Women’s Fiction Literary Agents Open to Submissions
Literary agents are gatekeepers of the publishing industry. Find women’s fiction literary agents open to submissions in this post. List will be updated regularly.
Literary agents are gatekeepers of the publishing industry. Find women's fiction literary agents open to submissions in this post. List will be updated regularly.
Literary agents are important decision makers in the publishing process for authors who wish to be published by many of the big publishers. However, all literary agents do not represent all genres. In fact, an agent who claims to do this should be approached with caution. Just as authors tend to specialize in one or two genres, agents find niches and specialize in a handful of genres.
In this post, I've collected recently shared agent spotlights with literary agents who are accepting women's fiction submissions. This list will be updated regularly with new agents added to the top.
Gail Fortune of The Talbot Fortune Agency
Gail Fortune is a literary agent with The Talbot Fortune Agency and former book editor with over 25 years of publishing experience. Prior to becoming an agent she spent 16 years at Putnam Berkley (now part of Penguin Random House), where she rose from Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief to Executive Editor.
Her authors won RITAs and Agatha’s and were nominated for Edgar and Anthony Awards. She has edited and agented New York Times bestsellers and Publishers Weekly Books of the Year. She is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
Bibi Lewis of The Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency
Bibi Lewis joined the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency in 2014 as an associate agent and subsidiary rights manager. In addition to her duties as an agent she sells foreign and audio rights for agency clients. As a native New Yorker, she is a fierce patron of the NYPL.
On the adult end, Bibi is most interested in commercial and upmarket women’s fiction, contemporary romance, mysteries, and thrillers. In all ages, she is excited to read more projects from marginalized voices.
Peter Rubie of FinePrint Literary Management
Peter Rubie is currently the CEO of FinePrint Literary management, a NYC-based literary agency. He grew up in England and was a Fleet Street journalist, before becoming one of the youngest news editors for BBC Radio News. He came to the U.S. in 1981, and worked as a freelance editor and writer for agents and major publishers before becoming the adult fiction editor at Walker & Co., for 6 years. He left that job to become a literary agent.
He has also been an adjunct professor in the New York University publishing faculty, where for 10 years he taught the only university-level course in the country on how to become a literary agent. For several years, he was also the director of the book publishing section of NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute. Peter thinks of himself as “an editor in recovery” who picks and chooses various ed boards for his clients’ projects. He often works extensively on the editorial content and presentation of a project before submitting it.
Marlo Berliner of The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency
Marlo Berliner is an award-winning young adult author, freelance editor, and bookseller. She joined The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency in March 2018 as an editorial intern after having completed a previous internship with The Bent Agency. Now, she is actively building her list as an associate agent. She is a member of SCBWI, RWA, NJ-RWA, and YA-RWA.
Prior to her career in the publishing world, Marlo was an accounting manager for a Fortune 500 company. She holds B.S. degrees in Economics and Industrial Management from Carnegie Mellon University.
Maureen Moretti of P.S. Literary
Maureen Moretti began her publishing career as an intern with several prestigious literary agencies before joining P.S. Literary as an associate agent. She holds a B.A. from Saint Mary’s College of California and attended the Columbia Publishing Course.
Maureen is actively acquiring both nonfiction and fiction. Within nonfiction she is searching for narrative nonfiction, culture, history, biography, LGBTQ+, cookbooks, and lifestyle. Within fiction she is looking for women’s fiction, thrillers, LGBTQ+, romance, select science fiction, literary fiction and genre-bending unique voices.
Cecilia Lyra of The Rights Factory
Cecilia Lyra holds a Master’s Degree in Banking and Financial Law from Boston University and is completing a graduate certificate in publishing. In 2016, she bid adieu to her life as lawyer and professor of law to become a writer and a literary agent. She blames this heretical career move on her nine-year-old-self, who was bitten by the reading bug and began to dream of the day when she would work with books.
When she isn’t devouring novels—or dessert—Cecilia can be found drinking wine, writing her own novels, and snuggling with Babaganoush, her adorable English bulldog.
Whether you're writing a novel, short story, memoir, stage play, or screenplay, this boot camp will show you how to craft a great narrative scene-by-scene. It's a hands-on event that provides personalized feedback on your story structure and plot. Click to continue.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
