2025 Washington Writers Conference Literary Agents

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Ritu Anand of D4EO Literary Agency has been a passionate storyteller since childhood. Caught and admonished for writing — under her desk — during a math class, she recalls being highly inconvenienced. Inspiration had struck from within, and there was little else she could have done to curtail it. Today, Ritu is the award-winning author of Kara’s Dreams, a picture book about being resilient in the face of adversity. Her interests include kidlit (picture books, middle grade, and YA), literary fiction (drama, fairytales, and stories in verse), general fiction (women’s, drama, humor, satire, realistic, and tragedy), and historical fiction (women’s, fantasy, and romantic). Diverse and underrepresented voices are encouraged to submit. She’d love to be pitched the next Where the Wild Things Are. DO NOT pitch her sci-fi, paranormal, or erotica. (Instagram: @Rituwrites4kids)

Penelope Burns came to Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents as an intern in 2012, after graduating from Colgate University and attending the Denver Publishing Institute. She became a full-time agent in late 2015 after working briefly at a book-to-film scouting agency. She considers herself a “generalist,” representing an eclectic variety of literary and commercial fiction in adult, YA, and middle grade, as well as some narrative nonfiction. She’s always looking for an engaging voice. She’d like to be pitched the next Mr. Robot — “basically, something with the kind of twists that make me sit up and gasp in shock.” DO NOT pitch her military thrillers, police procedurals, or picture books.

Marisa A. Corvisiero is the founder of — and senior literary agent at — the Corvisiero Literary Agency. She is also an author coach, literary consultant, speaker, author, and attorney with more than 25 years of experience in corporate law and trusts & estates. She holds a JD from the Pace University School of Law, with a focus on corporate and international law. She also received a Bachelor’s degree in business administration from Hofstra. She has attended over 100 conferences and workshops and continues to present on webinars, tutorials, and bootcamps for Writer’s Digest and other reputable sources, as well as hosting her own Author Preneur Workshops, where she teaches and coaches authors on writing, mindset, and publishing as a business. Read her manuscript wish list here.

Arielle Datz of Dunow, Carlson, & Lerner is seeking mostly adult (and some YA) literary and commercial fiction that features unusual stories and voices. In nonfiction, she is looking for essays, unconventional memoir, pop culture, and sociology, with a focus on underrepresented voices. Read her manuscript wish list here.

Sorche Elizabeth Fairbank established Fairbank Literary Representation in 2002. Since then, she has had the pleasure of working with a dynamic and varied client list, representing bestselling authors, award-winning journalists, artists, and illustrators, television and YouTube stars, and, of course, one of her favorite kinds of client: the debut author. Her authors are found with all the major publishers, as well as in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, the New Yorker, Tin House, Glimmer Train, the Best American series, Pushcart Prize, Granta, Smithsonian, McSweeney’s, Narrative, One Story, and many more. Sorche’s tastes in novels tend toward literary fiction, international voices, and voice-y novels with a strong sense of place. On the nonfiction side, books that tackle current events and topical and societal issues with a narrative treatment. She has a strong interest in women’s voices and class and race issues, quality lifestyle books (food, craft, design), and the occasional memoir, providing it goes beyond the “me-moir.” Sorche reps a few wildly successful children’s books and is eager for more submissions from illustrator-authors only. She is one of the leading agents of humor, pop culture, and gift books. She and her co-agents work closely to maximize clients’ ancillary rights, including film and television, merchandising, and translation rights. Sorche is a longstanding member of the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA, formerly known as AAR), as well as Sisters in Crime, PEN, and the Agents Round Table, and is on the Literary Council of Grub Street.

Sam Farkas, a South Jersey native, earned a B.A. in history and English from the College of William & Mary before moving to New York City to intern with Maria B. Campbell Associates. Later, she worked in the rights division at Penguin, where she was involved in major international publishing events for authors like John Green. She’s been at Jill Grinberg Literary Management since 2018 and, an avid traveler, has also been to four continents. Read her manuscript wish list here.

Jennie Goloboy joined the Donald Maass Literary Agency in 2017 after six years at a Twin Cities-based literary agency. She has a Ph.D. in the history of American civilization from Harvard and published a book based on her dissertation, “Charleston and the Emergence of Middle-Class Culture in the Revolutionary Era,” in 2016. Her novel, Obviously Aliens, was published by Queen of Swords Press in 2021. Says Jennie, “I’m a big fan of fantasy novels with a historical setting — the more researched, the better!” DO NOT pitch her historical novels or memoir. (X: @jenniegoloboy)

Barbara Jones of Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency worked for many years as an editor at magazines like Real Simple and Vogue before moving into books. A onetime editorial director at Hyperion and executive editor at Henry Holt, she represents literary and upmarket fiction and nonfiction at SKLA, where she especially seeks out voices from underrepresented communities. She’d love to be pitched the next Wedding People, Clear (by Carys Davies), Say Nothing, Salvage the Bones, Never Let Me Go, or Fire Weather. DO NOT pitch her romance, fantasy, graphic novels, thrillers, or mysteries.

Linda Konner of the Linda Konner Literary Agency has been in the publishing business for over 30 years as an agent, author, editor, columnist, and lecturer. She has served as editor-in-chief of Weight Watchers Magazine and Richard Simmons’ monthly newsletter, Richard Simmons & Friends, and was a features editor at Redbook, Seventeen, and Woman’s World. She was a columnist for Glamour and Fitness magazines, and her articles have appeared in dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Playboy, the N.Y. Daily News, Cosmopolitan, TV Guide, and Woman’s Day. Her controversial piece for New Woman magazine, “Living Apart and Loving It,” became the basis for “Donahue” and “Sally Jessy Raphael” shows. Konner has lectured on book and magazine publishing at more than four dozen writers’ conferences and colleges, including New York University, the Willamette Writers’ Conference (Portland, Oregon), the Cape Cod Writers’ Conference, Brooklyn College, the BlissDom bloggers’ conference, and the University of Wisconsin (River Falls). Konner is a member of the Association of Authors’ Representatives, the Authors Guild, and the American Society of Journalists and Authors. She seeks book projects in the following categories: heath, relationships, diet, fitness, parenting, popular psychology, addiction, women’s issues, business how-to, personal finance, and popular science. She’d love to be pitched the next The Psychology of Money. DO NOT pitch her children’s, fiction, or religion.

Lizz Nagle is a senior agent at Victress Literary. She used to read books while walking to school as a kid and got lost in stories at the Allentown Public Library. She then stayed local, graduating from Cedar Crest College in May of 2009, where she studied English with a creative-writing concentration and picked up another communication major along the way. After graduating college, mothering, office managing for a chiropractor, substitute teaching for the Allentown School District, working construction for a little while, and writing for fun herself, Lizz began her agenting career in 2019 at Victress Literary under the mentorship of Victress founder Shannon Orso. She immediately began seeking out layered, character-driven stories with social relevance that challenge stereotypes, soften hearts, and spread hope with a message of resilience. With a client list including but not limited to young adult, women’s fiction, horror, and fantasy titles, Lizz thrives in a creative atmosphere working on a wide variety of books that mash up genres and are propelled by characters. As an agent, she values communication, community, and collaboration. When not reading, writing, painting, practicing guitar, traveling, or at a concert, she might be found on a hiking trail or with her menagerie of kids and rescue animals. (X: @VictressLizz; Instagram: @VictressLizz)

Rita Rosenkranz of the Rita Rosenkranz Literary Agency founded her boutique agency in 1990 after working as an editor and interacting with agents at major publishing houses, including Random House, Scribner Books, and Outlet, a division of Crown. “I was attracted to their autonomy and appreciated the freedom to be productive on my terms,” she says. Working with nonfiction only, Rosenkranz represents biography, business, cooking, health, history, how-to, humor, illustrated books, music, parenting, popular reference, popular science, spirituality, sports, writing, and general-interest titles.epresents all areas of adult nonfiction. DO NOT pitch her anything other than adult nonfiction. (X: @litage)

John Rudolph joined Dystel, Goderich & Bourret LLC in 2010 after 12 years as an acquiring children’s book editor. He began his career at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers as an editorial assistant and then moved to the G.P. Putnam’s Sons imprint of the Penguin Young Readers Group, where he eventually served as executive editor on a wide range of young adult, middle-grade, nonfiction, and picture-book titles. He graduated from Amherst College with a double major in Classics and music. While John’s list started out as mostly children’s books, it has evolved to the point where it is now half adult, half children’s authors — and he’s looking to maintain that balance. On the children’s side, John is keenly interested in middle-grade and YA fiction and would love to find the next great picture book author/illustrator. For adults, he is actively looking for narrative nonfiction, especially in music, sports, history, popular science, “big think,” performing arts, health, business, memoir, military history, and humor. He is also interested in commercial fiction but is very selective in what he takes on.

Katharine Sands of the Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency has worked with a varied list of authors who publish a diverse array of books. She is the agent provocateur of Making the Perfect Pitch: How to Catch a Literary Agent’s Eye, a collection of pitching wisdom from leading literary agents. Actively building her client list, she likes books that have a clear benefit for readers’ lives in categories of food, travel, lifestyle, home arts, beauty, wisdom, relationships, parenting, and fresh looks (which might be at issues, life challenges, or popular culture). When reading fiction, she wants to be compelled and propelled by urgent storytelling and hooked by characters. For memoir and femoir, she likes to be transported to a world rarely or newly observed.

Dani Segelbaum of Arc Literary Management grew up in Minneapolis and interned at Marie Claire while a student at Boston University. A lifelong reader, she represents a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction for adults and children and works with bestselling writers and debut authors alike. In nonfiction, she’s “particularly drawn to books in the areas of women’s issues, popular culture, illustrated/photography, history, politics, self-help, and current events.” And in fiction, she’s on the hunt for “contemporary and upmarket adult fiction, historical fiction, rom-coms, and women’s fiction.” She especially hopes to see writing that’s “voice-driven, highly transporting, and features unique perspectives and marginalized voices.” She’d love to be pitched the next great women’s fiction, upmarket, or rom-com novel! DO NOT pitch her sci-fi, thrillers, or fantasy.

Max Sinsheimer launched Sinsheimer Literary in the fall of 2016 after nearly seven years as an editor at Oxford University Press. He represents exclusively adult nonfiction across a range of genres, but with a particular interest in food and culture, history, popular science, and social issues. As a former academic editor, he welcomes scholarly works that he think can reach a crossover trade market. For instance, a few food studies and “issues” books he’s represented include Marion Nestle’s Unsavory Truth (Basic Books), Michael Jacobson’s Salt Wars (MIT Press), and Catherine Donnelly’s Ending the War on Artisan Cheese (Chelsea Green). He’d love to take on more popular science, particularly where there is a personal narrative woven in. He’s also keen to represent environmental and social-issue books, having worked on Disposable City (Nation Books), about Miami’s existential sea-level-rise crisis, and If I Don’t Make It, I Love You (Skyhorse), an anthology of narratives from school-shooting survivors. He’s not afraid to take on difficult, depressing topics, but he does expect the writer to leave the reader with something hopeful to cling to. Really, though, he has eclectic tastes and wants to see more pitches in his inbox. So, if you have an exceptional nonfiction manuscript (or even just a complete proposal and sample chapter), he wants to see it! He’d love to be pitched the next Cobalt Red, Madhouse at the End of the Earth, Why Fish Don’t Exist, or Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. DO NOT pitch him diet books, wellness, self-help, or spirituality. “I’m much more on the narrative than the prescriptive end of things!” (X: @SinsheimerLit; Instagram: @msin10)

Christina Zobel, the Subsidiary Rights Associate at JABberwocky Literary, worked at Harlequin Books before becoming an agent and has a soft spot for fantasy and romance of any kind, with an emphasis on sapphic stories and fairytale retellings. Beyond her literary interests, she’s an avid fan of videogames, can be found laughing or crying at the latest episodes of “Critical Role,” and plays a truly absurd amount of TTRPGs (who doesn’t love adventures with friends?).

Questions about agents? Contact [email protected].