Our Agents
Our Agents
Jennifer represents authors, illustrators, and author-illustrators who bring a distinct point of view to their work, and who tell stories with multiple layers. In middle grade and YA both, her heart beats faster for stories that cascade from a mind-expanding premise. She also loves survival stories and losing herself in Dickensian sagas (WOLVES OF WILLOUGHBY CHASE!), and enjoys watching characters puzzle their way through problems. She has a special soft spot for middle grade about resilient kids sorting out the messiness of life.
Jennifer has worked previously as an editor at Dutton Children's Books and as a Books for Youth staff reviewer at Booklist. Two fun facts: she spent a summer giving tours at Emily Dickinson’s house, and has a coauthor credit in THE OFFICIAL EASY-BAKE OVEN COOKBOOK. Jennifer is based in Chicago, where, when not reading, she spends her free time in dance classes or jogging the lakefront.
RECENT DEALS
Kate Hannigan’s THREE BLIPS ON A SCREEN, the story of Ralph Baer, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who moved to the U.S. and invented home videogaming, pitched as a biography for the Fortnite and Nintendo Switch generation. Sold to Knopf/PRH.
Author of RAIN! and WILLIAM’S WINTER NAP Linda Ashman’s verse picture book, FIRE CHIEF FRAN, a gentle, rhyming look at a female fire chief’s varied responsibilities in her small community (up to and including putting out actual fires!). Sold to Boyds Mills Kane.
Big Sur Writing Workshop alumna Lisa Frenkel Riddiough’s debut middle grade novel, ELVIS AND THE WORLD AS IT STANDS, about a shelter kitten separated from his sibling who finds meaning and healing through his new owner’s Lego building project. Sold to Abrams Amulet.
Edgar Award nominee Martha Freeman’s new mystery, NOAH MCNICHOLS AND THE BACKSTAGE GHOST. Sold on proposal to Paula Wiseman/S&S.
THINGS I LOVE:
Storytime
Beverly Cleary
Daemons
Subcultures
Sleight-of-hand
Dickens and Trollope
The best books don’t coddle children. As editor Patti Lee Gauch once wrote, they send them into the belly of the whale.
REPRESENTATIVE TITLES
Send me something that, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson, “takes the top of my head off!”
AWARD WINNERS
& BESTSELLERS
