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Anna Olswanger has agreed to be our Guest Critiquer for June’s First Page. Deadline will be June 18th, so I wanted to give you an early heads up. 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].

Ms. Olswanger has a background in editing and has worked with the author Mary Ann Schaffer on the adult novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, which became an international bestseller.

She represents Jim Carroll’s THE BOY AND THE MOON (Sleeping Bear Press), Nell Dickerson’s GONE (BelleBooks), Luli Gray’s ANT & GRASSHOPPER (McElderry), Michael Hall’s MY HEART IS LIKE A ZOO and PERFECT SQUARE (Greenwillow), Zack Miller’s TRADESTREAM YOUR WAY TO PROFITS: Building a Killer Portfolio in the Age of Social Media (Wiley), Margaret Peot’s INKBLOT (Boyds Mills Press) and THE SUCCESSFUL ARTIST’S CAREER GUIDE (North Light Books/F+W) Barry Rothstein’s EYE-POPPING 3-D BUGS (Chronicle), Jennifer Sattler’s SYLVIE (Random House Children’s Books), CHICK ‘N’ PUG and PIG KAHUNA (Bloomsbury Children’s Books), and upcoming books by Allida Black (Penguin Classics), Cathy Fishman (Cavendish), Brett Hartman (Cinco Puntos), Michelle Markel (Balzer & Bray, Eerdmans, and Chronicle), Patricia Hruby Powell (Chronicle), Alan Rabinowitz (Houghton Mifflin), Vince Vawter (Delacorte) and composer Marvin Hamlisch (Dial).

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.

Anna Olswanger, Literary Agent

Liza Dawson Associates 350 Seventh Avenue,  Ste. 2003 New York, NY 10001 Direct tel.: +1-201-791-4699

www.olswanger.com www.shlemielcrooks.com www.host-a-jewish-book-author.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]

Lisa Dawson Associates says:

• We understand the priorities and passions that motivate editors, publicists, sales directors, and marketing directors.
• We consider each of our books to be an exciting kernel that can grow – into an international bestseller, into a movie, into a calendar, into a career. That’s the power of a thrillingly told story, and that’s what people expect from our submissions.

Liza Dawson Associates

350 Seventh Avenue, Suite 2003

New York, NY 10001

www.LizaDawsonAssicates,com

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/

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy