Writers Day Literary Agents on Pitching in Person and Making the Most of Your Time

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By Sarah Parker-Lee and Erlina Vasconcellos

Last month brought us the annual SCBWI-LA Writers Day. Quite a few attendees took advantage of assigned one-on-one pitch sessions with the awesome literary agents on faculty. Some pitchers used the opportunity to work on their query letter or aspects of their pitch with the agent in an advisory role while others went all-in with hopes the agent would request their full manuscript – AKA be interested in representing them professionally. Several folks did get a partial or full request and everyone walked away with some great feedback.

After the pitch sessions were over, we asked our agents how things went, what they liked, and what they recommend so you can put their answers in your toolbox for your next pitch!

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Agent Fiona Kenshole on Books Becoming Movies, Traditional vs. Self-Publishing, and Pitching an Agent

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Happy Valentine’s Day! Fiona Kenshole wants to be your Valentine. Her love letter to you: this fantastic interview!

Fiona Kenshole loves the midwifery of being an agent, from getting your debut published to doing the movie deal. At Transatlantic, they like to sell your book to publishers all over the world, so Fiona works with co-agents in 28 countries, selling worldwide rights. Before becoming an agent, she was a publisher in the UK where she worked with best-selling names including Michael Bond (Paddington Bear), P.L Travers (Mary Poppins) and the Laureate Michael Morpurgo. She was also the British editor for authors including Beverley Cleary, Lois Lowry, Richard Peck, Bruce Coville, Gary Paulsen and Cynthia Voigt, and was nominated for “Editor of the Year” at the British Book Awards. She was also the Vice President at Laika Inc. when their first three films were all Oscar nominated: The Boxtrolls, Coraline, and Paranorman. And she will be bringing all this experience and insight into kid lit and storytelling when she appears as a faculty member at this year’s SCBWI Los Angeles Writers Day, taking place on March 3^rd.

Sarah Parker-Lee: How has working as an editor, filmmaker, and publisher influenced your approach as an agent, both on the client side and on the selling side?

FIONA KENSHOLE: The opportunity to work on so many different sides of the storytelling process just increases my respect for writers. It really is an extraordinary gift, to be able to create people and worlds that can feel more real than our everyday lives. My job, whether as an editor, a film executive or as an agent, is to help that writer in their creative process so that the story they tell is the best it can be. I’m often the first person that a story is entrusted to. I can see the places where the writer is too close to a story to see what is missing, for example, and as a professional with many years’ experience, I offer gentle, supportive practical criticism. I spent several hours this week reviewing a new manuscript I am really excited about, by one of my clients, and she came back to say, “All of the structural weakness of the book that you identified are ones that I already knew were there”.​

​That made me feel good: I am doing my job right!

As for the selling side, without being immodest, I am a brilliant story pitcher! It’s the result of my years of pitching to tough executives [at] Hollywood studios who don’t move a muscle. I went out with a pitch for a debut last month and got 20 requests to read from editors within a day! 

SPL: Should writers be concerned about whether or not their book will make a great movie when they’re writing it? If the ultimate goal is to make a movie, do you need to write the book first?

Agent Deborah Warren on Character-Driven Stories and Making the Most of Your Writers Day Pitch Session

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Deborah Warren is the founder of East/West Literary Agency, which represents new and established authors and illustrators of picture books, middle grade, and young adult novels. Clients include Kwame Alexander, author of the Newbury Award-winning The Crossover, James Dean and Kimberly Dean of the Pete the Cat series, and Antoinette Portis, author and illustrator of books including Now, and Best Frints in the Whole Universe.

Deborah is a faculty member for Writers Day on March 3 in Los Angeles.  She talks to us about her agency, what makes a strong manuscript, and the Writers Day pitch sessions.

Erlina Vasconcellos: How did you get into the publishing business and what keeps you here? 

Deborah Warren: I started East/West Literary in 2000, but my career in publishing really began in 1980 at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), in San Diego. When I left, I was VP/Director of Sales, and I credit those years for being the best training ground ever. You see, we’re committed to the business of selling. And understanding the in-depth process of acquisitions, sales, and marketing helps the E/W team attain the stated goals for each of the agency’s clients: to close the best possible deal with the best possible editor at the best possible publishing house. What keeps me in the industry? The like-minded souls in children’s publishing, the fabulously talented authors, illustrators, and editors whose main goal is to create books that are both windows and mirrors for today’s young readers. We need these books more than ever!

EV: You have said that you look for character-driven stories. Anyone who has tried to craft one knows that’s not easy to pull off. When authors/illustrators fail to deliver on character in a manuscript, what’s usually missing?

Agent, Editor, & Author Kari Sutherland On First Lines, Revisions, & Representation

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Agent and author Kari Sutherland joins this year’s LA SCBWI Working Writer’s Retreat faculty. She was a Senior Editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books before joining the Bradford Literary Agency in 2017 and she co-writes the middle grade Menagerie series with her sister, Tui Sutherland. She’s worked with bestselling and critically acclaimed authors on projects such as the #1 New York Times bestselling Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard and the #1 New York Times bestselling Pretty Little Liars series by Sara Shepard. Needless to say, she knows a thing or ten or about writing, editing, and publishing books, and she’s here to share some of that knowledge with us!

Sarah Parker-Lee: You graduated from Williams College with a B.A. in English and Psychology. Why do you consider this the perfect combination for working with authors on character and plot development?

Kari Sutherland: I’d say both fields help me pinpoint when a character is behaving in a way that isn’t authentic or in a way that may produce a reaction in readers that the author is not intending. Having studied the way minds work, it gives me insight into personality and character growth. With my English studies, I know how to catch and keep a reader’s attention through voice, sentence structure, and plotting. Psychology classes also prepared me to be an excellent listener and to help coax out what a person really wants to say – in this case, through their manuscripts.

SPL: Your Bradford Lit bio says you’re passionate about helping to polish each manuscript and equip your clients for success. What does that entail?

Clelia Gore: Agent’s Perspective, 2017 Writers & Illustrators Day Faculty

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Clelia Gore is a lawyer-turned-literary-agent who heads Martin Literary Management’s kid lit division. She represents authors and illustrators in both fiction and nonfiction, from board books to young adult.

As faculty for SCBWI’s upcoming Writers & Illustrator’s Day, she will lead a session titled “The Interplay Between Art and Text in Picture Books.” She also will critique manuscripts and will be an illustration contest judge.

Erlina Vasconcellos: What do you want participants to take away from your breakout session at Writers & Illustrators Day?

Clelia Gore: I get two kinds of picture book queries: author/illustrators and authors only. For people who are authors only, they sometimes need a little help seeing how the art and writing can work together to tell the story. A lot of picture book writers who are early in their careers don’t understand how the two forms of art interplay in telling the story.

For authors who are illustrators, it’s honing in on things to think about when crafting their story…Hopefully people will leave inspired and it will lead to thoughtfully crafted books.

EV: What question are you asked often?

Bridget Smith: Agent’s Perspective

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Bridget Smith is more than an agent at Dunham Literary, Inc. She also studied anthropology and archaeology, worked as a radio DJ, fenced on the varsity team at Brown University, and helped design an experiment that she later performed in microgravity at NASA. So, she’s kind of awesome and you want her to represent your books.

Read on for Bridget’s insights into the kid lit community, how to include diversity in your books, and what happens after you get a full manuscript request.

Michelle Zeitlin and Jane Cowen Hamilton: Agent Perspective

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I sat down with agents Michelle Zeitlin and Jane Cowen Hamilton of More Zap Productions and Management to talk about their new literary division, discuss why an author must know their brand, and how children’s literature fits into their multi-media, and currently acquiring, agency. I was curious how an agency that represents dancers, directors, and other specialty talent got into the literary world and what their unique platform had to offer. Turns out, a lot.

Agent Jamie Weiss Chilton talks about SCBWI’s Writers’ Retreat

SCBWI’s interview with agent Jamie Weiss Chilton is filled with industry insight.

CHRISTINE VAN ZANDT: What is an agent’s role at the SCBWI Writers’ Retreat?

JAMIE WEISS CHILTON: Each faculty member at the retreat facilitated several workshop groups (five writers per group). The writers read aloud from a work-in-progress and received feedback on those pages. I was so impressed by the participants’ openness to feedback, and I could see the revision process beginning during the group’s discussions. I enjoy giving feedback and especially love the great group discussions that develop during these workshop sessions. The revisions I heard on the last day, during the First Pages read-aloud session, were fantastic. Writers give each other great advice—it’s evident to me of what a great critique group can do for authors and illustrators, which leads me to your next question . . .

Agent’s Perspective: A spotlight on three agents at the SCBWI Summer Conference By Clare Di Liscia Baird and Beth Navarro

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The 2015 SCBWI Summer conference had an impressive line-up of agents including Alexandra Penfold, Barry Goldblatt and Brenda Bowen. There is a good amount of information out there answering questions about how to get an agent and how to write a fabulous (the ever elusive and tricky) query letter, but much less talked about is what happens once an agent’s interest is piqued. We wanted insider information on how these top of the line agents work with potential clients. They were kind enough to take time out of their busy conference schedules to talk with us.