Publishers Marketplace: Samantha Wekstein

Samantha Wekstein attended the University of Maryland, College Park and received a B.A. in English. Go Terps! She now lives in Westchester, NY with her husband and dog. After internships with Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency and Rowman & Littlefield, she began her career in 2013 at Writers House LLC. She then briefly worked as an assistant at The Agency Group (now UTA) before returning to Writers House for the next 5.5 years where she began supporting the CEO, and then the Founder, before becoming an agent. She’s been lucky to work with a variety of best-selling and award-winning authors across all genres. She joined TLA in 2019 where she’s excited to grow her list.

In YA, she loves creative and epic fantasies in the vein of Sarah J. Maas or Leigh Bardugo. But she is also drawn to realistic stories with multi-dimensional female characters like those of Jenny Han, Julie Murphy and Melina Marchetta. She is always interested in elevating diverse voices, particularly through feminist narratives.

She is seeking middle grade of all stripes, but especially stories that deal with themes of friendship, adventure, or encountering tragedy for the first time. Her favorites are Sharon Creech, Shannon Hale, and Gail Carson Levine.

She is also on the lookout for whimsical, meaningful, and funny picture books by author/illustrators. ***Please do not send text-only projects.*** Here's a website for her illustrators: https://wekstein-illustrators.weebly.com/
Some favorites include: DON'T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS, I WANT MY HAT BACK, DRAGONS LOVE TACOS, THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT, and HAIR LOVE.

On the adult side she is drawn to commercial voices in Romance, Women’s Fiction, Sci-Fi and Fantasy. She'd love to find Historical Fiction that focuses on female or queer perspectives and is particularly interested in underrepresented settings and voices.

In nonfiction, she's open to humor, pop culture, history, social justice, and anything feminist.

Please do NOT send her literary fiction, stories featuring angels/devils from biblical mythology, adult thrillers (or anything that can be described as "hardboiled"), crime, mystery, suspense (even the romantic kind), picture books about Christmas/Santa, and works with themes of suicide or drug addiction as the main focus.

Some favorite authors: Sarah J. Maas, Susan Dennard, Alex Bracken, Rae Carson, Leigh Bardugo, Julie Murphy, Melina Marchetta, Sharon Creech, Gail Carson Levine, Shannon Hale, Moira Young, Jenny Han, Stephanie Perkins, Sally Thorne, Christina Lauren, Holly Black, Marie Rutkoski, Sarah Rees Brennan, Casey McQuiston, Naomi Novik, Xiran Jay Zhao, Emily Henry

Favorite TV/Movies: The 100, Gilmore Girls, Boy Meets World, Stranger Things, Avatar The Last Airbender, The West Wing, Dawson's Creek, Dance Academy, Parks and Rec, Boys Over Flowers, Shining Inheritance, The Witcher, On My Block, The Society, Never Have I Ever, The Princess Bride, Clueless, When Harry Met Sally, Matilda, A Little Princess, The Sandlot, Back to the Future, American Pie, Star Wars, Black Panther, Singing in the Rain

Loves: Musical theatre, trivia, dogs and 90's inspirational sports movies

Thompson Literary LLC was formed in 2014 by Meg Thompson. In this exciting new venture, Meg and her colleagues will continue to be attentive to their clients’ needs for the life of their books, from developing ideas and editing manuscripts, to placing books with the best publishers, to working with the publisher on all aspects of a project, including editorial, design, marketing, publicity, and sales.

**Please peruse my Twitter page before sending me a submission. I update it regularly with query tips and special requests.** https://twitter.com/SWekstein