Molly Ker Hawn

I represent authors whose books have been New York Times, Sunday Times (UK), and international bestsellers and that have won and been shortlisted for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award, the Michael L. Printz Award, the Costa Children’s Book Award, the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Yoto Carnegie Medal, the British Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year, the Children’s Books Ireland Award,  Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis, and many other awards. My clients include Angie Thomas, Hilary McKay, Frances Hardinge, Heidi Heilig, Maryrose Wood, Louie Stowell, and more.

My clients are based all over the world, and I sell directly to  publishers in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. I also pay particular attention to translation rights sales, and so I’m looking for projects with global commercial appeal.

Specifically, I’m looking for:

• Exceptional middle-grade and young adult fiction with international appeal
• Children’s graphic novels with illustrations in place

Some specific likes and dislikes:

• I like wit, not snark.
• I like books that play with form and narrative.
• Nothing hooks me like writing that shows a real mastery of language.
• I love love. Romantic love, family love, the love of friendship — authentic-feeling bonds between characters can carry me through almost any story.
• I like books that make me feel changed by the end of them, like my world is bigger, and I understand it a little better.
• I’m not interested in ‘misery lit.’ I don’t like to finish a book feeling hopeless about the characters.
• Fantasy was my first love: Ruth Chew, Lloyd Alexander, Susan Cooper, Anne McCaffrey, and Sylvia Engdahl made me the reader I am today. But those influences mean my standards are high — I need solid worldbuilding, intelligent dialogue and real emotion in my fantasy.
• My taste in fantasy doesn’t run to angels/demons, vampires/werewolves, or similar ‘paranormal’ tropes.
• I can’t get enough of books that tell a great story and invite me to get to know a culture I’m unfamiliar with—and I’d like the author to be an authentic representative of that culture.
• I’m not a dog person. Animal protagonists in general don’t interest me, except maybe cats.
• Alternative reality/history always catches my eye. I like reading about real places, reimagined — Pullman’s Oxford is a good example of what I mean.
• I’m interested in reading about life in religious communities.
• I’m interested in books that deal with theatre and performance.
• I think the publishing industry underestimates young readers’ love for weirdness.
• I’m particularly interested in hearing from writers from historically excluded communities.

Please do not send me picture books. I only represent picture books for my established clients.

Please do not send me illustration samples. I don’t represent illustrators who don’t write their own texts.

Please do not send me books for adults.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be emailed to childrenssubmissions@davidhigham.co.uk

All children’s writing and artwork submissions should be sent to ch******************@************co.uk. Please address your email to me, Molly Ker Hawn.

Please include your name and the book title in the subject line, with your cover letter in the body of the email. In this, we would like to hear you introduce/pitch your story, see a brief summary (ideally one or two paragraphs), and hear a little bit about you (particularly about any relevant writing/illustrating history and your inspiration behind writing the story).

For young fiction and novels, please attach the first three chapters of your book, along with a synopsis, as a Word doc or pdf.

Send us your cover letter in the body of the email. Please include the pitch for your book and tell us any relevant information about yourself. Please do keep us updated if you receive an offer of representation and are still interested in working with one of our agents.

Due to the volume of submissions we receive, we are unable to respond individually to writers. Please note: if you don’t hear back within twelve weeks, then this unfortunately means we won’t be taking your submission any further. We hope this isn’t too discouraging for emerging writers, and will always welcome new submissions from previously unsuccessful authors.

Guidelines & Details