Literary agent Anna Olswanger seeks picture books and graphic novels

Beth and Cloud Won't Change by Ciara Gavin,
represented by Olswanger Literary 

Olswanger Literary 

New York, New York

https://www.olswanger.com/

Anna Olswanger has been a literary agent since 2005. She started her career at Liza Dawson Associates in Manhattan and in 2014 launched her own literary agency, Olswanger Literary LLC. Olswanger Literary currently has eight agents, represents everything from children’s picture books to adult fiction and nonfiction. Currently, though, only Anna is accepting submissions.

Anna represents a wide variety of genres, but is currently focused on illustrated books (picture books and graphic novels). She is a member of the Association of American Literary Agents. She’s also an author herself.  Her most recent book is the graphic novel, A Visit to Moscow (see here).

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Anna has sold to major publishers, including Bloomsbury, Chronicle, HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster. And her clients’ books have won numerous prestigious awards and topped bestsellers lists.

Anna Olswanger

Through her work as an agent of children's books, Anna has developed a special interest in animal advocacy. She is the agent for Jill Robinson and Marc Bekoff's Jasper's Story: Saving Moonbears, the story of a moon bear held captive in a cage by bear farmers in rural China until rescued by Animals Asia, the organization that Jill founded, and Alan Rabinowitz's A Boy and a Jaguar, the story of a boy who fulfills his promise to speak for animals who cannot speak for themselves.

Anna is also interested in finding unusual books with a Judaic or Israel theme. She is the agent for Ruchama Feuerman’s novel In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist, about the friendship between a rabbi’s assistant and a devout Muslim janitor, and Santiago Cohen’s picture book The Yiddish Fish, about a fish who speaks Yiddish.

Anna would like to represent more author-illustrators of color.

Anna works hard with authors to get their manuscripts into shape for submission. She finds that most manuscripts need work on plot, so if you're a potential author-illustrator client, be ready to go through many revisions before Anna agrees to send out your manuscript. Her job is to get the story to the point where an editor will make an offer. (And then be prepared to make more revisions for the editor.)

Query Anna at: anna@olswangerliterary.com

Include a few details about your book and the opening pages in a Word or PDF attachment. If Anna likes what she sees, she'll ask to see the full manuscript. For author-illustrators, send a PDF attachment with your text and art.

See all upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and weekend retreats here. 

Navigation tips: For more literary agents looking for authors see here (and scroll down). If you’re looking specifically for Canadian agents, see here (and scroll down). And if you're searching for a literary agent who represents a particular type of book, check out this post.