Betsy Amster is president of Betsy Amster Literary Enterprises, a literary agency in Los Angeles. Before opening her agency in 1992, she spent ten years as an editor at Pantheon and Vintage and two years as editorial director of the Globe Pequot Press. A frequent instructor at The Loft, the acclaimed literary center in Minneapolis, Betsy has also run publishing workshops at Mediabistro, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and UCLA Extension's Writers' Program. In addition, she has been profiled in Poets and Writers, the Los Angeles Times, on the Web del Sol/Algonkian Writer's Workshop website (http://www.webdelsol.com/Algonkian/interview-bamster.htm) and in the ASJA Newsletter (http://www.asja.org/newspub/x0502b.php).

The agency's areas of interest include: Literary fiction, quirky mysteries and thrillers, memoirs, narrative nonfiction, travelogues, social issues, current affairs, psychology, self-help, popular culture, women's issues, history, biography, art & design, business, health and medicine, science and technology, parenting, cooking and nutrition, and gardening. In the children's category we represent picture books and middle grade and young adult novels, including contemporary and historical, humor, mystery, fantasy, and multi-cultural.

The agency works with both first-time and established writers and is known for its expert attention to every aspect of the publishing process.

Rights inquiries: rights@amsterlit.com
Submissions for adult titles: b.amster.assistant@gmail.com (see below for submission requirements)
Submissions for children's and YA titles: b.amster.kidsbooks@gmail.com (see below for submission requirements)

ALL MAJOR PUBLISHERS

Will Allen, Elaine N. Aron, Kim Boyce, Thomas Fields-Meyer, Sandi Ault, Margaret Leslie Davis, Maria Amparo Escandon, Joy Nicholson, Louise Steinman, Phil Doran, Christopher Noxon, Nancy Spiller, Sharon Montrose, Diana Wells, Rob Cohen & David Wollock, Kyle Schuneman, John Vorhaus

THE GOOD FOOD REVOLUTION: GROWING HEALTHY FOOD, PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES by MacArthur Fellow Will Allen with Charles Wilson (with an introduction by Eric Schlosser); THE BLESSING OF A SKINNED KNEE by Wendy Mogel, Ph.D. (Scribner - New York Times Bestseller; subject of a lengthy profile in the New York Times Sunday Magazine five years after publication); GOOD TO THE GRAIN: BAKING WITH WHOLE GRAIN FLOURS by Kim Boyce (winner of the Beard Award); THE HIGHLY SENSITIVE PERSON IN LOVE and THE HIGHLY SENSITIVE CHILD by Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D. (Broadway); FOLLOWING EZRA: WHAT ONE FATHER LEARNED ABOUT GUMBY, OTTERS, AUTISM AND LOVE FROM HIS EXTRAORDINARY SON by Tom Fields Meyer (excerpted in the Wall Street Journal); MONA LISA IN CAMELOT: HOW JACQUELINE KENNEDY AND DA VINCI'S MASTERPIECE CHARMED AND CAPTIVATED A NATION by Margaret Leslie Davis (Da Capo - first serial to Vanity Fair); WILD INDIGO by Sandi Ault (starred PW, starred LJ, "thrills galore"--NYTBR; Winner of the 2008 Mary Higgins Clark Award; Berkley Prime Crime); ESPERANZA'S BOX OF SAINTS (Scribner - #1 L.A. Times Bestseller) and GONZALEZ & DAUGHTER TRUCKING CO. (Three Rivers) by Maria Amparo Escandon; THE TRIBES OF PALOS VERDES (L.A. Times Bestseller) and THE ROAD TO ESMERALDA by Joy Nicholson (St. Martin's); THE RELUCTANT TUSCAN by Phil Doran (Gotham); BABY SIGNS: HOW TO TALK WITH YOUR BABY BEFORE YOUR BABY CAN TALK by Linda Acredolo, Ph.D. and Susan Goodwyn, Ph.D.(McGraw-Hill); ETIQUETTE FOR OUTLAWS by Rob Cohen & David Wollock (HarperEntertainment)

THE LOST GUTENBERG by Margaret Leslie Davis (Gotham)
COMPROMISE CAKE: A MEMOIR written and illustrated by Nancy Spiller (Counterpoint)
CUT TO THE CHASE and INSIDE THE ROOM, two screenwriting books by the instructors at UCLA Extension Writers' Program, edited by Linda Venis, Ph.D. (Gotham)
ESCAPE THE NUTRITION TRAP by Dina Rose, Ph.D. (Perigee)
THE CROOKED MIRROR: A CONVERSATION WITH POLAND by Louise Steinman (Beacon)
LEAVING TINKERTOWN by Tanya Ward Goodman (University of New Mexico Press)
HAND-CRAFTED CANDY BARS by Susie Norris and Susan Heeger (Chronicle)
HANDS SAY LOVE by George Shannon (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
CRACKERS AND DIPS by Ivy Manning (Chronicle)
YOU ARE THE PEA, I AM THE CARROT by J. Theron Elkins (Abrams Children's Books)

TV, Film, Foreign

PLEASE ADDRESS ALL RIGHTS INQUIRIES TO rights@amsterlit.com

UK: Arabella Stein
Scandinavia, Holland, Spain/Latin America, Portugal/Brazil: Philip Sane, Lennart Sane Agency AB
Germany: Mohrbooks
France: Donatella d’Ormesson
Italy: Vicki Satlow
Former Yugoslavia (Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia), Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Czech & Slovak Republics, Greece, Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia), Russia: Prava I Prevodi
Japan: English Agency; Japan Uni
China: Big Apple
Korea: MiSook Hong, Korea Copyright Center

Betsy Amster, President

Mary Cummings, Agent for Children's and YA Titles

Our submission requirements have changed. Queries for adult titles in the categories we represent must be addressed to b.amster.assistant@gmail.com. For fiction or memoirs, please embed the first three pages in the body of your e-mail. For nonfiction, please embed your proposal. We do not represent screenplays, poetry, westerns, fantasy, science fiction, techno thrillers, spy capers, apocalyptic scenarios, or political or religious arguments.

Queries for children's or YA titles must be addressed to b.amster.kidsbooks@gmail.com. For picture books, please embed the entire text in the body of your e-mail. For novels, please embed the first three pages. No children's nonfiction, please.

We do not open attachments unless we have requested them.

No phone or fax queries. Please understand that owing to the number of inquiries we receive, we are able to respond only to those that interest us.