4 agents at Bradford literary seek adult fiction & nonfiction, plus kid lit – picture books to YA

Gravemaidens by Kelly Coon
represented by Bradford literary

Bradford Literary Agency

5694 Mission Center Rd. #347
San Diego, CA 92108

http://www.bradfordlit.com/

Don't ever miss a post on Quick Brown Fox. Fill in your email in the box to the right under my bio, and get each post delivered to your Inbox. Also, if you’re not yet on my newsletter, send me an email, including your locale to: brianhenry@sympatico.ca  ~Brian  

Bradford Literary was founded in 2001 by Laura Bradford. It represents books for adults and for children, fiction and nonfiction. Four of the five editors are generally accepting queries.

Katherine Wessbecher is the newest member of the team She joined the Bradford Literary in January 2020. Like all new agents, Katherine needs authors.

Prior to becoming an agent, Katherine edited children’s and young adult books at Putnam, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers, and was the science and technology editor at an academic book review journal. She holds a B.A. in English from the College of William and Mary.

As an editor, Katherine worked with debut and veteran authors, including Sherri L. Smith, Stacey Lee, Keir Graff, Jeff Seymour, and Eliot Sappingfield. She brings to her work a nuanced understanding of the publishing industry and a practiced editorial eye.

Katherine is looking for children’s books (picture books through YA), upmarket adult fiction, and narrative nonfiction for all ages.

In MG and YA, historical fiction and fantasy have been favorites since she was young. But more than genre, she’s looking for the kinds of stories that transport her: to the past, an imagined world, or a perspective wholly different from her own. She’s drawn to stories that push readers to question their assumptions of the world. She’s interested in humorous voices; she’s also a fan of epistolary novels and other unexpected storytelling techniques, like Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff’s Illuminae Files series or Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer.

Her favorite picture books are the kind that make both kids and grown-ups laugh. Inventive premises, twist endings, and quirky characters are all good ways to pique her interest.

Katherine is looking for upmarket adult fiction that straddles the literary and commercial divide. Books that inspire her list run the gamut from Where’d You Go, Bernadette to Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing. She loves unexpected takes on familiar stories and flawed yet endearing characters. Katherine is actively seeking adult and juvenile narrative nonfiction—particularly projects that highlight stories the history textbooks left out. In the same vein, she’d love to work with nonfiction graphic novel projects like John Hendrix’s The Faithful Spy.

Query Katherine using the online form here.

For more information on querying her, see below.

Laura Bradford, founder of the Bradford agency, considers herself an editorial-focused agent and takes a hands-on approach to developing proposals and manuscripts with her authors for the most appropriate markets. During her own misadventures as a writer, Laura came to understand the importance of having a friendly but critical eye on your side, a career strategist in your corner and a guide who can lead you through the travails of publication.

Her recent sales include books placed with Penguin Random House, Grand Central, Harlequin, Kensington, Simon and Schuster, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Sourcebooks, Hyperion, and many others.

Laura continues to actively build her client list and is currently seeking work in the following categories: Romance (historical, romantic suspense, category, contemporary, erotic), speculative fiction, women’s fiction, mystery, thrillers, young adult, upper middle grade, illustration as well as some select non-fiction.

Query Laura at: queries@bradfordlit.com

For more information on querying her, see below.

Jennifer Chen Tran joined Bradford Literary in September 2017. She represents both fiction and nonfiction. Prior to joining Bradford Literary, she was an Associate Agent at Fuse Literary and served as Counsel at The New Press. She obtained her Juris Doctor from Northeastern School of Law in Boston, MA, and a Bachelors of Arts in English Literature from Washington University in St. Louis.

Jennifer understands the importance of negotiation in securing rights on behalf of her authors. She counsels her clients on how to expand their platforms, improve on craft, and works collaboratively with her clients throughout the editorial and publication process. Her ultimate goal is to work in concert with authors to shape books that will have a positive social impact on the world – books that also inform and entertain.

Select titles that Jennifer has represented: THE MODERN CARAVAN by Kate Oliver (Chronicle Books); THE SHARP END OF LIFE by Dierdre Wolownick (Mountaineers Books); THE PEACHED TORTILLA COOKBOOK by Eric Silverstein (Sterling Epicure); THE ART OF ESCAPING by Erin Callahan (Amberjack); A CROWDFUNDER’S STRATEGY GUIDE by Jamey Stegmaier (Berrett-Koehler).

As a person of color and second-generation daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, Jennifer is very interested in diverse writers and #ownvoices from underrepresented / marginalized communities.

As a former art major, Jennifer is also eager to grow her list of illustrators and actively looking for graphic novel projects, in both MG and YA. She believes that visual literacy is increasingly important in our interconnected world and that graphic novels help reluctant readers become voracious readers.

In adult fiction, she also wants to see strong and conflicted characters who are not afraid to take emotional risks, stories about multi-generational conflict, war and post-war fiction, and writing with a developed sense of place. 

Basically, surprise her!

In nonfiction, she loves books that broaden her perspective on a variety of topics, but that also dive deep into worlds unseen. Books like EVICTED by Matthew Desmond and MAID by Stephanie Land are examples of the type of non-fiction she is looking for. Additionally, Jennifer is always interested in cooking, lifestyle, health, parenting, and business titles that present the author’s expertise and are instructive without being pedantic. Teach her something new and you will pique her interest!

In short, Jennifer is looking for:

Fiction: Women’s Fiction (Contemporary, Upmarket, Literary); Select Young Adult (must have distinct voice); Select Middle Grade; Graphic novels and visually-driven projects

Nonfiction, particularly in the areas of: Narrative non-fiction (biography, current affairs, medical, investigative journalism, history, how-to, music, pop-culture, travel); Cookbooks & culinary projects; Lifestyle (creative life, home, design, beauty, fashion); Business Books (social entrepreneurship, female and/or minority-led businesses, and innovation); Health (especially focused on diet, prevention, and exercise); Parenting; Relationships and Psychology; Mind, body, spirit

Query Jennifer using the online form here.

For more information on querying her, see below.

Kari Sutherland joined the Bradford Literary Agency in 2017 after a decade of experience in publishing from the editorial side. Previously a Senior Editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books, she has 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.

Kari graduated from Williams College with a B.A. in English and Psychology, which she considers the perfect combination for working with authors on character and plot development. With her editorial insight and experience with the entire publishing process, Kari is passionate about helping to polish each manuscript and equip her clients for success.

Open to genres from picture books through adult, Kari is most interested in finding stories full of heart; ones that carry readers to faraway places or deep into a character’s mind; action-packed page-turners that surprise her; dark dramas with touches of humor; and, above all, a voice that leaps off the page. She is actively seeking diverse voices across all genres.

In children’s books, Kari is interested in character-driven stories, new twists on classic tales, empowering themes, epic fantasy, fresh voices and experiences, inventive mysteries, humor, and magical realism.

In YA, which is near and dear to her heart, Kari is drawn to compelling voices, tight pacing, and clear world-building regardless of whether it’s a space drama, an underground dystopia, a small town, or a big city contemporary. She is open to any genre within YA.

Yasmin the Writer by Saadia Faruqi
represented by Kari Sutherland

Kari is interested in adult fiction including general fiction; upmarket women’s fiction; intergenerational tales; magical realism; historical dramas; and light-hearted contemporary fiction.

A firm believer that truth can be stranger than fiction, Kari is seeking nonfiction in the following categories: quirky topics; history and biography; pop science and psychology; humor; and parenting. Most important to her are a concrete platform, an engaging voice, and well-researched material that will broaden readers’ understanding of themselves, the past, and the world around them.

Kari is not seeking: horror, romance, erotica, memoir, adult sci-fi/fantasy, thrillers, cookbooks, business, spiritual/religious, poetry, or screenplays.

Kari is temporarily closed to queries, but will begin accepting them again after January 20, 2020. After January 20, Query Kari using the online form here.

For more information on querying her, see below.

For querying all agents at the Bradford agency:

For fiction, paste your first chapter and a synopsis into the body of your email.

For picture books, include the entire manuscript in your submission and feel free to submit 2 – 3 PB manuscripts at once. Writer/illustrators or artists seeking representation for their artwork should include a link to your online portfolio and a link to your online dummy. Do not attach artwork to submission.

For nonfiction, include a full proposal and a sample chapter.

Full submission guidelines here.

Literary agent Martha Webb

If you’re interested in getting published, now or sometime in the future, don’t miss our upcoming How to Get Published  workshop with literary agent Martha Webb of the CookeMcDermid agency, Saturday, April 25, 2020, in Guelph. (see here).

In the meanwhile, starting this month, a full range of weekly courses is on offer:

Burlington: Exploring Creative Writing, Thursday afternoons, Jan 23 – March 19. Details here.

Oakville: Writing Personal Stories, Thursday evenings, Jan 23 – March 19. Details here.

Burlington: Next Step in Creative Writing, Tuesday afternoons, Jan 21 – March 31. Details here.

Burlington: Intensive Creative Writing, Wednesday evenings , Jan 15 – March 11. Details here.

Toronto: Intensive Creative Writing, Friday mornings, Jan 17 – March 13. Details here.

    See details of all winter courses here. To reserve a spot, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

A full range of courses will also be offered in the spring:

Author Sylvia McNicoll will be one of the
guest speakers for the Kid Lit coursethis spring

Burlington: Next Step in Creative Writing,  Tuesday afternoons, April 14 – June 23. No class June 9. For details, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Georgetown: Intensive Creative Writing,  Wednesday evenings, March 25 – June 24. No class April 8. For details, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Burlington: Writing Kid Lit, Thursday afternoons, April 23 – June 25. No class June 4. For details, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Oakville: Welcome to Creative Writing, Thursday evenings, April 16 – June 25. No class June 4. For details, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Toronto: Intensive Creative Writing, Friday mornings, March 27 – June 26. No class June 5. For details, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Toronto: Welcome to Creative Writing, April 10 – June 19. No class June 5. For details, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Also check out Writing Conflict: Fight scenes, Dialogue scenes & Love scenes, Saturday, Jan 18, in Oakville (see here), Raising the Stakes: How to Increase Your Story's tension, Saturday, Jan 25, in Toronto (see here) and Saturday, Feb 22, in Kitchener (see here), and Writing & Revising, Saturday, Feb 29, in Mississauga (see here).

 

Jumping off the dock at Arowhon Pines Resort in Algonquin Park

Plus …

Algonquin Writing Retreat, Friday, June 5 – Monday, June 8, 2020. Four days of luxury and writing at Arowhon Pines Resort in Algonquin Park – one of most beautiful spots in Ontario. This is the area that inspired the Group of Seven; come and let it inspire you, too. Still  room. Details here.

Windsor International Writers Festival, Friday, July 10 – Sunday, July 12. Brian will lead a Round Table critiquing your opening pages on Friday morning, will give a talk about writing query letters, and will meet attendees one-on-one to help them write a query that will get a yes. Details here. More details of the conference here.

Southampton Arts Centre School: Join me in cottage country for a weekend of workshops this summer – How to Build Your Story, Saturday, July 25 {details to come} and How to Write Great Characters, Sunday, July 26 {details to come}.

To reserve a spot in any upcoming weekly course, weekend retreat, or Saturday workshop, email Brian at: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Read reviews of Brian’s courses, retreats, and workshops here.

See Brian’s full schedule here, including writing workshops, weekly writing classes, and weekend retreats in, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Collingwood, Georgetown, Georgina, Guelph, Hamilton, Jackson’s Point, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Southampton, Sudbury, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Navigation tips: Always check out the Labels underneath a post; they’ll lead you to various distinct collections of postings. If you're searching for more interviews with literary agents or a literary agent who represents a particular type of book, check out this post. 

New dates: Exploring Creative Writing class, Thursday afternoons, Jan 30 – March 26, in Burlington

Exploring Creative Writing

9 weeks of discovering your creative side

Thursday afternoons, 12:45  – 2:45 p.m.

New: January 30 – March 26, 2020
{Changed from: Jan 23 – March 19}

St. Elizabeth's Anglican Church, 5324 Bromley Road  Burlington, Ontario (Map here.)

Note: Writing Personal Stories, Next Step in Creative Writing, and Intensive Creative Writing classes are also start in January. Details of all courses here.

This is your chance to take up writing in a warm, supportive environment. We’ll explore writing short stories and writing dialogue, writing in first person and writing in third person, writing technique and getting creative, crafting your very best writing and just for fun writing. 

You’ll get a shot of inspiration every week and an assignment to keep you going till the next class. Best of all, this class will provide a zero-pressure, totally safe setting, where your words will grow and flower.

Instructor Brian Henry has been a book editor and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He publishes Quick Brown Fox, Canada's most popular blog for writers, teaches creative writing at Ryerson University and has led workshops everywhere from Boston to Buffalo and from Sarnia to Saint John. But his proudest boast is that he’s has helped many of his students get published. 

Read a review of Brian's various courses and workshops here (and scroll down).

Fee:  $167.26 plus 13% hst = $189

To reserve your spot, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

See Brian’s complete current schedule here, including writing workshops, weekly writing classes, and weekend retreats in, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Collingwood, Cambridge, Georgetown, Georgina, Guelph, Hamilton, Jackson’s Point, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Saint John, NB, Sudbury, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

"On cultural appropriation, some answers for worried writers" by Brian Henry

The identities of most of the people in this photo are unknown, but the little girl on the far left was Hanka Lamet.
She perished in the gas chambers at Majdanek 

I'm reposting this piece, because there's been some interest in my take on the topic of late.  ~Brian

I meet many writers these days who dread that they might be accused of “cultural appropriation.” Are they allowed to write about Indigenous characters if they’re not Indigenous; black characters if they’re not black?

As I’ve often said, writers are allowed to do whatever they want; it’s a perk of the job. Indeed, writers are obliged to write what they want, even if it pisses people off; it’s a responsibility of the job.

I do get the indignation over cultural appropriation. Currently, I’m seeing endless memes comparing the Trump administration’s separation of children at the American-Mexican border to the Holocaust. This is an appalling comparison. The Nazis killed 1.5 million Jewish children. American immigration control has murdered none. As Amy Rosenthal points out on Facebook:

Children being separated from their parents at the US border is horrible and disgusting and anyone reasonable would oppose this practice 100%.

So, too, is comparing this solitary act (and everything wrong or immoral) to the Holocaust. Here is a short but by no means exhaustive list of terrible things Jewish children endured in concentration and extermination camps during WWII:

Starvation

Summary execution

Rape

Disease (typhus, dysentery, etc)

Medical experimentation

Severe beatings

Slave labor

Burying dead bodies

Digging *their own grave* before being shot and thrown in

Stop appropriating one of the worst things that ever happened to the Jews to suit you. You people will try and take anything from us, including our tragedies.

I agree with Amy on almost everything here, particularly her disgust at the Holocaust being used to score political points – I agree with everything, except the term “appropriation.”

Novelist Lionel Shriver

For Jews, the Holocaust was a unique and overwhelming catastrophe. But Jews don’t own this catastrophe. The Holocaust was an historical event, not property. So while people regularly trivialize the Holocaust and they make ridiculous comparisons to it so often that it’s become a law of online discussions, people cannot actually appropriate the Holocaust.

Similarly, no one owns any bit of history, whether it’s the residential school system in Canada or the history of slavery, segregation and prejudice in the U.S.

By all means, Indigenous people and black people and all sorts of people should write from their own perspectives. However, this doesn’t mean anyone else should stop writing or should try not to stray outside their own narrow cultures. As Lionel Shriver points out (here), if we follow that logic, we’ll all end up writing autobiography.

Just as it’s nonsense to talk about some people owning a bit of history, it’s just as nonsensical to talk of people owning any aspect of a culture. If Koreans own Korean food, who should I apply to for permission to try my hand at making kimchi? Can I just ask a friend or is there a ministry of the North Korean government which handles this sort of thing, and if I make kimchi without permission should they throw me into a labour camp?

The simple fact is that humans imitate each other. The impulse is older than humanity (animals do it, too), and it’s the reason we’re not all standing around in caves naked and grunting at each other. Can you imagine how much appropriation of each other’s utterances it took to get the whole language thing going?

Indeed, without appropriation, we’d each be in a solitary cave, all alone, because this imitation thing is at one with our social nature. It’s not merely that as social animals we imitate each other, but also it’s mutual imitation that binds us together.

Alan Kurdi, child of Syrian refugees, drowned 4 Sept 2015 

Imitation is also adoption; we feel our kinship to one another through our shared cultures. We gather in cafés to shout at the TV because that’s “our” team playing in the World Cup – and it’s “my” team even if I’m cheering for Iceland that day. And when we see a photo of a Syrian toddler washed up dead on the shore of the Mediterranean, we weep, because that child also is ours.

So to be clear: making cultural appropriation a crime is a way of criminalizing our shared humanity.

Yet sometimes when people complain of cultural appropriation they have a legitimate complaint; they’ve just misnamed it. So, for example, it’s wrong to make spurious comparison to the Holocaust because this falsifies history, dishonors the dead, and may cause needless grief to survivors and their descendants.

Speaking more to the point for writers, it’s wrong to write characters who perpetuate negative stereotypes or to write a novel that gets someone’s culture wrong. Not because of “appropriation” but because it’s disrespectful or may even be racist, and it makes for a bad book – or at least a book that’s not as good as it should be.

When writers are dipping into any area they’re not intimately familiar with, they’re always well advised to have a beta reader who is. You’re writing a YA novel? Having a teen reader look over your manuscript is a good idea. You have an Indigenous character? Having an Indigenous beta reader would be a good idea. Even better if your reader comes from the same First Nation or perhaps the same milieu. (If your Indigenous character grew up in Toronto, that urban environment might be more relevant than the specific First Nation your character belongs to.)

Novelist Angie Abdou

That said, writers do need to keep in mind that it’s their novel. “Sensitivity readers” as they’re called can’t become censors. I think the story of Angie Abdou (best known as the author of The Bone Cage) serves as an excellent example of how not to do things.

For her most recent novel, In Case I Go, Abdou hired an Indigenous consultant and rewrote her novel according to his advice, changing it from a ghost story to a story about her character’s relationship with a flesh and blood Indigenous character. 

Then she consulted with the cultural liaison for the First Nation people she was writing about, and following the liaison’s advice, rewrote her novel again, bringing in residential schools. Then Abdou asked the elder council for their okay for her representation of their Nation. Finally, after all this, once her book came out, she was still attacked. 

Jonathan Kay tells the whole sorry tale here.

What lessons might a writer learn from this story? First, perhaps it’s better to use a fictional name for the specific First Nation you’re writing about – just in case. Second, there’s a danger in being overly sensitive. A writer’s job is not to act as some group’s P.R. agent. It’s not your job to write the novel someone else wants to see written. You’ve got to remember it’s your book.

More generally, don’t pay attention to people with an axe to grind. The cry of “cultural appropriation” is a political attack, rooted in a peculiar ideology. Cultural appropriation is a made-up crime and simply has nothing to do with the art of writing.

Brian Henry is an editor, writer, creative writing instructor and the publisher of the Quick Brown Fox blog.

See Brian’s schedule here, including writing workshops, weekly writing classes, and weekend retreats in Algonquin Park, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Collingwood, Cambridge, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Saint John, NB, Sudbury, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

“The Ride” by Nicoletta Korstanje

The air was heavy, suffocating, the humidity enveloping her body with a thick dampness that took her breath away. She considered retreating into the comfort of her air-conditioned home. But stomping and banging noises that came from the second floor stopped her. The heat was a better option.

     In haste, she’d run out of the house without her purse, which meant without her car keys. Her only thought had been to get as far away from the house as possible and walking wouldn’t take her quickly enough. In the yard, her daughter’s bike caught her eye. At first she was annoyed - she'd told her daughter time and time again not to leave it out in the driveway like this - but annoyance quickly subsided as she determined the bike was better than nothing.

     She hopped on the banana seat and pedalled down the driveway. Sweat soaked through her tank top, but something about being on the bike was invigorating. It had been years since her last bike ride, perhaps even since she was her daughter’s age. It surprised her how easily riding the bike came back, a feeling of freedom began to outshine the discomfort of the heat, and she threw her arms out into the air. Tossing her head back, embracing the breeze that it created.

     The stench of the argument that pushed her out the door shed her body allowing a release from the stress that awaited her back in the house. The bills she didn’t know how to pay didn’t matter, the angry stares from her husband couldn’t reach her, and her children tattling on each other didn’t exist. This moment was just for her.

     Hot, humid summer nights like this had always been a secret delight. She’d loved sitting on a patio with a cold drink, the scalding sun long ago set but the heat of the day still hanging in the air. It had been a hot summer just like this one when she had first met her husband. They were both working long hours and most of their dates began after the sun went down. For years after she’d associated every hot summer with falling in love - late night drinks, sneaking onto the beach after dark, swimming under the light of the moon. Their first summer had felt like magic.

     Now that seemed as far away as her last bike ride. Somehow time had worn down the magic between them, and a routine of resentment took precedence. Her newest game had been to pinpoint where things had gone wrong between them. Their ten years together played over and over like a recording stuck in a loop, but the answer never revealed itself 

   Riding along the pavement prompted her to play the tape back further then she usually did, thinking as far back as the little girl she once was riding around her neighbourhood all day. She was adventurous and did things specifically because she had been told not to. Her father calling her his little firecracker. The spark within her faded so slowly, from a passionate young girl to a run-of-the-mill wife and mother, it was as hard to spot the exact moment she lost her passion for life as it was the moment her marriage ceased to fulfil her. 

     Even her marital problems were mundane. There had been no affair, no moment of discovery that shattered the illusion of a happy life. Routines of everyday life had worn down their desires and left them with soccer practices, play dates and date nights that felt more like a weekly check-in about “to-do” lists than a chance for romance.

     If she had thought to grab her purse, she would have hopped in her car and never returned. Running away from it all. But she had forgotten her purse and pedalling along her cul de sac was a reminder of that first summer together. A reminder of the feelings they had once had for each other. It gave her a sense of hope that perhaps they could find their way back to those feelings.

     The pink streamers hanging from the handlebars slapped against her hands as she slammed her foot down on the breaks. Deciding there was still something worth fighting for and deciding that she was still that little girl ready to put up a fight, she turned the bike around and headed towards home.

Nicoletta Korstanje is a writer from Grimsby, Ontario. After obtaining a "practical" career in education she returned to her passion for writing and not taking herself too seriously. She is currently working on a collection of short stories focused on the experiences that shape our relationships with those around us. 

See Brian Henry's schedule here, including writing workshops, weekly writing classes, and weekend retreats in, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Collingwood, Georgetown, Georgina, Guelph, Hamilton, Jackson’s Point, Kingston, Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Southampton, Sudbury, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.