Emma Kapson

I’m a native Los Angeleno and an agent at Verve Talent & Literary, where I represent authors across books, film & television. I read with an eye for adaptation, so I’m drawn to writers whose work has a strong central concept and the legs to live in more than one medium. What I want most is prestige with a commercial engine: elevated, high-concept, grounded storytelling that uses genre as a device to articulate cultural themes, with a hook sharp enough to sell in a sentence.

I look for concept and voice on the page. I want a premise I can pitch in one line and a voice I’d follow anywhere.

Within that:

Female-driven everything. Women’s voices, women’s rage, women’s interiority, women behaving badly.

Romance is a first love, and the angstier the better. I want romance that makes you throw the book across the room and then get up and go get it, romance that leaves you staring at the ceiling at 4am. I was raised on AO3 and Wattpad. Fanfiction writers: anything with a Dramione, Narusasu, or Zutara bend, please send my way. Give me elevated, smart smut, and anything written with a real fandom sensibility.

I love women-centered horror and body horror, the kind that uses the genre to say something true about living in a body in this culture. High-concept speculative genre fiction anchored in real emotional stakes. Obsession in all its forms.

In both romance and horror, I look for interesting, niche, or unexpected settings, worlds that do half the work of the hook.

Atmosphere matters to me as much as plot. I’m a sucker for anything with the mood of a Sofia Coppola film or a Lana Del Rey song: hazy, feminine, glamorous, a little rotten underneath.

I’m always looking to champion foreign and diverse writers. Above all, I want informed perspectives. The best pitch answers one question–why are you the only person who could write this book?

If it’s smart, sexy, hooky, and a little dangerous, send it my way.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be emailed to ekapson@vervetla.com

Email queries only. Please paste your query letter and the first twenty-five pages into the body of the email. I’ll follow up directly if I’d like to see more.