia. Taylor is currently interested in pursuing publicity and marketing for her post-graduate career, but she is excited to learn about all other areas of publishing during her time at Pace.