Literary Agent Interview: Samantha Wekstein Interview and Query Critique Giveaway

Today I’m thrilled to have agent Samantha Wekstein here. She’s a senior agent at Thompson Literary Agency.

Hi­ Samantha! Thanks so much for joining us.

About Samantha:

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

As the daughter of two lawyers, I thought I’d grow up to be an attorney, but all I secretly wanted to do was read books! So, in college I pursued internships at Rowman and Littlefield and Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency (under the brilliant Jessica Sinsheimer, founder of Manuscript Wishlist and Manuscript Academy). Post college, I landed an internship at Writers House with its founder, Al Zuckerman.  A few days after starting at Writers House, Al’s assistant contracted tuberculosis and I was asked to step into the role as his assistant quarantined (long before the days of Covid quarantine).  It was that opportunity that allowed me to prove myself and nurtured my love for agenting! I briefly left Writers House to work at The Agency Group (later acquired by UTA), which specialized in nonfiction pop culture projects, particularly music.  Then an opportunity opened back up at Writers House to assist the CEO Amy Berkower and I was thrilled to return. I supported Amy, and then moved desks to assist Al Zuckerman again, where I spent the next few years being mentored by him. 

While working for Al, I was able to take on my own projects as a junior agent and sold my first book in 2017!  In 2019, I moved agencies to tackle agenting full time with Thompson Literary where I’ve continued to build my list of commercial projects. Having worked for agents who specialized in nonfiction, children’s and adult commercial fiction—basically everything under the sun, I’ve developed broad tastes and feel comfortable crossing genres and age categories. I’m a highly editorial agent and love collaborating with my clients at every stage of their projects. I’ve been lucky to work with bestselling and award-winning authors throughout my career!

About the Agency:

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

Thompson Literary LLC was formed in 2014 by Meg Thompson. In this exciting venture, TLA agents are attentive to their clients’ needs for the life of their books, from developing ideas and editing manuscripts, to placing books with the best publishers, to working with the publisher on all aspects of a project, including editorial, design, marketing, publicity, and sales. Thompson Literary Agency wants to ensure that their clients’ books reach the widest audience possible, and to that end they are proactive about opportunities in subsidiary rights, including film/TV, audio, serial, and translation rights.

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 almost all age groups from picture books, middle grade and YA through adult!

I’m looking for whimsical, meaningful and funny picture books by author/illustrators, with an emphasis on funny! My middle grade tastes are broad, but I love friendship stories, adventure, hijinks, and books that make me cry! In YA, I’m looking for everything under the sun, but I’m particularly drawn to multi-dimensional female characters and anything LGBTQ+--please send me your feminist projects. In particular, I love YA fantasy and am looking for the creative, the epic, tropes that can be flipped on their heads, explorations of underrepresented cultures/mythologies, romantasy, and well-thought out magic systems. 

On the adult side, I’m looking for commercial romance in the vein of Christina Lauren, Emily Henry, Sally Thorne, and Jasmine Guillory. I’d like to find historical fiction from a queer or feminist perspective that explores underrepresented settings and viewpoints. Like in YA, I’d love some adult fantasy with romantic second world settings, high fantasy, intricate court politics, plotting and intrigue, historical fantasy or fantasy rooted in world mythologies (specifically from underrepresented perspectives and cultures), fantasy as an exploration of social justice, feminism, or family dynamics. For sci-fi, I’m looking for stories grounded in the human experience, world-building that’s logical and not too technical, female, nonbinary, BIPOC, and Queer led stories. I love and prefer romantic subplots! I’m also open to commercial women’s fiction.

Lastly, I do represent some very select nonfiction. I prefer narrative projects and am happy to look at anything feminist, historical, humor, or social justice focused. 

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

Across age categories I’m looking for Jewish fantasy, magic school books (dark academia included), and cozy fantasy.

I’d love to see anything that can comp to Never Have I Ever, The Sex Lives of College Girls, Ted Lasso, Heartstopper, Our Flag Means Death, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Princess Bride, The Challenge, Throne of Glass, Fourth Wing, Red White and Royal Blue, The Books of Bayern, The Winner’s Curse, In Other Lands, Bloomability, Ella Enchanted, The Chronicles of Lumatere, Avatar the Last Airbender, The Sandlot, Pitch, and The West Wing.

I’d love more funny picture books like I WANT MY HAT BACK or DON’T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS. 

What She Isn’t Looking For:

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

Please don’t send me adult literary fiction, stories featuring angels/devils from biblical mythology, adult thrillers (or anything that can be described as "hardboiled"), crime, mystery, suspense (even the romantic kind), picture books about Christmas/Santa, short stories, novellas, essay collections, poetry, screenplays, and works with themes of suicide or drug addiction as the main focus.  Please only send picture books if you include illustrations.

I’m not the best fit for stories with alien main characters, plots where the main focus is aliens, technology that edits dreams or memories, drugs or technology that cause hallucinations or questioning of reality, anything militaristic, anything with a cop or detective main character, anything SFF that focuses too much on evil corporations, or anything with virtual reality or video games. I find it really hard to care about robot main characters. I’m not currently looking for sci-fi space stories with pirate/bandit/thief main characters.

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 like to follow my authors where their passions lead. Sometimes I’ll sign someone for a picture book and end up selling adult nonfiction for them.  Obviously, it’s good to be strategic about your career, but I want to be a partner who helps you explore all the possibilities and who is nimble enough to switch tracks as needed.  I want to work with authors who are excited to collaborate editorially, who come from a variety of diverse backgrounds and bring new viewpoints to the table.  And I’m always just looking for a really good story that will become someone’s favorite book!

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’m definitely an editorial agent! Ideally, I like to start this work right from the outline stage where we can discuss big picture story arcs, but at any stage I like to focus on big picture plot, and smaller details like bringing emotional resonance to the characters, building out a fully realized world, and making sure the writing style is clear and beautiful. 

I typically work in both track-changes with line edits and comments, as well as detailed editorial reports with suggestions for what I think can be changed with plenty of examples for directions the author can take. I’m also always happy to hop on a call to brainstorm. While I’m looking for a partnership and a shared vision, at the end of the day authors need to take notes that resonate with them, and leave the rest aside. It’s your work and you decide what it’s going to look like. 

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 query me through my QueryManager form: https://querymanager.com/query/SamanthaWekstein

Please include a query letter and your first 10 pages as an attachment. I’ve put together a free query letter template, which I hope someone finds useful! If you’re pitching a picture book, please include sample illustrations.

In your plot summary, please answer these questions: Who is your character? What kind of world do they live in? What do they want? What are their obstacles to getting what they want? How will they try to overcome those obstacles? What happens if they fail—or what tough choice will they have to make?

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

I don’t like queries that focus more on themes than plot. Lead with your plot and focus on goals, obstacles and stakes.  Make sure you are specific about what happens and take us up to the climax. For example, I don’t like when letters allude to “secrets,” but don’t tell us what those are. Letters where the character will “lose everything” don’t communicate what’s actually at stake. 

In terms of first pages, I recommend starting with a scene instead of the character speaking to the audience.  Let’s get information organically through observation instead of told to us through monologue/summary.  I also really look for emotional description in the first 10 pages. Including emotional description through physical sensations (pounding heart, stomach turning, etc.) is the quickest way to help us understand a character and really puts us in the scene alongside them.

Response Time:

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

My response times are long, as I get a high volume of submissions, but I do respond to everyone. If I like your query, I take longer to decide--think 3-6 months, and occasionally longer.

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?

I don’t want to represent anything that’s already been published. Once a book has a track record, it’s hard to try to re-sell it to a new publisher. But if you self-published or worked with a small press in the past, I’m happy to consider any new, unpublished work!

If you are trying to get an agent after self-pubbing, or working with a small press, I recommend doing everything you can to prove there’s an audience interested in what you have to say, whether that’s through sales records, trade reviews, social media follows, or clips of your work published in major news outlets or magazines. My author, Susan Shapiro, teaches a class on how to get published that I highly recommend!

Clients:

12. Who are some of the authors you represent?

Sara Hirsh Bordo, Ashley Sirah Chea, Erin M. Fry, Korrie Leer, Renee Beauregard Lute, Orlando Mendiola, Marisa Ramel, Jo Renfro, Susan Shapiro, and Jessie L. Star. 

Interviews and Guest Posts:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4dTUr239rc

https://manuscriptacademy.com/podcast-samantha-wekstein

https://www.roundtablementor.com/learn/the-query-letter-that-turned-into-an-offer

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mswl-live-agent-panel-caitlin-mcdonald-samantha-wekstein/id1171799743?i=1000612689566

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-84-literary-agent-samantha-wekstein/id1698756774?i=1000621927071

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmSXNU38ol0&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cortneyradocaj.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY

 Links and Contact Info:

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

Here are all my links: https://linktr.ee/swekstein

Authors can query me using my Query Manager form: https://querymanager.com/query/SamanthaWekstein

I’m always interactive on Twitter @swekstein, and my Instagram is SamanthaWekstein.

Additional Advice:

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

Be a good literary citizen. Shout about books you love, help out other authors where you can. Build a community.  You never know how you may be able to help each other achieve success down the road, through blurbs, cross promotion, beta reads, or something else. And someone else’s big sale may be what pays for your book advance! Be a cheerleader even when it’s hard.

Thanks for sharing all your advice, Samantha.

Giveaway Details

­Samantha 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 October 26th. If your email 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 follow me on Twitter or 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 email 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.

Upcoming Interviews, Guest Posts, and Blog Hops

Today, October 16th I’m also participating in the Silly Pumpkin Giveaway Hop

Monday, October 28th I have a guest post by author Abbi Lee and a giveaway of her MG Ghost Town Treasure Hunt

Friday, November 1st I’m participating in the Thanks a Latte Giveaway Hop

Wednesday, November 6th I have an interview with author Jan Gangsei and a giveaway of her YA Dead Below Deck and my IWSG post

Saturday, November 9th I’m participating in the Super Stocking Stuffer Giveaway Hop

Monday, November 11th I have an agent spotlight interview with CoCo Freeman and a query critique giveaway

Saturday, November 16th I’m participating in the In All Things Give Thanks Giveaway Hop

I hope to see you on Wednesday!