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Alec Shane has been promoted to agent at Writers House, which is one of the largest literary agencies in the world. It prides itself on providing an extraordinary amount of individual client attention combined with the full service benefits of foreign and sub rights departments, as well as a full accounting and royalty staff.

Alex began his career at Writers House as an intern in September of 2008 and simply refused to leave, so he was given the wonderful job of Assistant to Jodi Reamer. And while he continues to work under Jodi’s careful tutelage, he is now also in the process of actively building his own list and currently represent a fairly eclectic mix of Children’s and Adult fiction and nonfiction. He is eagerly looking for both.

On the fiction side, he loves mysteries, thrillers, bad-ass protagonists with a chip on their shoulders, beautifully told historical fiction (The Vietnam War, the Maccabees, and The American Revolution fascinate him in particular),well-researched adventure stories, and great horror. He says, “I haven’t been scared to turn off the light in far too long and something needs to be done about it.”

In terms of children’s books, getting boys to read again is especially important to him, and thus he’s particularly on the lookout for a fun middle-grade adventure series, ghost story, or anything else geared toward younger male readers.

On the nonfiction side, he’s attracted to odd, quirky histories, biographies of people he didn’t even know existed (but definitely should have), “guy” reads, humor, narrative nonfiction that sheds light on under-the-radar events and lifestyles, and all things sports. He is also currently up in the air as to whether or not he believes in ghosts, hauntings, and the supernatural, so if you have something that can convince me one way or the other, I’d love to see it.

Alex majored in English at Brown University, a degree he put to immediate use by moving to Los Angeles after graduation to become a professional stunt man. Realizing that he prefers books to breakaway glass, he moved to New York City in 2008 to pursue a career in publishing. Alec quickly found a home at Writers House Literary Agency, where he worked under Jodi Reamer and Amy Berkower on a large number of YA and Adult titles.

Twitter handle: @alecdshane.

He is looking for: Alec is now aggressively building his own list. “What I’m looking for in fiction: mystery, thriller, suspense, horror, historical fiction, literary fiction, and books geared toward young male readers (both YA and MG).

What he’s not looking for: Romance (paranormal or otherwise), straight sci-fi, high fantasy, picture books, self-help, women’s fiction, food, travel memoir.”

PROJECTS/SALES/BOOKS:

SHARK WARS, EJ Altbacker
THE BOOK OF BLOOD, HP Newquist
MONKEY TOWN, Ronald Kidd
HOW THE STATES GOT THEIR SHAPES, Mark Stein
SHARK WARS 6: THE LAST EMPREX, EJ Altbacker (Razorbill)
YOU MIGHT REMEMBER ME: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PHIL HARTMAN, Mike Thomas (St. Martins)
SEEING AMERICA, Nancy Crocker (Medallion Press)

Submission guidelines: He accepts e-mail and snail-mail queries (although email is preferable), and will usually respond within 4-5 weeks. Please send the first 10 pages of your manuscript, along with your query letter, to ashane [at] writershouse.com with “Query for Alec Shane: TITLE” as your subject heading – no attachments please! If sending via regular mail, please include a SASE with proper postage.

Writers House
21 West 26th Street
New York, NY 10010
phone 212-685-2400

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

Rosh Hashanah Greetings‏ for the Start of Rosh Hashanah

Amalia Hoffman sent in this illustration to mark the day. www.amaliahoffman.com

Valerie Noble is an Associate Agent at Donaghy Literary Group, a Canadian based agency. While studying chemistry at California State University, Long Beach, Valerie mastered the art of doing proper research, particularly for technical writing. Her love of science and reading merged when she began penning her first novel in the midst of her studies. In true scientific fashion, Valerie researched all there was to know about publishing. She connected with agents, editors, and other writers, and interned for Jessica Sinsheimer of Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency.

An education is never finished and Valerie continues to cultivate relationships and hopes to use her knowledge and skills in finding fresh new voices for Donaghy Literary Group.

She is interested in: Young Adult, and New Adult — in the following areas:

• Science Fiction YA/NA
• Fantasy YA/NA
• Historical Fantasy YA/NA
• Historical Fiction YA/NA

Valerie loves YA/NA science fiction and fantasy (think Kristin Cashore and Suzanne Collins) but reads everything under the sun. For her, it’s more about the writing and less about the genre. In saying that, Valerie is generally not interested in romance or paranormal.

Submission Instructions: Electronic Submissions only. Send the query letter, 1-2 page synopsis and the first 10 pages of manuscript — all in body of email, no attachments. Send to query(at)donaghyliterary(dot)com.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

About Siobhan McBride at Serendipity Literary Agency:

Siobhan McBride grew up in the New York Hudson Valley and studied painting, drawing, and ceramics before receiving her Bachelor of Arts in English and Creative Writing from SUNY New Paltz.

She began her career in Publishing as an intern for the literary agency Objective Entertainment, and from there went on to work as a writer in the Editorial departments of various magazines including MovieMaker and Chronogram, before joining Serendipity Literary Agency in 2014.

Her passion for music and film led her to becoming the Music Editor of CriticalMob, eventually moving on to do freelance work with their parent company, Company Cue. Recently she has been tutoring young adults as a volunteer with 826NYC.

Siobhan looks forward to creating lasting relationships with her clients and wants to work closely with them to give life to the vision of their work. Holding positions on both sides of the editorial field gives her a strong grasp of what an audience is looking for and the knack to balance that with a writers’ artistic drive.

Siobhan is seeking voice driven narratives for Fiction, Memoir, or Non-Fiction. She has a strong interest in Literary and Gothic Fiction, Horror, Paranormal, Adult Dystopian, Mystery/Crime, Historical, daring Young Adult, Thrillers and narratives with philosophical undertones. She say she gives bonus points if your thriller has a psychological bent. 

For Memoir and Nonfiction titles, she seeks Investigative, True Crime, and dark/bizarre History. Siobhan enjoys the dark, macabre aspects of life where paranormal fiction and horror are viewed an under appreciated art forms deeply rooted in psychology, and looks for authors unafraid to delve into these inner workings of the human psyche.

How to submit: Visit the submissions page on Serendipity’s website: serendipitylit.com. You can direct your submission directly to Siobhan by requesting her in the body of the submission form. The average response time is 4-6 weeks.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy