firstwriter.com's database of literary agents includes details of 2,356 English language literary agents and agencies that don't charge reading fees. The database is continually updated: there have been 101 listings added or updated in the last month. With over a dozen different ways to narrow your search you can find the right literary agent for your book, fast.
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Literary agent Brooks Sherman is no longer affiliated with Janklow & Nesbit Associates, where he has worked since 2017. He has also recently been dropped by a number of his clients, most prominently Angie Thomas, whose bestselling YA novel The Hate U Give has been added to school curricula around the country and was made into a film that grossed $35 million at the box office—and whose sale, at auction for a rumored six figures, cemented Sherman as a major player in the children's publishing world.
“We have parted ways,” Thomas told PW yesterday by telephone from her home in Jackson, Miss., confirming that the break took place within the past week. She declined to disclose why she parted ways with Sherman or who initiated the split, but Sherman told PW in an email that Thomas fired him, adding, “It was an honor to have an opportunity to work with her for the past five years.”
The agency Kingsford Campbell is splitting up, after Julia Kingsford and Charlie Campbell decided to separate their activities after seven years of working together.
Kingsford will continue to represent her clients, as Julia Kingsford Ltd, while maintaining her involvement in The Good Literary Agency, which she co-founded with Nikesh Shukla in 2018, as well as her consultancy work for publishers, writers and production companies. She can be found at juliakingsford.com and julia@juliakingsford.com.
A Brighton-based literary agency launches this week, headed by former Curtis Brown editor Rufus Purdy.
Two Piers Literary Agency will represent writers from all over the world and sell their work into the UK, US and international territories.
While at Curtis Brown, Purdy (pictured) worked on Alex Gerlis’ bestselling spy novels The Best of Our Spies, The Swiss Spy and Vienna Spies, and songwriter Chris Difford’s memoir Some Fantastic Place. In 2018, Purdy set up the Write Here novel-writing school, which, until the pandemic, ran affordable novel-writing courses in cities across the UK. The company now runs a £99 online novel-writing course, as well as offering editorial services.
The president of a literary agency based in New York City said Monday on Twitter that one of the agency's employees was terminated after her use of conservative social media sites Parler and Gab was discovered.
Colleen Oefelein, who identified herself on Twitter as an associate literary agent with the Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency, appeared to confirm her termination in a tweet on Monday morning.
"Well thanks Twitter and @JDLitAgency," Oefelein wrote. "I just got fired because I'm a Christian and a conservative."
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In last month's article, Avoiding literary agency scams (fwn 44), we identified the warning signs to watch out for in order to avoid bad agents. In this article I'll be reversing the question and providing tips on how to find good agents.
In 2006, Robert W. Morgan acquired an agent using firstwriter.com's database of literary agencies. Eighteen months on, he's repeated the same success by placing his latest work with another agent, again found through firstwriter.com. We asked him about his writing, and how he found success.
J. B. Bergstad recently acquired an agent using firstwriter.com's database of literary agencies. We asked him about his writing, and how he found success.
Charlie Carroll recently signed a deal with the esteemed Paterson Marsh literary agency, as a result of searching firstwriter.com's database of over 850 literary agents. We asked him about his writing, and how he found success.
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