Meet the agents who will critique your Young Adult Science-fiction and Fantasy entries!
Kurestin Armada
Kurestin Armada began her publishing career as an intern with Workman Publishing, and spent time as an assistant at The Lotts Agency before joining P.S. Literary. She holds a B.A. in English from Kenyon College, as well as a publishing certificate from Columbia University. Kurestin is based in New York City, and spends most of her time in the city’s thriving indie bookstores. She reads widely across genres, and has a particular affection for science fiction and fantasy, especially books that recognize and subvert typical tropes of genre fiction.
Moe Ferrara
Becoming a literary agent was fitting for the girl who, as a small child, begged her dad to buy her a book simply because "it has a hard cover." Growing up, she had a hard time finding YA books outside of Christopher Pike and R. L. Stine, and instead tackled Tom Clancy or her mom's romance novels. Though her career path zigzagged a bit—she attended college as a music major, earned a JD from Pace Law School, then worked various jobs throughout the publishing industry—Moe was thrilled to join the BookEnds team in May of 2015 as a literary agent and the subsidiary rights director.
Lindsay Mealing
Lindsay has been writing stories since she could first hold a pencil. It wasn’t until she sat down to edit a manuscript for the first time she realized her true love was not on the writing side of the publishing industry, but the business side. She began interning for Mandy in early 2015 and quickly realized agenting was what she wanted to do forever more.
Lindsay is a self-proclaimed nerd, loving everything science fiction and fantasy – from epic tomes to gaming. She fell head over heels with the SFF genre when she read KUSHIEL’S DART by Jacqueline Carey (she even has Phedre’s marque tattooed on her back).
Entry starts: Monday, March 12 at 6 a.m. Eastern
Ends: Wednesday, March 14 at 6 p.m. Eastern
Category/Genre: Young Adult Science-fiction and Fantasy
How To Enter: Fill out the entry form on the contest post when it goes live
What Is Required: Your query (NO BIO or personalization for agents), your first 250 words, a complete and polished MS
You can also read more about the rules here.
The winning entries with agent commentary will be posted on Operation Awesome the week of March 26th, one entry each day. If you aren't comfortable with having your entry (which will be anonymous) shared on the blog, please don't enter Pass or Pages!
If you have any questions, please ask in the comments or tweet @OpAwesome6. Also, feel free to chat about the contest with fellow participants on the hashtag #PassOrPages.
13 comments:
If selected and pages are requested, is it okay to ask for a short amount of extra time to send? In my case, my manuscript is polished, but still with a sensitivity reader? Thanks!
There's not a specific timeline for when you have to send the pages in, but treat it like you would a request from regular querying: if you were going to take more than a few days to send them, you could email the agent and give her a heads up.
Thanks so much for the info. I’m stoked abour the awesome agent line up.
So exciting! I can't wait! (And am grateful these aren't agents I've already queried. Ha!)
Is it okay to enter if we've already queried a few of these agents, and one passed?
I would imagine so. This time you'll get feedback as to why they passed! I just said I was glad they didn't already reject me because that would mean a better chance at getting asked for pages. Then again, maybe if your query or first page are better than when you originally queried, you might get a more favorable response!
This has happened in the past, and typically if the agent requested pages from you they will not be interested in critiquing your entry, which hurts our blog readers because it's one less critique for them to see. If you've already queried these agents, may I suggest getting feedback on your query from Leandra's Query Friday feature instead?
Sounds good, thanks Kara!!
What if we only queried one, who never responded (after 4 months), and have significantly changed the query and pages since? Also, does having queried another agent at the same agency count/hurt?
Querying another agent at the same agency is totally fine; in fact, this contest is a great way to be seen by another agent if the agency in question only allows you to query one agent from the agency.
If you've significantly changed the query since one of our panel agents saw it, then you are okay to enter.
Thanks, Kara!
This is a cool feature. I've queried two of these agents already, so I'll try for Query Friday.
When will you let the winners know they were chosen? The suspense is killer! :)
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