New Literary Agent Alert: Eva Scalzo at Speilburg Literary Agency

About Eva: Eva Scalzo was born in New Jersey, but has lived in Houston, Buenos Aires, San Juan, and Boston before settling down outside of Binghamton, New York. She has a B.A. in the Humanities from the University of Puerto Rico and a M.A. in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College. Since graduating in 2002, she has spent her career in scholarly publishing, working for Houghton Mifflin, Blackwell Publishing, John Wiley & Sons, and Cornell University in a variety of roles.

Eva has been reading romance since the fifth grade when she discovered the Sweet Valley High series. On inheriting her grandmother's collection of vintage Harlequin Romances, she promptly set about filling the gaps, and her goal is to someday finish reading all the treasures. Eva is looking to represent all subgenres of Romance, with the exclusion of inspirational romance, as well as Young Adult fiction.

One last fun fact: if you've been reading this bio and pronouncing Eva's name with a long E sound, you've been saying it wrong.

She is Seeking: I want to see more romance novels where the tension is less about the relationship and more about the obstacles outside of the relationship. One of my least favorite tropes in romance is the grand gesture trope—relationships are built on trust and communication. If your characters develop and grow their relationship organically, there shouldn’t be a big misunderstanding that breaks them apart, especially if all they need to do is actually talk (and listen!) to one another.

Multicultural romance is also something I want to see more of. I support the #OwnVoices campaign to increase the diversity in Romance not just of the characters but also of its authors. As a Latina I love seeing my culture represented in the books I read, I want others to feel that way too.

As a category mainly written by women for women, I want to see strong, smart female leads. Dominant men are okay, but misogyny and sexism are not. One subcategory I struggle with is Motorcycle Club romances, because I really don’t enjoy the club above all mentality and the way they tend to treat women. Ironically, I don’t have a problem with Highland romances where one could argue the attitudes of the clans are similar to a motorcycle club, but the historical context makes a big difference here.

In Young Adult I’m open to most subcategories, but there should be strong romantic elements regardless. I’d like to see contemporary, paranormal, science fiction, mystery/suspense and fantasy, but not historical.

Here’s a list of some of my favorite Romance & YA books (listed alphabetically by author):

How to Submit: Please send all unsolicited submissions via e-mail to: speilburgliterary@gmail.com.

In the subject line of your query email, please include “Query [AGENT’S FIRST NAME]” followed by the title of your project.

For fiction, please send the query letter and the first three chapters in the body of the email, no attachments please.

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