Our Agents
Our Agents
Jennifer represents authors, illustrators, and author-illustrators who bring a distinct point of view to their work, and who tell stories with multiple layers. In middle grade and YA both, her heart beats faster for stories that cascade from a mind-expanding premise. She also loves survival stories and losing herself in Dickensian sagas (WOLVES OF WILLOUGHBY CHASE!), and enjoys watching characters puzzle their way through problems. She has a special soft spot for middle grade about resilient kids sorting out the messiness of life.
Jennifer has worked previously as an editor at Dutton Children's Books and as a Books for Youth staff reviewer at Booklist. Two fun facts: she spent a summer giving tours at Emily Dickinson’s house, and has a coauthor credit in THE OFFICIAL EASY-BAKE OVEN COOKBOOK. Jennifer is based in Chicago, where, when not reading, she spends her free time in dance classes or jogging the lakefront.
RECENT DEALS
Kate Hannigan’s THREE BLIPS ON A SCREEN, the story of Ralph Baer, a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who moved to the U.S. and invented home videogaming, pitched as a biography for the Fortnite and Nintendo Switch generation. Sold to Knopf/PRH.
Author of RAIN! and WILLIAM’S WINTER NAP Linda Ashman’s verse picture book, FIRE CHIEF FRAN, a gentle, rhyming look at a female fire chief’s varied responsibilities in her small community (up to and including putting out actual fires!). Sold to Astra.
Brian Gehrlein's THIS IS NOT A SLEEPY BEAR BOOK, about an owl narrator who tries to usher a bear into hibernation but is thwarted by a series of amusing and unexpected interruptions. Sold to Little, Brown.
Karol Hernandez's debut LA CHIVA: COLORFUL BUS OF THE ANDES, a rhythmic story in verse from the point of view of a chiva, one of the gaily painted buses common in Colombia and other South American countries, as it transports villagers through the mountains to the marketplace. Sold to Dial.
THINGS I LOVE:
Storytime
Beverly Cleary
Daemons
Subcultures
Sleight-of-hand
Dickens and Trollope
The best books don’t coddle children. As editor Patti Lee Gauch once wrote, they send them into the belly of the whale.
REPRESENTATIVE TITLES
Send me something that, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson, “takes the top of my head off!”
AWARD WINNERS
& BESTSELLERS
