Manuscript Wish List

Please note that I cannot accept unagented queries.

As a senior editor at LB Ink, I primarily acquire graphic novels with a focus on early reader, middle grade, and young adult audiences. For the time being, I am mostly growing our middle grade list!

I'm particularly looking for commercial, kid-centric, and approachable stories and art styles. I want to see big bets with high-concept commercial hooks, expert plotting and pacing, and bright and appealing art—in short, books with the potential to become lead titles. Combine top-quality storytelling with a strong sales hook that can be summed up in an intriguing line or two, and you've got me.

And as an outspoken advocate for greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in media, I am particularly keen to invest in the work of writers and illustrators who have historically been excluded in American media.

In all formats and for all age groups, I am particularly drawn toward:

Original, unforgettable characters with the potential to become beloved household names
Books that slide adeptly between humor and poignancy—if a book can make me laugh on one page and cry on the next, it wins my whole heart
Expansive, unique, and cinematic worlds—whether fantastical or a segment of the real world that’s underrepresented in fiction and/or feels fresh through the creator’s eyes
Themes of building solidarity and mutual support, questioning and challenging power, and imagining a world better than our own
Authentic, own-voices representations of characters with marginalized and intersectional identities in stories of adventure, romance, friendship, joy, and personal growth.

My interests in graphic novels include:

LB Ink has a robust list already, and especially in my first year my acquisitions will mainly be aimed at filling gaps in the current publishing program. As time goes on, please check back, as I'm sure the below list will expand!

Kid-friendly humor with substance (I especially love subversive/dark humor and humor used as a tool to approach deeper themes!)
- Think: Dog Man, InvestiGators
Middle grade with heavy emphasis on relationships between interesting protagonists and beloved/aspirational animals (whether fantastical or real) like dragons, unicorns, horses, dogs, etc.
- Think: Creaky Acres, Allergic, City of Dragons, Ride On, PAWS
Animal-based fantasy for middle grade readers, especially series
- Think: Snowlands: A Blood Moon, Unico, Wings of Fire
Middle grade contemporary slice of life, especially with a focus on friendship, family, crushes, school, sports, pets, or other highly relatable childhood experiences. I'm especially interested in seeing kids with historically marginalized identities in these stories, just living their lives!
- Think: Guts, Stargazing, Roller Girl, New Kid, Frizzy, Curlfriends, Real Friends
Fast-paced, kid-centric survival stories grounded in realism, whether historical events made current or extraordinary circumstances like natural disasters or intriguing news stories
- Think: I Survived, Ash's Cabin
Epic or contemporary middle grade fantasy with original worlds and commercial art
- Think: Zita the Spacegirl, Amulet, Witch Boy

My interests in prose include:

Please ONLY send me novels if they fit into one of the below categories. Because I'll be acquiring prose very selectively, projects truly must be perfect for me, specifically, to make it onto my list.

MG: Contemporary MG pairing light and bright voice with an earnest examination of solidarity, social change, and the experiences of marginalized people:
- Think: Front Desk, From the Desk of Zoe Washington, Not Quite a Ghost, You Are Here: Connecting Flights, What Happened to Rachel Riley?
MG: Beautifully written, timely MG that contextualizes the present within the past or explores extraordinary real events
- Think: The Night Diary, Refugee, Simon Sort of Says
MG: Genuinely spine-tinging contemporary MG
- Think: Small Spaces, Doll Bones, Not Quite a Ghost
MG: Voicey, upmarket books that feel like classics the moment they're released
- Think: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon,
  Rooftoppers, Impossible Creatures, The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise
MG or YA: MG novels about (non-anthropomorphic) animals, human-animal bonds, nature, and survival; and MG or YA stories of wilderness-based struggle and self-discovery
- Think: A Wolf Called Wander, My Side of the Mountain, Pax, The Wilderness of Girls, Gather
MG or YA: Comedic stories with a sticky high concept, especially comedy used as a tool to navigate trauma or approach difficult topics
- Think: Simon Sort of Says, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, Me & Earl & The Dying Girl
MG, YA, or new adult: Original, voicey fantasy, contemporary fantasy, and romantasy, especially set in or inspired by non-European settings and mythologies; and/or that which uses the conventions of its genre to critique, subvert, or illuminate a truth about our world
- Think: The Last Mapmaker, Nevermoor, Aru Shah and the End of Time, Raybearer, Graceling, These Violent Delights, Babel
MG, YA, or new adult: Cozy fantasy with (in YA/NA) a romantic subplot and mild stakes made riveting by utterly lovable characters and worlds we want to crawl into
- Think: Howl’s Moving Castle, Legends & Lattes
YA: thrillers, supernatural/speculative fiction, and horror that radically represents and explores queer, female, and BIPOC rage, revenge, and reclamation of power
- Think: Elatsoe, Iron Widow, Sadie, Nimona, Here Lies a Vengeful Bitch, a YA Manhunt
YA: Heart-wrenching contemporary or magic realistic YA with striking and accessible prose that explores love, grief, addiction, and other life-altering events
- Think: You've Reached Sam, The Fault in Our Stars, Gather, All My Rage, a YA Under the Whispering Door
YA or new adult: Upmarket contemporary romance with substance, centering characters of traditionally marginalized identities
- Think: All My Rage, Furia, Felix Ever After, One Last Stop, Honey Girl

I am not the right editor for:

Picture books
Nonfiction (eventually I may reopen to graphic nonfiction; prose nonfiction is pretty much out)
Historical fiction, unless extremely fast-paced and adventure-focused
Chapter books (early reader graphic novels are okay)
Novels in verse
Stories in which the resolution rests in policing, arrest, or imprisonment (whether serious or comedic)
Gratuitous or extended scenes of sexual violence, abuse, or hate-based violence
Fairy tale adaptations or re-imaginings
Stories set in or centered on video games or virtual reality worlds

Recent acquisitions include:

Rachel Stark at Disney Hyperion has acquired, in an exclusive submission, Reasons We Break author Jesmeen Kaur Deo’s next untitled contemporary YA. In this romantic drama, Chandani Sharma, whose university future depends on her keeping an academic scandal under wraps, races to stop a rival student from exposing the corruption—even as they begin to fall for one another. Publication is planned for late 2027/early 2028; Jennifer Azantian at Azantian Literary Agency did the deal for North American rights.

Some other media I’ve been loving recently, that’s indicative of my taste, includes: