Our Agents
Our Agents
Lara represents NYT and Indie bestselling and award-winning authors and illustrators of picture books, middle grade, and YA fiction and nonfiction.
In picture books, she is drawn to fiction and nonfiction stories that help all kids feel seen and understood. In YA and MG, she’s wide open across genres. She relates to outsiders and loves to be swept away—by a great voice, a hooky mystery, an unexpected romance, or a unique take on a classic story. As the daughter of a refugee, she appreciates books that engage with the world outside of the U.S. in some way.
Lara has a BA in English and Fine Arts from Amherst College and an MA in English Literature from Columbia University, where she studied feminist and postcolonial theory. Prior to joining ABLA in 2010, she studied architecture at a graduate level at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and began her career in publishing as an assistant at the B.J. Robbins Literary Agency.
RECENT DEALS
Author-illustrator Ross Burach’s picture books THE LITTLE BUTTERFLY THAT COULD and GOODNIGHT, BUTTERFLY, the second and third book in The Very Impatient Caterpillar series. Sold to Scholastic, in a good deal, in an exclusive submission.
Sydney Taylor Honor-winning author Katherine Locke’s fabulist young adult novel THIS REBEL HEART, pitched as LOVELY WAR meets CODE NAME VERITY, in which a Jewish teen finds her voice during the student-led 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Sold to Knopf/PRH, in a good deal, in a pre-empt, in a two-book deal.
Kimberly Derting and Shelli R. Johannes’ LIBBY LOVES SCIENCE and VIVI LOVES SCIENCE, the third and fourth picture books in the LOVES SCIENCE series, plus the first two I Can Read titles in the series, CECE LOVES SCIENCE: PUSH AND PULL and LIBBY LOVES SCIENCE: MIX AND MEASURE, illustrated by Joelle Murray. Sold to Greenwillow in a good deal, in an exclusive submission.
The first two books in Indie Bestselling author Natalie C. Parker’s debut middle grade series, THE DEVOURING WOLF, a queer take on werewolf mythology, as a 12-year-old werewolf must solve a decades-old mystery and face a terrifying creature from legend. Sold to Razorbill in a multiple bid situation, in a two book deal.
Author of ALL BECAUSE YOU MATTER Tami Charles’ YA novel in verse MUTED, inspired by the #metoo movement and her experience in an all-girl R&B group, exploring the dark side of the music industry—and what it takes to fight back. Sold to Scholastic, at auction, in a six-figure deal.
Journalist Julia Lyon’s debut nonfiction picture book text A DINOSAUR NAMED RUTH, about a girl who discovered dinosaur bones in her backyard and helped unearth one of the most exciting paleontological discoveries of our time. Sold to McElderry Books/S&S in a competitive situation.
Debut illustrator Kaley Bales’ illustrations for WHY SHE WROTE by hosts of the podcast BONNETS AT DAWN Lauren Burke and Hannah Chapman, a graphic history of the fascinating lives and influence of 18 women writers from the 18th to early 20th centuries, including Jane Austen, Anne Lister, and Alice Dunbar Nelson. Sold to Chronicle.
THINGS I LOVE:
Inclusivity
Humor
A great twist
Will They-Won't They love stories
Crossword puzzles
Knedlíky y svíčková
As an agent, I see myself as an advocate and a problem-solver.
REPRESENTATIVE TITLES
“What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?” —Dorothea Brooke, MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot
AWARD WINNERS
& BESTSELLERS
