Gavin Bennett's Blog: 7 Literary Agents Seeking Fantasy Novels NOW

In celebration of my three new books released this September (what an awesome autumn!), I’m doing a lot of special lists of agents seeking queries right now. I’ve already done lists on picture book agents, thriller agents, and women’s fiction agents. Below find a list for agents seeking adult fantasy novels NOW. (Note that this list is for adult fantasy, not fantasy for kids or teens. That will be a different list.)

three covers

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The 2016 Guide to Literary Agents is a big database of agents — who they are, what they want, how to submit and more. Find it in the Writer’s Digest Shop or anywhere else books are sold.
The 2016 Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market has oodles of markets (agents, publishers, etc.) for writers & illustrators of children’s books — from picture books to middle grade to young adult. Find it in the Writer’s Digest Shop or anywhere else books are sold.

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All the agents listed below personally confirmed to me as of October 2015 that they are actively seeking fantasy submissions NOW. Some gave personal notes about their tastes while some did not. I tried to only includes agents on here that ruled out no type of fantasy. So that means these agents are fantasy generalists. And to repeat, this list is specifically for adult fantasy — not for teen fantasy (YA/MG).

1. Sam Morgan (Jabberwocky Literary)

Notes: “My tastes in fantasy generally run the gamut of the entire genre, but with a twist. I love epic and urban fantasies, but all of my clients approach those genres with a very weird eye. They see the unending beauty of the world we live in and go “yeah… this is great and all, but what if we had to deal with drunk dragons all the time?” I like fantasy that can be explained clearly in the title (i.e. Ryan North’s ROMEO AND/OR JULIET), brilliantly explained in a sentence (i.e. LAMB: Christ had a best friend named Biff and here’s their story), or can’t be explained at all without a map, index of characters, and a thirty minute symposium on the magic system (Discworld, Song of Ice and Fire, etc.)”

How to submit: querysam [at] awfulagent.com. Query only to begin. No attachments.

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2. Mary C. Moore (Kimberley Cameron & Associates)

Notes: “If you’re submitting urban fantasy, please no vampires, angels/demons, or werewolves.”

How to submit: Query Mary [at] kimberleycameron.com. Include “Author Submission” in the subject line. Attach a one-page synopsis and the first fifty pages of your manuscript as separate Word or PDF documents.

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3. Lane Heymont (The Seymour Agency)

Notes: Seeks Tolkien fantasy, diverse characters.

How to submit: How to connect: Send all queries to lane [at] theseymouragency.com. The subject line should be “QUERY: (Title)”. Please past the first five pages in the body of the e-mail. Please do not query Nicole Resciniti (also on this list) if querying Lane.

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4. Sara Megibow (kt literary)

How to submit: ”Please email your query letter and the first three pages of your manuscript in the body of the email to saraquery [at] ktliterary.com. The subject line of your email should include the word ‘Query’ along with the title of your manuscript. Queries should not contain attachments. We aim to reply to all queries within two weeks of receipt. In addition, if you’re an author who is sending a new query, but who previously submitted a novel to us for which we requested chapters but ultimately declined, please do say so in your query letter. If we like your query, we’ll ask for the first five chapters and a complete synopsis. For our purposes, the synopsis should include the full plot of the book, including the conclusion. Don’t tease us.”

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5. Evan Gregory (Ethan Ellenberg Literary)

Notes: “It’s time to break away from medievalism and embrace different mythologies, weirder magic, different worlds, different perspectives.”

How to submit: Please send submissions to agent [at] ethanellenberg.com to the attention of Evan. “For email submissions, we ask that you paste all materials into the body of the email in the order mentioned below. For example, if you were submitting fiction you would begin with a brief query letter, followed by your synopsis, followed by the first 50 pages of your manuscript. We will not open attachments.”

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6. Emmanuelle Morgen (Stonesong)

How to submit: submissions [at] stonesong.com addressed to Emmanuelle. Include the word ‘query’ in the subject line of your email to ensure we receive it and it isn’t filtered as spam. Include the first chapter or first 10 pages of your work, pasted into the body of your email, so that we may get a sense of your writing. Please note that Emmanuelle is closed to queries in December. We welcome queries from independent and self-published authors. If you have self-published your book and are interested in working with a publisher for future works, please include descriptions of published and forthcoming works, as well as information about sales and reviews. Our system is set up so that every email query receives an automatic reply confirming receipt. After that, we will be in touch only in the event we would like to request more material. This is because we receive such a volume of submissions that it is impossible for us to respond individually to every query. If you have not received a request from us within 12 weeks, consider that we have passed. If we request additional material, we will of course respond with a specific reply. Please feel free to follow up with additional news about your submission during the 12-week period.”

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7. Nicole Resciniti (The Seymour Agency)

How to submit: Send all queries to nicole [at] theseymouragency.com. The subject line should be “QUERY: (Title)”. Please past the first five pages in the body of the e-mail. Please do not query Lane Heymont (also on this list) if querying Nicole.

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