Posts Tagged #agentinterview

Agent Spotlight: Stacey Graham

By on January 6, 2025   /   Editor / Agent Spotlight  

Today, we spotlight Super Agent, Stacey Graham, of 3Seas Literary. She’s smart, kind, and funny! (She’s also my agent.) Stacey’s also an author, and she brings that experience to support her clients through the many ups and downs of writing and publishing. Take a look and see if she might be a perfect fit for you and your manuscript.

Please tell us about your path to becoming an agent.

I backed into a writing career on a whim and agenting even more so. My fifth child was two years old (so plenty of me time on my hands) and wandered into the Absolute Write forums where I befriended a large group of people who taught me about writing, getting published, and were—and still are—a huge support system. A few years later, I had four book deals in two years and decided that writing was more exhausting than raising five children—though looking back, it could have been a combination of the two. I floated the idea of becoming an agent to my agent because I wanted to learn more about the business and she hired me immediately before I could back out.

How does being a writer influence your job as an agent?

As a traditionally published author, I hope to give my clients perspective on both sides of the business. As a writer, I’m there to help editorially and discuss ideas and as an agent, I guide them through contracts, marketing, future projects, give advice on opportunities, send encouragement, and a lot more. By having been on both sides, I see the struggle and the reward and know what it’s like when a project you love doesn’t connect with editors in the way you had worked toward or get even more excited when a deal is offered.

What is your least favorite part of your job as an agent?

Turning down amazing projects because I know I’m not the right agent to represent it. I always want what’s best for the writer and their career, and sometimes another agent with more experience in that area would make a better partner.

What is your favorite part of your job as an agent?

Helping a writer be happy with where they are in the process toward publication; sharing an offer with a client; seeing their book on billboards in New York City. (All of which has happened.)

What do you love about MG novels?

Curiosity drives the novels—the characters want to know why and they’ll do anything to find out. Couple that with the natural humor MG writers bring to their work and I’m sold. That and the fart jokes. What is it with you people and fart jokes?

Did you have a favorite MG novel as a kid?

Anything by Judy Blume.

What are your pet peeves in a query letter?

Not following submission guidelines. A query letter can tell an agent a lot about a writer: if they pay attention to details and how well they’d work with an editor, if the book falls under our representative categories or if a writer is shotgunning a query to anyone on a list they found online, and if the writer has researched the market and has realistic expectations of where their books falls in the mix.

What makes you pass on a submission most often?

Overwriting.

What are your thoughts on the current market for MG books?

I love how fluid the market is. It’s a chance for writers to dig into themes they may not have explored earlier and stretch their imaginations.

Do you have any events coming up?

For 2025, I’m keeping my calendar quiet to concentrate on my amazing (and very busy) clients.

Where can our MUF readers go to find out more about you?

Website: threeseasagency.com

Bluesky: staceyg.bsky.social

Facebook: facebook.com/agentstaceygraham

Instagram: instagram.com/agentstaceygraham

Threads: @agentstaceygraham

Thank you, Stacey! Cheers to a new year and lots of fart jokes!

Back to Top

NEW AGENT: Meet East/West Literary Agent Jim Averbeck

By on October 7, 2024   /   Editor / Agent Spotlight, For Writers  

We are thrilled to welcome Jim Averbeck to the Agent Spotlight on The Mixed-up Files of Middle Grade Authors today. Jim Averbeck is NEW to agenting as of his September announcement, but definitely not to #kidlit. He is looking to represent picture book author/illustrators as well as middle grade and YA authors. The first client to join him was the NYT #1 bestselling, critically acclaimed author Ellen Hopkins. We are excited to hear all about his new venture with East/West Literary Agency. 

 

Welcome Jim. Are you ready for some questions?

ED: Your #kidlit resume includes so many “chapters” –from award-winning author/illustrator/ middle grade author, SCBWI RA, to mentor and conference critiques and editorial feedback. How might these experiences influence your approach to agenting?

Jim Averbeck: Thank you for featuring me today. As a middle grade author, myself, I have always appreciated this blog.

ED Fun fact: Jim’s mg A HITCH AT THE FAIRMONT (Atheneum) is mentioned in a MUF post: https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/cope/

Jim Averbeck: As for your first question, I think the biggest influence on my agenting style will be the mentoring/editorial work I’ve done (and still do) with authors who want to make their manuscript the very best it can be.

I’ve had more than a dozen people thank me on social media for helping them polish their manuscript in a way that resulted in them selling their first book.  They, and many others, have said they are grateful that I was able to see into the emotional heart of their stories and was able to identify the way to bring it to its best. So I hope to bring that ability to my clients.

ED: How important is the query letter? 

 Jim Averbeck: It’s an opportunity to give some insight into what is unique about your story and why you are uniquely suited to write it. But ultimately the work has to shine on its own.

ED: In addition to repping picture book author/illustrators, your E/W Literary announcement states: In middle grade, YA, and graphic novels, Averbeck is interested in science fiction, low or historical fantasy, and literary fiction with memorable, quirky protagonists and steadfast supporting characters who break stereotypes and tropes. Are there published examples that come to mind, or books that you wish you had agented?

Jim Averbeck: Great question! Here ’s a list of published books I like:

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

The City We Became by NK Jemisin

The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E Butler

A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck

Those books by Laini Taylor about the fierce little fairies (I was super-bummed they didn’t catch on so the series could continue) …

Anything by Neil Gaiman

Anything by Steve Sheinkin

Anything…you know what? How about I just take pictures of my bookcases. Most of what is on them survived the “cull” when I moved 3 years ago, so I probably like the books shown.

Click the photos for an Inside Look at what’s on Jim Averbeck’s shelves!

 

 

Jim Averbeck: As for my TBR pile, I just received a copy of Ellen Hopkins’ latest, SYNC, and can’t wait to dig in.

ED: Claudia, one of the main characters in E.L Konigsburg’s book Mixed Up Files… for which our group is named, is a stickler for grammar. Would you stop reading a submission if it has a few typos, grammatical errors, or misspelled words?

Jim Averbeck: Typos and misspelled words tell me the author is careless so maybe I’d stop if the work wasn’t immediately brilliant. Grammar could have been tossed in service to character or author voice so that probably wouldn’t stop me.  That said, I really hate it when people can’t get lie vs lay straight!  So much so that whenever anyone says “I’m going to lay down” I mentally add “my troubles” to stop from squirming uncomfortably.

ED: Do you plan to notify all who submit to you—both the yays and the nays?

Jim Averbeck: That’s the plan. It would be somewhat rude to leave people hanging. That said, my current system still has a few kinks so it might take a while before it is all running smoothly.

ED: What was your favorite book as a child? What’s on your TBR pile right now? (Besides manuscripts.)

Jim Averbeck: My favorite book as a child was Kathryn Jackson’s and Richard Scarry’s “365 Stories: One for Each Day of the Year”  It’s had a number of titles over the years. I still have the same copy I had as a child – a very worn, very torn copy.

ED: Are you interested in being invited to writer’s conferences?

Jim Averbeck Yes.

ED: And now for the question all our readers have been waiting for: How should authors submit to you? Is there a link?

Jim Averbeck: Folks should go to jimaverbeck.com/agenting. There is a button there for submitting a query, as well as information on what to submit.

Endless Thanks to Jim Averbeck for letting us celebrate his new AGENT hat today.

Wishing you great success, Jim.

Let the querying begin!

Back to Top

Agent Spotlight: Victoria Doherty-Munro of Writers House

By on June 30, 2023   /   Articles, Editor / Agent Spotlight  
Literary Agent Victoria Doherty Munro

Literary Agent Victoria Doherty Munro

 

Let’s give a warm Mixed-Up Files welcome to Victoria Doherty-Munro! Torie is a junior agent at Writers House, where she represents middle grade, young adult, and adult authors. She started at Writers House as an intern in 2010 and, after graduating from Wellesley College with a degree in English, was hired as the assistant to senior agent Daniel Lazar in 2012. She began building her own list in 2015.

What a treat it’s been for me to interview Torie and learn about her enthusiasm for good books, her preferences as an agent, and her many and varied interests, from Central Park to soccer fields!

SK: Tell us about your path to becoming an agent.

VDM: I majored in English in college (to the surprise of exactly no one, as that had always been my favorite subject in school) and had no idea what I wanted to do with that degree until the end of my sophomore year – I was in my favorite bookstore and was suddenly hit by the realization that there were people involved behind the scenes in bringing books to the world. I’d just never thought about it before, somehow! I started researching the industry and was lucky enough to get an internship at Writers House the following summer; I fell in love with both agenting and the company itself, and I sort of just…refused to leave? (Not really, but I was hired to assist senior agent Dan Lazar a few months after I graduated from college and promoted to junior agent a few years later.)   

SK: What are the best and worst parts of being an agent?

VDM: The best part is always the moment I get to tell a client that they’re going to be published! And I love the feeling I get when I’m reading a manuscript, either a new client project or a submission, and I can start to see things really coming together.

 The worst part is rejections, for sure. It really is a privilege when authors choose to submit their work to me for consideration and having to pass is never a good feeling, but I try to keep in mind that they deserve an agent who is head-over-heels in love with their work and that if that isn’t me then I’m not the right fit. And on the flip side, it’s never fun to get a rejection from an editor on a project that I’ve submitted on behalf of a client – I love those books so much, too, that getting passes can sting a little!

SK: What do you look for in a query?

VDM: An interesting premise and something that grabs my attention in the opening pages.

 SK: What are the top reasons you pass on a submission?

VDM: This is kind of hard to answer! Often there’s just something about a submission that doesn’t quite feel like a fit for me, or something that I know isn’t working but that I don’t feel I have the editorial vision to address.

 I will say, though, that recently I’ve been passing a lot due to pacing issues – either the story starts off too fast and I can’t get oriented in it or it feels like it’s taking too long to get to the heart of the plot.

SK: What do you love most about middle-grade novels?

VDM: I love that they can tackle big topics with humor and heart, in a way that makes things accessible for kids as they figure out themselves and the world around them! I also think these books can be so special because they’re often the ones that make kids into readers – one of my closest friends teaches 6th grade Language Arts and I always love hearing stories about that moment when one of her students finds *the* book that opens up the whole world of reading to them.

 SK: Which middle-grade book(s) influenced you most as a child?

VDM: How much time do you have?! I could list a million…but in the interest of brevity, I’ll say that The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was a constant favorite (so I got a kick out of the name of this website) as were Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and all its sequels by Mildred D. Taylor and Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (I actually went to a book event of hers when I was in college and got her to sign my incredibly bedraggled 15-year-old copy). And my brothers and I still have several inside jokes stemming from our love of A Series of Unfortunate Events, though it’s been years since any of us have read those books.

 I was also absolutely obsessed with Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix for years and almost lost my mind when I saw the news that she’d written a sequel! 

 SK: What are some of your favorite current middle-grade novels?

VDM: Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega, Sir Callie and the Champions of Helston by Esme Symes-Smith, The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill, Front Desk by Kelly Yang, Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga, and The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste all come to mind! And obviously I will be reading Falling Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix as soon as possible.

SK: Which genres/themes/subjects are you drawn to?

VDM: I tend to be most drawn to contemporary, speculative, and fantasy – and am really loving that horror is having a moment in middle grade right now! And I’m particularly interested in seeing projects from marginalized authors whose voices and perspectives haven’t historically been represented in publishing.

 SK: What advice do you have for authors who would like to send you a query?

VDM: I’m not sure I have any specific advice, other than…please do send me a query if you think we might be a good fit! I’m actively building my list of clients and would be thrilled to find another middle grade project (or two! or more!) to fall in love with.

 SK: What are your favorite things to do that have nothing to do with being an agent?

VDM: I love soccer (playing it sometimes, watching it always), trying new recipes, going to the theater, and finding new corners of Central Park to explore. I’m also sort of getting into baking, though I’m still in the phase where it kind of stresses me out…but I’m getting better!

SK: Please tell us a little about your agency.

VDM: Writers House was founded in 1973 with a vision for a new kind of literary agency, one that would combine a passion for managing a writer’s career with an integrated understanding of how storytelling works. With this two-pronged philosophy, Writers House has played a critical role in developing the careers of hundreds of novelists and non-fiction authors. We believe in offering our clients not only our expertise in negotiating contracts, but in contributing to all phases of the editorial and publishing processes. Our goal is to maximize the value of our clients’ work by providing hands-on editorial and marketing advice, as well as leading the way in branding, licensing, and selling film/TV, foreign, audio, dramatic and serial rights. 

SK: It’s been so great getting to know you, Torie. I’m sure a lot of our readers are going to be interested in connecting with you. Where can authors learn more about you? 

The best place right now is probably on Twitter, @toriedm! I tweet out specific #MSWL asks there and also post my to-read piles periodically so authors can get a sense of my taste.

Back to Top