Young Adult Literary Agents Open to Submissions
Literary agents are gatekeepers of the publishing industry. Find young adult 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 young adult (or YA) submissions. This list will be updated regularly with new agents added to the top.
Tasneem Motala of The Rights Factory
If there's literally anything to do as a kid growing up in rural Niagara, it's read, and Tasneem did so much of it that she turned it into her career with a degree in English and Classical Civilizations and a post-grad in Publishing. Her experience includes writing beauty articles for Elevate Magazine, promoting Sonia Faruqi's book, The Oyster Thief, to the book-blogging sphere as a marketing manager, and building her very own #ownvoices literary zine, KROS Magazine, from scratch when she was in college. You can follow her @seraphecda on Twitter.
Crystal Orazu of Context Literary Agency
Crystal’s love for novels first blossomed among the stacks of many Houston public libraries and it has grown stronger ever since. She hopes to represent and uplift authors whose stories allow readers to feel seen and heard in new and exciting ways.
Emily Forney of BookEnds Literary Agency
As a self-proclaimed decent writer and the ultimate fangirl of genre fiction, Emily Forney started her publishing career as an editorial assistant for literary journals in college, freelanced for feminist and pop culture presses, and worked as a fiction editor for a small popular fiction press.
She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University, where she specialized in YA and speculative fiction. After studying as a publishing and editorial fellow for the LA Review of Books, she joined BookEnds Literary agency as an associate agent.
Emily is currently seeking out kid lit, picture books, MG, YA, and adult fiction. She is especially looking for stories by Black authors that celebrate Black joy and love.
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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.
Kat Enright of the Seymour Agency
Kat Enright (she/they) is an Associate Agent at the Seymour Agency, and they represent both fiction and nonfiction. Prior to joining the Seymour Agency, they worked in a variety of departments in publishing, including Sales and Editorial, and they have a keen understanding of the many stages that a book must go through in order to reach bookshelves.
As someone who lives on the corner of many intersections, they are most especially interested in elevating voices of marginalized authors.
Eric Smith of P.S. Literary
Eric Smith is a literary agent with P.S. Literary, working across multiple categories, and has worked with New York Times bestselling and award-winning authors. When he isn’t busy working on other people’s books, sometimes he writes his own. His latest novel, The Girl and the Grove, was published by Flux in 2018, and his next novel, Don’t Read the Comments, will be published by Inkyard Press in January 2020.
He currently lives in Philadelphia with his wife, son, and overly affectionate corgi.
Dominic Yarabe of Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency
Dominic Yarabe joined Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency in 2018. As a multiracial second-generation American citizen, she is particularly drawn to characters and stories that traverse the complexities of the immigrant experience. However, she’ll read anything that is keenly observed and transports her outside of her tiny New York apartment.
Dominic graduated Phi Beta Kappa from her honors college at University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a B.A. in English. Before joining the agency, she taught for two summers in China and interned in New York, mitigating her transition from cornfield to city.
Jevon Bolden of Embolden Media Group
Editor, writer, writing coach, and now literary agent, Jevon Bolden moved into her latest role as literary agent out of necessity to more effectively serve her existing network of authors and is now opening her transom to other authors needing the right representation and publishing home for their most treasured messages and stories. She operates under her own boutique publishing consulting firm, Embolden Media Group.
Starting her 15-year career in traditional book publishing as a copy editor, she moved quickly into senior editor and acquisitions roles with publishers for both adult Christian nonfiction and children’s nonfiction titles. The books Jevon has written as other people or edited as herself have appeared on national best-seller lists and have sold millions of copies around the world.
Melissa Richeson of the Apokedak Literary
Melissa Richeson recently moved into the role of associate agent at Apokedak Literary Agency, where she is building her list of children’s book authors. Melissa joined ALA in the spring of 2018 as an intern, which allowed her to learn the nuances of children’s book publishing firsthand before being promoted into her current role. With a unique background in both marketing and elementary literature education, she’s able to serve clients well while also keeping readers in mind.
Melissa has also been working as a writer for years, in both the content and creative realms. She had a children’s fiction serial run in an online magazine for over a year, is a current staff columnist, and is a represented young adult and picture book author.
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.
Nicole Bezanson of Metamorphosis Literary Agency
Nicole Bezanson is a junior agent with Metamorphosis Literary Agency, having honed her skills for writing and editing through a wide variety of educational programs. She received her BA in Sociology with a double minor in Anthropology and Environmental Science from Saint Mary’s University in 2010, her paralegal diploma with honors in 2011, and between 2013 and present has completed courses and certificate programs in transcription, cultural competence, technical writing, management, and communications. She most recently finished her agency internship with Metamorphosis in November of 2018 and in addition to working as a literary agent and writing contemporary young adult fiction, Nicole is also a technical writer for a global manufacturer of CPAP masks, machines, and other products that manage sleep-disordered breathing.
When she isn’t busy updating her manuscript portfolio or responding to queries, she can usually be found reading, horseback riding, or pursuing her new hobby of learning to cook. She and her husband share their home in Eastern Canada with a collection of disabled cats and a lifetime’s worth of books.
Savannah Brooks of Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency
Savannah Brooks joined the Jennifer De Chiara team in 2018, after interning for a year and a half. She’s an MFA candidate at Hamline University focusing in creative nonfiction as well as an editor at Red Bird Chapbooks, a teaching artist at the Loft LiteraryCenter, and a reader for multiple literary magazines.
Her own creative work has been publishing in Barely South Review, Hobart, Lime Hawk, and Every Writer’s Resource, among others. When not immersed in the world of words, she can be found on her bike, at a dive bar, or lounging at one of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes. She lives in the most beautiful literary capital: Saint Paul.
Ann Tannenbaum of Tannenbaum International Literary Agency
Ann Tanenbaum is a veteran of the publishing industry with 50 years of experience. Over the course of her career, she has held editorial and marketing positions at The Viking Press and Random House as well as executive positions at Harry N. Abrams Inc., Doubleday International, and Newsweek.
In addition to representing books on seasoned gallery artists and museums, the theatre, and many children’s books, Ann has a commitment to nurturing projects on current affairs, politics, and history.
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.
