Literary Agent Interview: Adria Goetz Interview and Query Critique Giveaway

Today I’m thrilled to have agent Adria Goetz here. She is a senior literary agent at P.S. Literary Agency.

Update on 6/9/2023: Adria is now a senior agent at kt literary and is open to submissions. Please check their website for her submission guidelines. Update on 11/23/2023: Adria is closed to submissions until 2/26/2024. Check the agency website to find out when she reopens to submissions. 

Hi­ Adria! Thanks so much for joining us.

About Adria:

1. Tell us how you became an agent, how long you’ve been one, and what you’ve been doing as an agent.

In college I thought I wanted to be an editor, because it seemed like the dreamiest possible job you could have. But the more I learned about the industry, through research and through internships, the more I saw my strengths aligning with the job duties of a literary agent. I had an internship with Martin Literary for a couple years in college, and became a part-time assistant there once I graduated. I still felt so green at that point and felt like I needed to have a better understanding of the innerworkings of the industry, so I applied to the Columbia Publishing Course where I learned so much. When I returned, I was hired as an agent at Martin Literary the fall of 2016 which is where I agented for over five years. And then I recently joined the wonderful team at P.S. Literary which I’m really excited about! So far in my career I have been mostly focused on books for kids, and have got to work on some really incredible projects, like THE WHATIFS by Emily Kilgore, THE OCEAN CALLS by Tina Cho, BATTER ROYALE by Leisl Adams—just to name a few! I’m now looking to expand my list to include more adult fiction.

 About the Agency:

 2. Share a bit about your agency and what it offers to its authors.

 P.S. Literary has offices based in New York as well as Ontario, Canada. We have agents who represent everything from picture books through adult fiction and nonfiction. We work with co-agents for film and television adaptations, work with Taryn Fagerness for foreign rights projects, and shop audio rights ourselves when we retain them. It’s an incredibly collaborative team, so I think it’s special that you sign with one agent, but really you have an entire team supporting your work.  

What She’s Looking For:

3. What age groups do you represent—picture books, MG, and/or YA? What genres do you represent and what are you looking for in submissions for these genres?

I represent picture books, with a special focus on author/illustrators, middle grade fiction, graphic novels, adult fiction, and some select gift book titles. In picture books I love humor and heart and magic. In the middle grade space I love magical realism, grounded fantasy, mysteries, and historical fiction. In the YA space, the only type of project I’m interested in right now is graphic novels. In the adult space I love thrillers, rom coms, commercial fiction and upmarket/book club type fiction. I’m always excited to see graphic novels of any sort, from MG to YA to Adult. When it comes to stories within speculative genres, I tend to prefer grounded stories that have light touches of magic and lower stakes. 

4.  Is there anything you would be especially excited to seeing in the genres you are interested in?

In the picture book space I’d love to see more humor, adventure stories, stories about food, cultural traditions, mermaids, and spooky stories.

In the adult space I am always really excited to see something with a dual timeline. That always makes a submission jump to the top of my inbox. I love enemies to lovers rom coms, and I’d also love to see rom coms with light magical/speculative touches like THE VERY SECRET SOCIETY OF IRREGULAR WITCHES. I also love sweeping cradle to grave stories about fictional characters, like VIOLETA by Isabel Allende as an example. I also love mixed media novels that are told through texts, emails, receipts, things like that.

I have an overwhelmingly detailed manuscript wishlist on my website adriagoetz.com if anyone is interested in seeing more specific requests! There’s also a link there to a Pinterest board MSWL for those like me who are more visually minded.

What She Isn’t Looking For:

5. What types of submissions are you not interested in?

As a general rule of thumb, I am not the right for: memoirs, sports stories, space operas, Amish fiction, angel/demon narratives, ancient era historical fiction, high/epic SFF and thrillers of the military/FBI/espionage thriller variety.

Agent Philosophy:

6. What is your philosophy as an agent both in terms of the authors you want to work with and the books you want to represent?

I’ve noticed that both the books I love to read and the people I love to work with both tend to be very warm and have a lot of heart. And since I work heavily in the kid lit space, I always have in the forefront of my mind that the readers I’m facilitating content for are at a very formative age of their lives. The books I read as a kid have stuck with me, and I’m always thinking about how stories plant seeds in a young mind, which is a weighty thing to think about and something I try to take very seriously.

Editorial Agent:

7. Are you an editorial agent? If so, what is your process like when you’re working with your authors before submitting to editors?

I do consider myself an editorial agent. For novels, I typically do two rounds of edits. The first round is big picture, where I’ll put write up an editorial letter with any developmental edits I have for the client. This character arc needs developed, this section needs to be trimmed up to help with pacing, things like that. And then the second round is when I do more of a line edit of the manuscript. For picture books, it’s sort of a ping pong match where we volley the manuscript back and forth as many times as it takes to feel really confident in it. Sometimes it takes a pass or two, and sometimes it takes more than a dozen passes. Usually it’s somewhere in the middle. For author/illustrators, the process varies from person to person because everyone has their own unique process, but for these projects I give notes on both the text manuscript and the illustrations/sketches.

Query Methods and Submission Guidelines: (Always verify before submitting)

8. How should authors query you and what do you want to see with the query letter?

Authors can direct their query to query@psliterary.com with my name mentioned in the subject line. I’d like to see the query letter, the first 10 pages (or full manuscript if you’re a picture book writer), and if you’re an illustrator then I’d love to see a link to your portfolio and dummy/sample art.

9.  Do you have any specific dislikes in query letters or the first pages submitted to you?

The main thing that comes to mind that I don’t like seeing is a bad attitude! Oftentimes I see authors bash other books on the market or say something like “You probably won’t even read this email” or something like that.   

Response Time:

10. What’s your response time to queries and requests for more pages of a manuscript?

At P.S. Literary our submission guidelines say that if you don’t hear from us within six weeks, to consider it a pass. I know that radio silence is the worst part of the querying trenches for many writers though, so if someone ever wants to check in on their submission to confirm that it’s a pass, I’m always happy to respond to those emails.

Self-Published and Small Press Authors:

11.  Are you open to representing authors who have self-published or been published by smaller presses? What advice do you have for them if they want to try to find an agent to represent them?

If they’re pitching me something that hasn’t been published yet, then sure!

Clients:

12. Who are some of the authors you represent?

I work with so many incredible authors. I think that some of the authors I’m most known for representing are Tina Cho, Emily Kilgore, Christy Mandin, Valeria Wicker, Leisl Adams, Ellie Peterson, Bonnie Clark, and G.Z. Schmidt.

Interviews and Guest Posts:

14. Please share the links to any interviews, guest posts, and podcasts you think would be helpful to writers interested in querying you.

·       Podcast interview: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/literary-agent-adria-goetz-thinks-you-re-not-persistent/id1526755563?i=1000541249688

·       Books I’ve worked on: https://www.pinterest.com/adriaPSLA/books-ive-worked-on/

·       MSWL: www.adriagoetz.com

·       Video interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfnDFYgD2A8

·       Interview: https://journeytokidlit.com/episode-8-write-a-good-query-letter/

Update on 3/10/2023

Interview at the Mixed-Up Files (3/2023)

Agent of the Month at Writing and Illustrating Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (3/2023)

Links and Contact Info:

15. Please share how writers should contact you to submit a query and your links on the Web.

https://www.psliterary.com/submissions/

Additional Advice:

16. Is there any other advice you’d like to share with aspiring authors that we haven’t covered?

My advice to aspiring authors is always to take a moment before they click send on a query to imagine that the literary agent on the other end of the email is sitting at home in their sweatpants with a cat curled up on their lap. Because more often than not, that’s what I look like when I am reviewing queries! We’re not scary people in New York skyscrapers, we’re just normal people!

Thanks for sharing all your advice, Adria.

­Adria is generously offering a query critique to one lucky winner. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower (via the follower gadget, email, or bloglovin’ on the right sidebar) and leave a comment through November 26th. If your e-mail is not on your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest. If you do not want to enter the contest, that's okay. Just let me know in the comments.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry. This is an international giveaway.

Have any experience with this agent? See something that needs updating? Please leave a comment or e-mail me at natalieiaguirre7@gmail.com

Note: These agent profiles and interviews presently focus on agents who accept children's fiction. Please take the time to verify anything you might use here before querying an agent. The information found here is subject to change.