New Literary Agent: Gemma Cooper of The Bent Agency
About Gemma: She is a new agent at The Bent Agency, run by Jenny Bent. Find Gemma on Twitter. In her own words: "Although I'm in London now, I lived in NYC for three years and regularly visit, so I'm going to be representing authors from the UK and the US. I look forward to reading your work and really appreciate you sharing it with me. I'm lucky to represent Mo O'Hara, author of MY BIG FAT ZOMBIE GOLDFISH (Macmillan UK/Feiwel and Friends 2013) and I'd love to find other fantastic chapter books (7+ fiction) with an obvious hook and a laugh on every page. One of my all time favourite books is WHEN YOU REACH Me by Rebecca Stead. I love that it blend genres, has an amazing voice and literary feel to the writing. Anything similar would make me sit up and take notice."
She is seeking: See below...
- I love boy voice young adult (YA) – it’s my favourite thing in YA and so hard to strike the right balance. Think John Green or Erin Jade Lange's BUTTER.
- In YA, I’m seeing a lot of urban fantasy and am not really looking for this or paranormal romance. However, I’d love a nice juicy contemporary or issues driven YA. Think Jenny Valentine or Sara Zarr.
- A YA or MG crime novel or some sort of heist would be great. My favourite detectives are Poriot and Sherlock Holmes, and I've love to read something with the same feel written for younger audiences - red herrings, opulent settings and gathering everyone in a room for the reveal!
- Please send me historical fiction with a realistic narrator that almost has a diary feel to it. Think the ONCE, THEN, AFTER series by Morris Gleitzman
- I would like to see some of the paranormal elements that work so well in YA filtered down into MG or chapter books - ideally with humour.
- I'm obsessed with HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY and the TV series RED DWARF, so I’d love to see funny sci-fi stories for a younger audience. The more off the wall the better.
How to submit: Query cooperqueries (at) thebentagency.com.
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