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CALL FOR ILLUSTRATIONS: Please remember to send in your illustrations for June. It is a great way to get seen and keep your name out there to get noticed. Send to Kathy.temean(at)gmail.com. Please submit .jpgs at least 500 pixels wide.

Anna Olswanger has agreed to be our Guest Critiquer for June’s First Page. For those who like the picture prompt, you will find it at the bottom of this post.

Anna Olswanger is a literary agent with Liza Dawson Associates in New York. Anna has been a literary agent since 2005 and has sold to Boyds Mills Press, Marshall Cavendish, Dutton, HarperCollins, McElderry, Pomegranate, and Random House Children’s Books, among other publishers. Specializing in: middle grade and young adult fiction and nonfiction, some adult fiction and nonfiction, children’s illustrated books, and Judaica.

Anna is particularly interested in working with author-illustrators.Anna enjoys discovering new authors and illustrators. She is looking for “voice,” the sound and rhythm of an author that could be no one else’s, and has a special interest in children’s picture books (author-illustrators only), adult nonfiction, Judaica, animal stories, and ghost stories. Contact her at [email protected].

In addition to being an agent, she is the author of the picture book Shlemiel Crooks, a Sydney Taylor Honor Book and a Koret International Jewish Book Award Finalist.

You may have attended some of her workshops, like Why Was My Manuscript Rejected? 3 Agents, 3 Opinions, with two other agents (see www.3LiteraryAgents.com). Writers in the Northeast may also know Anna, because she coorinated the Jewish Children’s Book Writers’ Conference at the 92nd Street Y for many years. In addition, she founded the website http://www.Host-a-Jewish-Book-Author.com

Anna’s own website is www.olswanger.com.

Submission Guidelines for Anna Olswanger:

I only accept email queries (no snail mail queries, please.)

Please insert (cut and paste) the first five pages of your manuscript into the body of your email. (I’m leery of opening attachments from addresses I don’t know.)

Queries to: [email protected]

June’s Picture Prompt illustration was created by Shawna JC Tenney. She was recently featured on Illustrators Saturday. http://kathytemean.wordpress.com/2013/04/20/illustrator-saturday-shawna-jc-tenney/

WRITERS Sending in a First Page: Please attach your double spaced, 12 point font, 23 line first page to an e-mail and send it to kathy(dot)temean(at)gmail(dot)com. Also cut and paste it into the body of the e-mail. Put “June First Page Critique” or “June First Page Picture Prompt Critique” in the subject line. Make sure you have your name on the submission, a title, and indicate the genre.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: JUNE 17th .

The four chosen and their critiques will be posted on June 28th.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

Many of you already know Anna Olswanger as a literary agent at Liza Dawson Associates, but she is also the author of Shlemiel Crooks (Junebug Books, 2005), a Yiddish-inflected Passover story, named a Sydney Taylor Honor Book and PJ Library Book and now author of her new book GREENHORN. In 2011 the Kaufman Center premiered a family musical based on Shlemiel Crooks at Merkin Hall in New York. Anna is a literary agent and lives in the metro New York City area with her husband. Her website is www.olswanger.com

She taught business writing for twelve years at the Johns Hopkins Center for Training and Education, and writing for physicians for five years at Stony Brook University Hospital. She continues to give writing workshops for corporations and universities. (See more about Anna as an agent further down in this piost.)

Daniel, a young Holocaust survivor, arrives at a New York yeshiva, his only possession a small box he never lets out of his sight. He rarely talks, but Aaron, a stutterer taunted by other boys, find his voice and a friend in Daniel.

The mystery of what’s in the box propels this 48 page book with interior colored illustrations by Miriam Nerlove, but it’s the complex relationship of the school boys that reveals the larger human story. Young readers, as well as adults, will find Greenhorn moving. Families will want to read it together.

Newbery Medal winner, Karen Cushman says, it is “A tender celebration of friendship, family, and faith. I cried at the horror and humanity of this simple story. Read it with your arms around someone you love.”

ISBN-13: 9781588382351                       

• Publisher: NewSouth, Incorporated
• Publication date: 3/1/2012
• Pages: 48
• Age range: 10 – 14 Years

Miriam Nerlove received her master’s degree in printmaking from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and worked for a time in the photograph and slide library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She lives with her family just outside Chicago, where in addition to illustrating, she enjoys writing, painting, listening to music, and working part-time at a library.

More About Anna the agent:

Anna Olswanger has been an agent with Liza Dawson Associates for seven years. She focuses on adult nonfiction and children’s books from picture books to YAs, and especially enjoys working with author-illustrators. Although she rarely takes on novels, she’s intrigued by historical fiction (especially mysteries), ghost stories, stories with animals as the protagonists, Southern settings, Judaica and Israel.

Anna has sold to Balzer & Bray, Bloomsbury, Boyds Mills Press, Delacorte, F+W Media, Marshall Cavendish, Chronicle, Cinco Puntos, Dutton, Eerdmans, Greenwillow, Houghton Mifflin, McElderry, Pelican, Penguin Classics, Pomegranate, Random House, Sleeping Bear Press, Star Bright, and Wiley.

Although most of Anna’s clients are author-illustrators, she enjoys working with any author who has a new slant on an old idea. Zack Miller’s book, for example, describes how to use the new social media (Facebook and Twitter) to make investment decisions.

Anna is not interested in what she calls “baby bumble bee” stories. She doesn’t like superficiality in any genre, especially YAs. We can all see suffering and dying. What do you, the writer, see beneath that?

Anna works hard with authors to get their manuscripts into shape for submission. In that sense, she’s also an editor. She finds that most manuscripts need work on the plot, so if you’re a potential author or illustrator client, be ready to go through many revisions before Anna agrees to send out your manuscript. Her job is to get the story to the point where an editor will make an offer. (And then be prepared to make more revisions for the editor.)

You can read interviews with Anna online at Cynsations, the blog of Cynthia Leitich Smith, and artistsnetwork.com, the site of Artist’s & Graphic Designer’s Market. You might find other interviews with Anna on the Web, but most have outdated information. For example, these days she prefers email queries, not snail mail. If you send an email query, you’ll hear from her in a day or two. If you send a snail mail query, you might not hear for a month or longer.

So, having read the above, if you think Anna would be the right agent for you, start by sending her an email with a few details about your book. She can usually tell from a query if she would be the right agent, and if not, don’t take it personally. Just move on to the next agent. This is a subjective business and it’s a matter of finding who you click with.

If Anna likes what she reads in your query, she’ll ask to see the first five pages of the manuscript in the body of an email. (She doesn’t open attachments.) At that point, she’ll either ask to see more of the manuscript, or let you know she’s not the right agent for you. She’s not able to give feedback if the latter is the case, and you’ll find that true of most agents (they reserve that time for their clients).

Congratulations Anna!

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

2008 CWIM Agent Updates...

As mentioned in my recent newsletter (click here to subscribe), here are full CWIM listings for some agents and art reps who've recently sent us updated information. (2008 CWIM page numbers are included.)

LIZA DAWSON ASSOCIATES (page 278)
350 7th Ave, Suite 2003, New York, NY 10001. E-mail: [email protected]. Web site: www.olswanger.com. Member of SCBWI, WNBA, Authors Guild. Represents 10 clients. 30% of clients are new/unpublished writers. 50% of material handled is books for young readers.

• Anna Olswanger coordinates the Jewish Childrens's Book Writers' Conference each fall athe 92nd Street Y in New York City and is a children's book author. Represents Fiction, nonfiction; author-illustrator pictrue books. How to Contact Query with first 5 pages. Must include e-mail address for repsonse. Considers simultaneous queries.

Represents Fiction, nonfiction; author-illustrator picture books.
How to Contact Query with first 5 pages. Must include e-mail address for response. Considers simultaneous queries. Responds in 4 weeks to queries; 8 weeks to mss. Obtains most new clients through recommendations and queries.
Terms Agent receives 15% commission on domestic sales; 20% commission on foreign sales. Offers written contract. Charges client for color photocopying and overseas postage.

EDUCATIONAL DESIGN SERVICES LLC (page 278)
5750 Bou Ave, Ste. 1508, N. Bethesda, MD 20852. E-mail: [email protected]. Web site: www.educationaldesignservices.com. Contact: B. Linder. Handles only certain types of work. Estab. 1981. 80% of clients are new/previously unpublished writers.
Represents Considers text materials for K-12 market. "We specialize in educational materials to be used in classrooms (in class sets) or in teacher education classes." Actively seeking educational, text materials. Not looking for picture books, story books, fiction; no illustrators.
How to Contact Query with SASE or send outline and 1 sample chapter. Considers simultaneous queries and submissions if so indicated. Responds in 6-8 weeks to queries/mss. Returns material only with SASE. Obtains clients through recommendations from others, queries/solicitations, or through conferences.
Recent Sales How to Solve Word Problems in Mathematics, by Wayne (McGraw-Hill); Reviewing U.S. & New York State History, by Farran-Paci (Amsco); Minority Report, by Gunn-Singh (Scarecrow Education); No Parent Left Behind, by Petrosino & Spiegel (Rowman & Littlefield); Teaching Test-taking Skills (R&L Education).
Terms Agent receives 15% commission on domestic sales; 25% on foreign sales. Offers written contract, binding until any party opts out. Terminate contract through certified letter.


SALZMAN INTERNATIONAL (page 290)
1751 Charles Ave., Arcate CA 95521. Phone/fax: (707)822-5500. E-mail: [email protected]. Web site: www.salzint.com. Commercial illustration representative. Estab. 1982. Represents 20 illustrators. 20% of artwork is children's book illustration. Staff includes Richard Salzman. Open to illustrators seeking representation. Accepting both new and established illustrators.
Handles Accepts illustration.
Terms Receives 25% commission. Offers written contract. 100% of advertising costs paid by illustrator. Advertises in Workbook, ispot.com, altpick.com.
How to Contact For first contact, send link to Web site or printed samples. Portfolio should include tearsheets, photocopies; "best to post samples on Web site and send link." Finds illustrators through queries/solicitations.


S©OTT TREIMEL NY (page 284)
434 Lafayette St., New York NY 10003. (212)505-8353. Fax: (212)505-0664. E-mail: [email protected]. Contact: Scott Treimel. Estab. 1995. Represents 45 clients. 10% of clients are new/unpublished writers. Specializes in children's books, all genres: tightly focused segments of the trade and institutional markets. Member AAR, Author's Guild, SCBWI.

• Prior to opening his agency, Scott Treimel was an assistant to Marilyn E. Marlow of Curtis Brown; a rights agent for Scholastic, Inc.; a book packager and rights agent for United Feature Syndicate; the founding director of Warner Bros. Worldwide Publishing; a freelance editor; and a rights consultant for HarperCollins Children's Books.

Represents 100% juvenile books. Actively seeking career clients. Not seeking picture book authors, but author/illustrators may submit.
How to Contact Send query/ouline (include word count, number of chapters, and protagonists' ages), SASE, sample chapters of no more than 50 pages. No multiple submission. Queries without SASE will be recycles. No fax. queries.
Recent Sales Sold 29 titles in the last year. Right Behind You, by Gail Gailes (Little, Brown); Comic Guy, by Timothy Roldand (Scholastic); Kitchen Dance, by Maurie Manning (Clarion); The Ninja Who Wanted to be Noticed (Viking); Love is a Good Thing to Feel, by Barbara Joosse (Philomel); Kiki, by Janie Bynum (Sterling); The Hunchback Chronicles, by Arthur Slade (Penguin Canada); Before and After Otis, illustrations by Cyndy Szekeres (Harcourt); Grandma Calls Me Beautiful, by Barbara Joosse (Chronicle).
Terms Agent receives 15-20% commission on domestic sales; 20-25% on foreign sales. Offers verbal or written contract, binding on a "contract-by-contract basis." Charges for photocopying, overnight/express postage, messengers. Offers editorial guidance, if extensive charges higher commission.
Writers' Conferences Speaks at Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators Conference, The New School; Southwest Writers Conference; Pikes Peak Writers Conference.
Tips "Keep cover letters short and do not pitch. Let your work speak for itself."


WYLIE-MERRICK LITERARY AGENCY (page 284)
1138 S. Webster St., Kokomo IN 46902. (765)459-8258. E-mail: See Web site. Web site: www.wylie-merrick.com. Contact: Sharene Martin-Brown or Robert Brown.

• From Wylie-Merrick's Sharene Martin-Brown: "Although we continue to work with our established children's authors, we are not looking for new clients in this area.

ASCIUTTO ART REPS., INC.
1712 E. Butler Circle, Chandler AZ 85225. (480)899-0600. Fax: (480)899-3636.Web site: www.Aatreps.com E-mail: [email protected]. Contact: Mary Anne Asciutto, art agent. Children's illustration representative since 1980. Specializing in children's illustrations for children's educational text books, grades K thru 8, children's trade books, children's magazines, posters, packaging, etc.
Recent Sales Bats, Sharks, Whales, Snakes, Penguins, Alligators and Crocodiles, illustrated by Meryl Henderson (Boyds Mills Press).
Terms Agency receives 25% commission. Advertising and promotion costs are split: 75% paid by talent; 25% paid by representative. US citizens only.
How to Contact Send samples via email with a cover letter résumé. Submit sample portfolio for review with an SASE for it's return. Responds in 2 to 4 weeks. Portfolio should include at least 12 samples of original art, printed tearsheets, photocopies or color prints of most recent work.
Tips In obtaining representation, "be sure to connect with an agent who handles the kind of work, you (the artist) want."

The original 1969 animation of the classic book "Harold and the Purple Crayon" by Crockett Johnson

The original 1969 animation of the classic book "Harold and the Purple Crayon" by Crockett Johnson