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THE MEMORY COLLECTORS by Kim Neville
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Amazon Best Book of the Month Pick and Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection LAST CHANCE DANCE by Lakita Wilson
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agent
Melanie Figueroa
Root Literary
illustration
2023 Winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize Younger Readers Category and Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection NURA AND THE IMMORTAL PALACE by M.T. Khan

ABOUT ME:
I’m actively seeking high-concept commercial, upmarket, and general fiction; young adult novels with a strong voice and propulsive pacing; and heartfelt, humorous, and fantastical middle grade novels across genres.

I often fall for books that sit at the intersection of a variety of genres (genre eclectic, if you will).

I love mysteries, found families, sibling stories, haunted houses, buried secrets, disability and mental health rep, coming-of-age narratives, non-western cultures and mythologies, animal/spirit companions, strong and potentially unlikable women, friendship growing pains, high-stakes adventures, family sagas, smart and foreboding horror, and anything that makes me laugh or cry (maybe even both at the same time).

I was born and raised in Southern California in a multicultural, blended family, so I have a soft spot for books that shine a spotlight on the nuances of relationships and identity. And I’m especially looking for books that are inclusive and accurately reflect our world—I like characters who aren’t your typical lead and to be surprised by the unexpected.

For a more detailed wishlist, please visit my personal website.

Please keep in mind that my wishlist is not meant to be prescriptive. If you think we'd be a good fit but your project isn't an exact match, please give me a try! Part of what makes this job so magical is that you often don’t know what you want until you find it.

ABOUT THE AGENCY:
At Root Literary, we build careers. Whether you’re here to start your career with us or to evolve your career with us, welcome!

We’re a boutique, future-focused literary agency, representing award-winning, bestselling, and up-and-coming authors, illustrators, and graphic novelists. We’re committed to helping our clients confidently define and redefine their vision of success while they build a lasting body of work and a meaningful career, and we do so by advocating, empowering, educating, negotiating, problem-solving, and revenue-generating in innovative ways to support our clients’ creative work.

As agents, we blend business acumen and proven skills for identifying talent with a nuanced, hands-on, and powerfully-effective approach to literary representation—and we do it all with good humor and an eye toward sustainable creator wellness along the way.

We’re good at our jobs because we care about books and book-making. We’re endlessly fascinated by the publishing machine: how it works, how we can help the industry evolve to work better, and how we can help our clients not just survive, but truly thrive as a part of it. In addition to a combined 45+ years of literary agency experience, our team has also worked immersively in film/TV, in foreign rights, in marketing/publicity, at publishing start-ups, and as editors, educators, influencers, and booksellers—and we bring the depth, breadth and knowledge of that wide-ranging industry experience to every situation our clients encounter. We work collaboratively and with a focus on best-in-field information-sharing and creative opportunity-forging, so that each of our agents’ clients benefit from our whole team’s expertise.

Every publishing success story that we’ve been a part of is, at its core, also the story of meaningful professional partnerships. We’re eager to match your passion for the craft of writing and art-making with our passion for next-level career strategy and killer deal-making. We love what we do, and we do it best in tandem with driven, ambitious story makers who love what they do, too.


GENRES & SPECIALTIES
Juvenile fiction, Children's books, Upmarket fiction, Literary fiction, Commercial fiction, General fiction with genre elements, Speculative fiction, Historical fiction
MOST RECENT SALES/ FORTHCOMING BOOKS
Selected Recent Releases:
Kim Neville's THE MEMORY COLLECTORS (Atria)
Sarah Prineas's TROUBLE IN THE STARS (Philomel)
Lakita Wilson's WHAT IS BLACK LIVES MATTER? Who HQ Now Series (Penguin Workshop)
Maeeda Khan's NURA AND THE IMMORTAL PALACE (JIMMY Patterson)
Lakita Wilson's BE REAL, MACY WEAVER (Viking Children's)
Caris Avendaño Cruz's MARIKIT AND THE OCEAN OF STARS (Farrar, Straus Children's)
Kate Sweeney's THIS ONE'S FOR YOU (Viking Children's)
Lakita Wilson's LAST CHANCE DANCE (Viking Children's)

Selected Upcoming Releases:
Lakita Wilson's SPARKLE (Viking Children's)
Audrey Meeker's SWING (Feiwel and Friends)
Kelly Hill's A HOME FOR FRIENDLESS WOMEN (Vintage)
Natalie Sue's I HOPE THIS FINDS YOU WELL (William Morrow)
Nataly Gruender’s SEVERED (Grand Central Publishing)

SPECIALIZED TRAINING, WORK EXPERIENCE, HONORS
Association of American Literary Agents Member
M.S. in Creative Writing & Book Publishing
B.A. in English Rhetoric and Composition
SUB-AGENTS/ RIGHTS CONTACTS
Audio & Film/TV: info(at)rootliterary.com
Foreign/translation: heather(at)barorint.com
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
Please send a query letter and the first 20 pages of your manuscript to me via my Query Manager form. I respond to all queries, but you are free to nudge or update me on a submission's status by sending a message via Query Manager.

We do not represent screenplays, poetry, novellas, or short stories.

Please do not query more than one agent at Root Literary at a time.

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