7 Literary Agents Seeking Fantasy Novels NOW
A list of 12 literary agents who seek and represent fantasy novels. These agents seek queries and submissions currently from fantasy writers.
In celebration of my three new books released this September (what an awesome autumn!), I'm doing a lot of special lists of agents seeking queries right now. I've already done lists on picture book agents, thriller agents, and women's fiction agents. Below find a list for agents seeking adult fantasy novels NOW. (Note that this list is for adult fantasy, not fantasy for kids or teens. That will be a different list.)
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All the agents listed below personally confirmed to me as of October 2015 that they are actively seeking fantasy submissions NOW. Some gave personal notes about their tastes while some did not. I tried to only includes agents on here that ruled out no type of fantasy. So that means these agents are fantasy generalists. And to repeat, this list is specifically for adult fantasy -- not for teen fantasy (YA/MG).
Important note: After this list went live, some agents have commented that they felt snubbed by being "off" the list, but please understand that this is not meant to serve as any kind of complete list of agents seeking adult fantasy. There are plenty of agents out there seeking the genre. This list is just a simple blog post -- a grouping of 7 where the listed agents personally confirmed to me in October 2015 that they would like to be on such a list and were currently open to subs. If you are an agent and want to be added to this list (or included in the next installment), just tweet me @chucksambuchino.
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1. Sam Morgan (Jabberwocky Literary)
Notes: "My tastes in fantasy generally run the gamut of the entire genre, but with a twist. I love epic and urban fantasies, but all of my clients approach those genres with a very weird eye. They see the unending beauty of the world we live in and go “yeah… this is great and all, but what if we had to deal with drunk dragons all the time?” I like fantasy that can be explained clearly in the title (i.e. Ryan North’s ROMEO AND/OR JULIET), brilliantly explained in a sentence (i.e. LAMB: Christ had a best friend named Biff and here’s their story), or can’t be explained at all without a map, index of characters, and a thirty minute symposium on the magic system (Discworld, Song of Ice and Fire, etc.)"
How to submit: querysam [at] awfulagent.com. Send the query and your first five pages pasted into the email. No attachments.
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2. Mary C. Moore (Kimberley Cameron & Associates)
Notes: "If you're submitting urban fantasy, please no vampires, angels/demons, or werewolves."
How to submit: See her online submissions pages.
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3. Lane Heymont (The Tobias Agency)
Notes: Seeks Tolkien fantasy, diverse characters.
How to submit: To query, type “Query - The Title of your Manuscript” in the subject line, then please paste the first five pages of your manuscript into the body of the e-mail to query [@] thetobiasagency.com.
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4. Sara Megibow (kt literary)
How to submit: ”Please email your query letter and the first three pages of your manuscript in the body of the email to saraquery [at] ktliterary.com. The subject line of your email should include the word ‘Query’ along with the title of your manuscript. Queries should not contain attachments. We aim to reply to all queries within two weeks of receipt. In addition, if you’re an author who is sending a new query, but who previously submitted a novel to us for which we requested chapters but ultimately declined, please do say so in your query letter. If we like your query, we’ll ask for the first five chapters and a complete synopsis. For our purposes, the synopsis should include the full plot of the book, including the conclusion. Don’t tease us.”
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5. Evan Gregory (Ethan Ellenberg Literary)
Notes: "It's time to break away from medievalism and embrace different mythologies, weirder magic, different worlds, different perspectives."
How to submit: Please send submissions to agent [at] ethanellenberg.com to the attention of Evan. “For email submissions, we ask that you paste all materials into the body of the email in the order mentioned below. For example, if you were submitting fiction you would begin with a brief query letter, followed by your synopsis, followed by the first 50 pages of your manuscript. We will not open attachments.”
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6. Emmanuelle Morgen (Stonesong)
How to submit: submissions [at] stonesong.com addressed to Emmanuelle. Include the word 'query' in the subject line of your email to ensure we receive it and it isn’t filtered as spam. Include the first chapter or first 10 pages of your work, pasted into the body of your email, so that we may get a sense of your writing. Please note that Emmanuelle is closed to queries in December. We welcome queries from independent and self-published authors. If you have self-published your book and are interested in working with a publisher for future works, please include descriptions of published and forthcoming works, as well as information about sales and reviews. Our system is set up so that every email query receives an automatic reply confirming receipt. After that, we will be in touch only in the event we would like to request more material. This is because we receive such a volume of submissions that it is impossible for us to respond individually to every query. If you have not received a request from us within 12 weeks, consider that we have passed. If we request additional material, we will of course respond with a specific reply. Please feel free to follow up with additional news about your submission during the 12-week period."
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7. Nicole Resciniti (The Seymour Agency)
How to submit: Send all queries to nicole [at] theseymouragency.com. The subject line should be “QUERY: (Title)”. Please past the first five pages in the body of the e-mail.
Chuck Sambuchino is a former editor with the Writer's Digest writing community and author of several books, including How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack and Create Your Writer Platform.
