DANUTA BAUDIS

I was born in Lodz, Poland and lived there until I was 19 years old. In 1978 I moved to Liverpool, United Kingdom where I lived and studied English language for 2 years. In 1980 I moved to Athens, Greece where I enrolled at the University of Athens and studied Greek language first and then English and American Literature. It was at that time that I started to work for Macmillan Publishing house in their ELT division (English Language Teaching). For the next 25 years I worked in publishing first for Macmillan in Greece, Turkey and Cyprus and afterwords for Longman that later merged with Pearson Education, part an Pearson PLC - publicly trading American publishing company. My last position in Europe was Sales and Marketing Director for Central and Eastern Europe (27 countries in total) and CEO of American subsidiary in Poland. In March 2002 I permanently relocated to the USA to join my husband Bogdan Baudis, Software Engineer, who had lived here since 1989. We met in Greece in 1987. Since 2002 we have lived in Stoneham, since 2003 in the same house, now with our 2 cats Philos & Xenia, names derived from a Greek word philoxenia, meaning hospitality or a Friend to a Stranger. After moving to the US, being tired of corporate lifestyle, 80 + hour work week and too much time away on business trips, I decided to change my lifestyle and schedule. When looking for our own house, I became an an Exclusive Buyer Agent, and worked in Real Estate for several years but didn’t enjoy it a lot. I volunteered with Meals on Wheels and started working for myself doing photo-organizing and photography for family, friends and friends of friends. This was for a while my other ‘job’ and hobby. But the appeal of the past publishing world was very strong. I kept open lines of communication with many contacts established through my years in publishing in many countries and publishing houses I visited on business. So I guess that call of the past was too strong and I decided to return to the world of books and publishing but in a different capacity. The trigger, in 2023, was my fascination with all works by Polish author, earlier investigative journalist, Maciej Siembieda connected with the Polish publishing house AGORA. And thus I became their Literary Agent representing Maciej Siembieda’s titles. I am now in the process of expanding my portfolio to other authors and publishers. But I fully understand that I’m a novice in the field of sales of foreign rights and hope to learn a lot belonging to this organization. I hold a Masters Degree in American and English Literature, hence my interest in books and reading and in particular in translations. My native language is Polish, I am fluent in Greek and, of course, English (but with a Slavic accent). I like to read books in those 3 languages and compare the original with its translated text. And many times I can confirm and attest to the validity of the Italian saying ‘Traduttore è traditore’ that a ‘translator is a traitor’. I am currently trying out my own ‘traitor’s’ skill in translating a book from Greek into Polish, few chapters as a sample that I can present to Polish publishers to consider its publication. In addition in my free time I enjoy swimming (while listening to an audiobooks), birdwatching and photography. When the weather gets wormer I like working in the garden or decorating our house and deck with colorful flowers. Traveling and sailing are my other hobbies. I consider myself a good communicator and I am committed to responding promptly to any questions, requests or other messages.