Bestselling Authors, Top Editors and Literary Agents
Agents
Andrea Brown
Andrea Brown is the President of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Inc. Founded in New York City in 1981, it was the first literary agency to represent both children's book authors and illustrators. Prior to opening her own firm, Andrea was an editor at Alfred A. Knopf, and worked in the editorial departments of Random House and Dell. In 1990, she moved her literary agency to Northern California. Andrea has published articles and published a chapter about the children's book field in The Portable Writer's Conference, published by Quill Driver Books. She has been quoted in the New York Post, CNN.com, Yahoo News, Forbes, Good Housekeeping and Reuters News Service.
Caryn Wiseman
After a first career in consulting, Caryn began her second career as an agent in 2003 and has never looked back. Social justice has been at the heart of her list since she started agenting, and she is always on the lookout for authentic, kid-appealing stories and art that disrupt the prevailing narrative in some way. No matter the genre, Caryn looks for characters that stick with her long after she has closed the book. She loves a story that brings her a good, cathartic cry, a huge belly laugh, some outrage, some new knowledge, and above all, hope. The common denominator in her list is “smart with heart” and Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop’s essay on “mirrors, windows, and sliding doors” is never far from her mind.
Kelly Sonnack
For the past 17 years, Kelly has been championing writers and artists in nearly every category, format, and age group. She loves working with debut authors and illustrators as well as bestsellers and award-winning creators who are deep into their careers, and excels at developing strategies for clients at each stage of the creator's journey.
Kelly is on the board of the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA). She is also on the AALA's Membership Committee and co-chairs the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. Kelly grew up overseas, primarily in Singapore, and now lives in Southern California.
Jennifer Laughran
Jennifer comes from a theatrical background, and began her career in agenting after working as a long-time children's bookseller and buyer. She joined the Andrea Brown Literary Agency in 2007. Jenn loves quirky, warm illustration, and projects for all ages that have illustrated elements. Always on the lookout for sparkling YA and middle grade fiction with unusual and unforgettable characters and vivid settings, she is drawn to nearly all kinds of books, whether realistic comedies or richly imagined magical adventures. However, the common thread in her favorite stories is an offbeat world-view. Jennifer loves funny books, thrilling books, romantic books, books that make her cry, and all-around un-put-downable books ... and her true favorites are all of the above.
Jen Rofé
Jennifer came to agenting via education, having been a middle-school teacher for five years. She joined ABLA in 2005 and has never left!
Middle grade has always been Jennifer’s soft spot and she's open to all genres in this category – literary, commercial, contemporary, magical, fantastical, historical, and everything in between. A common theme in the middle-grade books Jennifer represents is children finding their space in their world — especially strong-willed underdogs or quirky, misunderstood, or overlooked children who come into their strength. Overall, Jennifer seeks projects in which children will see themselves and feel understood, or they will see others and gain understanding, or they will experience a version of themselves that they wish they were, or they will experience something that they want only to experience through the safety of a book.
Jamie Weiss Chilton
Jamie represents children’s books in all categories, with a focus on preschool, picture books, novelty, and real-world-based middle grade and YA. Genre interests include thrillers, science fiction, and speculative fiction.
Prior to joining Andrea Brown Literary Agency in 2008, Jamie was Conference Manager and Golden Kite Award Director at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), and prior to that held editorial positions at Random House Children’s Books and an internship at Henry Holt Books for Young Readers.
Kathleen Rushall
Kathleen represents a wide range of children’s literature. She represents NYT bestselling and award-winning authors. She’s drawn to environmental and social justice themes, particularly for the youngest set. She loves animals and books about their welfare and science. She's always interested in picture books that inspire emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and empathy.
When it comes to novels, Kathleen loves contemporary middle grade as well as the spooky and unexpected. She loves multi-generational stories, matrilineal magic, and is always happy to see high-concept contemporary romance. Kathleen gravitates to smart character-driven YA no matter the genre. She is always seeking stories written by diverse creators and underrepresented voices.
Lara Perkins
Lara represents bestselling and award-winning authors and illustrators of board books, picture books, early readers, chapter books, middle grade, and YA fiction and nonfiction.
Lara has a BA in English and Fine Arts from Amherst College and an MA in English Literature from Columbia University, where she studied feminist and postcolonial theory. Prior to joining ABLA in 2010, she studied architecture at a graduate level at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and began her career in publishing as an assistant at the B.J. Robbins Literary Agency. She lives in her hometown of Los Angeles, on unceded Gabrielino/Tongva land, with her family, including two kids who love children's books almost as much as she does.
Jennifer March Soloway
Jennifer represents authors and illustrators of picture book, middle grade, and YA stories, and is actively building her list. Although she specializes in children’s literature, she also represents adult fiction, both literary and commercial, particularly crime, suspense, and horror projects.
For picture books, she is drawn to a wide range of stories from silly to sweet, but she always appreciates a strong dose of humor and some kind of surprise at the end. When it comes to middle grade, she likes all kinds of genres, including adventures, mysteries, spooky-but-not-too-scary ghost stories, humor, realistic contemporary, and fantasy.
Jennifer Mattson
Jennifer represents authors, illustrators, and author-illustrators who bring a distinct point of view to their work, and who tell stories with multiple layers. In middle grade and YA both, her heart beats faster for stories that cascade from a mind-expanding premise. She also loves survival stories and losing herself in Dickensian sagas (WOLVES OF WILLOUGHBY CHASE!), and enjoys watching characters puzzle their way through problems. She has a special soft spot for middle grade about resilient kids sorting out the messiness of life.
Jennifer has worked previously as an editor at Dutton Children's Books and as a Books for Youth staff reviewer at Booklist. Two fun facts: she spent a summer giving tours at Emily Dickinson’s house, and has a coauthor credit in THE OFFICIAL EASY-BAKE OVEN COOKBOOK. Jennifer is based in Chicago, where, when not reading, she spends her free time in dance classes or jogging the lakefront.
Saritza Hernández
Saritza is a self-professed geek who loves escaping into worlds and stories from all walks of life. A passionate advocate of the BIPOC & LGBTQ+ communities, she enjoys fresh voices in Middle Grade, Young Adult, and Adult genre fiction, and select non-fiction.
Jemiscoe Chambers-Black
Before Jemiscoe "Jem" Chambers-Black joined Andrea Brown Literary Agency in 2020, she was an assistant director for film and television. Her love for books prevailed, and she went back to school to study English Literature and creative writing in fiction and earned her MFA. She represents adult fiction, YA, MG, picture book authors, illustrators and select adult nonfiction. She is especially looking for diverse voices.
Paige Terlip
Paige Terlip represents all categories of children’s books from picture books to young adult, as well as select adult fiction. Regardless of genre, she is seeking inclusive, intersectional voices and gorgeous line-level writing with emotionally compelling narratives.
Prior to becoming an Associate Agent, Paige was a Senior Assistant for Executive Agent Laura Rennert, and has been with ABLA for over three years. She comes to agenting with a background in marketing, design, and freelance editorial. She’s worked at Charlesbridge Publishing, The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and a ranch in the Rockies. She has an MA in Children's Literature and an MFA in Writing for Children from Simmons University. If she’s not reading, you'll find her practicing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, re-watching the Great British Baking Show, or hiking with her Husky-Shepherd mix.
Sally M. Kim
Prior to joining Andrea Brown Literary Agency in late 2023, Sally spent more than fifteen years in children’s book marketing and publicity at Macmillan, Penguin, and Chronicle Books. More recently, she has worked as an independent consultant for global children’s book publishers and literacy-related non-profits.
Sally is looking to represent a wide range of children’s book authors, illustrators, and author-illustrators. She is drawn to picture book, chapter book, and middle grade stories with a distinct voice, unexpected wit, aggressive pacing, punchy and/or emotionally resonant endings. When it comes to illustration, she gravitates to traditional mediums and is always on the lookout for versatile artists with a unique take on color, texture, perspective, and thoughtful details. Sally is especially eager to see authentic explorations of underrepresented cultures, relationships, and identities.
Editors
Maya Marlette
Maya Marlette, a native Kentuckian, graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in English and a minor in Astronomy. She has worked at Scholastic since the summer of 2016, acquiring middle grade and YA for the young and the young at heart. Her hobbies and interests include summer camps, manatees, chess, strategy board games, reality TV, and comics. She loves all things sunshine-y, silly, and fun!
Meriam Metoui
Meriam Metoui (she/her) is an author (A Guide to the Dark, Portrait of a Shadow, Macmillan) and assistant editor at Viking Children’s Books where she primarily edits pictures books and graphic novels of all ages. She especially loves lyrical or funny picture books, grim and adventurous MG, and a wide variety of YA too difficult to narrow down but know that she can’t resist dark, whimsical, emotional storytelling and has always had a soft spot for queer BIPOC stories, magical realism, and the slightly speculative. She graduated from the University of Michigan and Hunter College, where she received a master’s degree in English literature. As a serial hobbyist, she loves writing, photography, painting, learning ASL, longboarding, and too many TV shows to list.
Feather Flores
Feather Flores joined Atheneum in 2022 after four years at Chronicle Books. She works on smart, joyful picture books; middle grade romps with coming-of-age themes; and bold, open-hearted YA that reimagines everything our identities can be. Her list encompasses fiction and nonfiction, with an emphasis on stories by, about, and for people from marginalized communities.
Across the board, Feather gravitates to voice- and character-driven narratives with high-concept plots and solid command of their readers’ emotional responses. She champions books that depict the beauty and diversity of the human experience: the humor, the complexity, the curiosity, the magic. Anything that encourages young readers to be more fully and unapologetically themselves, she wants to see it.
Feather edits from the San Francisco Bay Area. You can find her expressing endless enthusiasm on Twitter @featherfully and explore her full manuscript wishlist at featherflores.com.
Authors
Aiden Thomas
Aiden Thomas is a trans, Latinx, New York Times Bestselling Author with an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. Originally from Oakland, California, they now make their home in Portland, OR. Aiden is notorious for not being able to guess the endings of books and movies, and organizes their bookshelves by color.
Lisa Riddiough
Lisa Frenkel Riddiough is the author of ELVIS AND THE WORLD AS IT STANDS (Amulet 2021), LETTERS TO LIVE BY: AN ALPHABET BOOK WITH INTENTION (Running Press Kids 2022), and the forthcoming PIE-RATS! (Viking 2024). She earned her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University and is a writing mentor for Society of Young Inklings. Lisa is a former sales executive, an avid squirrel-watcher, and a frequent baker of chocolate pound cake.
Eric J. Adams
Eric J. Adams is an award-winning author, feature film producer, and screenwriter. He co-produced and wrote the screenplay for the feature film Supremacy (2015), starring Danny Glover and Academy-Award-winner Mahersala Ali. He co-wrote and produced Harold Ramis' (Executive Producer) Archie's Final Project (aka My Suicide) (2010). The latter won 21 major international film festival awards including the prestigious Crystal Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Eric is currently bringing to the screen Mitali Perkins’ acclaimed middle-grade novel Rickshaw Girl, named as one of the best 100 children’s books in the last 100 years by The New York Library System. Eric is also the author of six books, including the therapeutic children’s book On The Day His Daddy Left, and the suspense/thrillers Birdland (Hodder & Stoughton) and Plot Twist (St. Martin’s Press). As a journalist, Eric has written for dozens of national and regional periodicals, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Wired, and Salon.
Eric Elfman
Eric Elfman is the award-winning author of 14 books for kids and young adults, including the popular Accelerati trilogy from Disney-Hyperion Books: Tesla's Attic, Edison's Alley and Hawking's Hallway, which Eric co-wrote with Neal Shusterman. As a screenwriter, Eric wrote or co-wrote screenplays for Interscope, Dreamworks, Walden Media and Universal. Also a writing coach, Eric has been on the faculty of the Big Sur Writers Workshop for the past twelve years, and among his private clients are a number of award-winning and NYT bestselling authors. He can be reached via his website: www.EricElfmanCoaching.com
Tamara Ireland Stone
Tamara Ireland Stone spent nearly two decades in the technology industry before she began writing fiction. She loved her first career but finds writing for kids and teens especially rewarding.
Her New York Times bestseller Every Last Word won the Cybils Young Adult Fiction Award and the Georgia Peach Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Northern California Book Award. Little Do We Know won the NCIBA Golden Poppy Award for Young Adult Fiction, and her debut novel Time Between Us has been published in over twenty languages. Click’d, the first book in her middle-grade series, is a Sunshine State Young Readers Award pick, a Kids’ Indie Next pick, a Truman Award Nominee, and an NCIBA Golden Poppy nominee.
Tamara lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is a proud nerd, vinyl collector, and movie lover. She burns everything she cooks.
Visit her online at www.TamaraIrelandStone.com.
Isabella Kung
Isabella Kung is the author and illustrator of NO FUZZBALL! (Scholastic, 2020), a picture book about a fuzzy feline despot who rules the house with an iron paw. Continuing her feline obsession, she also illustrated over 120 cats for the board books 123 CATS and ABC CATS by Lesléa Newman (Candlewick, 2021). Her illustrations have received accolades from institutions such as the Society of Illustrators, Spectrum Fantasy Art, 3x3, Creative Quarterly, and SCBWI.
Isabella has also served as Illustrator Coordinator for the SCBWI San Francisco/South chapter for 3 years. She currently teaches illustration and watercolor classes at Storyteller Academy and Etchr Lab.
Tim McCanna
Tim McCanna is the author of several picture books including Bitty Bot; So Many Sounds; Barnyard Boogie!; Jack B. Ninja; Boing! A Very Noisy Abc; Bitty Bot's Big Beach Getaway (ALA/LITA 2019 Golden Duck Notable Picture Book); and Watersong (New York Public Library 2017 list of Best Books for Kids and NCTE 2017 Notable Poetry Book). As a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI), he served as Assistant Regional Adviser for the San Francisco/South chapter for 5 years.
Mitali Perkins
Mitali Perkins has written many books for young readers, including You Bring the Distant Near (nominated for a National Book Award) and Rickshaw Girl (adapted into a film by Sleeperwave Productions), all of which explore crossing different kinds of borders. Mitali's fiction explores poverty, immigration, child soldiers, microcredit, and human trafficking, thanks to living overseas for many years and studying Political Science at Stanford and Public Policy at U.C. Berkeley. Her goal is to make readers laugh or cry, preferably both, as long as their hearts are widening. She lives and writes in the East Bay.
Victoria Piontek
Victoria Piontek is the author of Better With Butter (Scholastic Press, 2021) & The Spirit of Cattail County (Scholastic Press, 2018). She is also a Literary Associate for Executive Agent Laura Rennert. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hollins University, and an MST in Education from Pace University. When she's not writing, you can find her hiking in the Bay Area, where she lives with her husband, three children, and gigantic fluffy dog.
Aimee Lucido
Aimee Lucido is the author of Emmy in the Key of Code and Recipe for Disaster. She got her MFA in writing for children and young adults at Hamline University and lives with her husband and dog in Berkeley, CA where she likes to do trivia, run, and write crossword puzzles.
Josephine Carr
Josephine Carr has published five novels, including two Y.A.’s (No Regrets and My Beautiful Fat Friend), and three adult novels (Monday’s Child, The Dewey Decimal System of Love, and My Very Own Murder). After teenage years in Kenya and Switzerland, she received degrees in English Literature from Mt. Holyoke and Bryn Mawr, followed by teaching at Temple University. She particularly loves guiding people in discovering their voice, their story, and their place in the world as writers. She recently relocated to the Bay Area from Washington D.C.