Our Agents
Our Agents
Jennifer comes from a theatrical background, and began her career in agenting after working as a long-time children's bookseller and buyer. She joined the Andrea Brown Literary Agency in 2007. Jenn loves quirky, warm illustration, and projects for all ages that have illustrated elements. Always on the lookout for sparkling YA and middle grade fiction with unusual and unforgettable characters and vivid settings, she is drawn to nearly all kinds of books, whether realistic comedies or richly imagined magical adventures. However, the common thread in her favorite stories is an offbeat world-view. Jennifer loves funny books, thrilling books, romantic books, books that make her cry, and all-around un-put-downable books ... and her true favorites are all of the above.
She spends most of her free time ... well, reading, what else?!
Jennifer is currently seeking:
Middle Grade and YA fiction from perspectives that may often feel left out of publishing, including stories from LGBTQIA and BIPOC creators
Kids/teen Graphic Novel and Picture Book illustrators and author-illustrators whose art has wit, heart, style and flair—art may BE digital, but doesn't LOOK digital
Great writing is a must, high concept is a plus, and diversity in all ways is welcome.
Jenn prefers upbeat stories. Bring her your queer, weird, funny, heartfelt, beautiful, nerdy SHENANIGANS.
She is not the best fit for:
Unrelentingly sad or traumatic stories.
Dramatic and complicated High Fantasy.
Gore or intense horror.
RECENT DEALS
Middle Grade: Jo Whittemore writing as Annabelle Oh's MAGGIE AND THE STORY SHADOWS, pitched as The Land of Stories meets Only Murders In the Building, about a 13-year-old and her friends who embark on an investigation through a mysterious realm of folklore, turning their misadventures into a hit web series along the way, to Disney-Hyperion in a two-book deal.
Picture Book: Ezra Jack Keats Honor author Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie's WE GO SLOW, following a Black child and her elder in an experience of everyday wonder as they enjoy a walk through their vibrant city neighborhood, illustrated by Caldecott Honor artist Aaron Becker, to Atheneum.
Middle Grade: Mae Respicio's EVERY SINGLE SPLENDOR, following a 12-year-old who stumbles upon a mysterious old family photo and sets off to find the story behind it, discovering his family's link to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair—where more than 1,000 Filipinos were brought from the Philippines and put on display, to Knopf Children's, in a two-book deal.
Middle Grade: Kate Messner's THE TROUBLE WITH HEROES, pitched as WILD meets BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE, in which a grieving middle schooler vandalizes a cemetery, destroys the headstone of a legendary local mountain climber, and is sentenced to climb all 46 Adirondack High Peaks with the dead woman's dog, to Bloomsbury Children's.
Picture Book Nonfiction: Martha Brockenbrough's A GIFT OF DUST, illustrating how Saharan dust transforms our planet, from slowing hurricanes to nourishing our forests, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal, to Knopf Children's, in a two-book deal.
Middle Grade Graphic Novel: Four-time Pura Belpre award-winning illustrator Raúl the Third and Elaine Bay's THE SNIPS graphic novel series, about a humorous crew of scissor-wielding hairdressers saving the city from evildoers bent on tonsorial destruction, to Little, Brown Children's, in a three-book, six-figure deal.
THINGS I LOVE:
Bookstores
Classic movies
Musical Theater
Drag queens
Witty banter
Year-round iced coffee
