Hillary Fazzari

About Me:

Hi!  I’m Hillary (she/her), and I’m an agent at the Bradford Literary Agency! As an agent, I’m a generalist and acquire widely across genres, age bands, and book types. I’m not always open to unsolicited queries in all of the areas I represent, and at the moment I am closed to all unsolicited queries, so this is a general MSWL to be kept in mind for when I open again.

Overall, I acquire:

• Picture books:  fiction, nonfiction, and novelty, and I look for both picture books for young readers (pre-K audiences) and older elementary-aged kids.
• Chapter books and easy readers, primarily fiction
• Graphic Novels for kids, primarily fiction with limited nonfiction
• Middle-grade fiction (both illustrated and non-illustrated) along with very limited MG nonfiction and novelty books
• YA fiction
• Crossover and New Adult fiction
• Adult fiction
• Adult nonfiction (predominately in areas of history, pop culture, and esoterica that can produce mainstream books)

I often have areas of higher focus within each of these age bands or categories, depending on where my list stands. With market shrinkage something everyone is facing right now, I don’t like to put my clients in competition with each other, which means I can’t always acquire across all areas of the market that I represent at once.

For Nonfiction and Novelty Picture Books, I’m usually most looking for:

• “How things work” books;
• Hands-on books, including STEM-focused;
• Search-and-find books and other types of interactive narratives;
• History, folklore, fairytales, and mythology;
• Oddities books and humor.

For Picture books in fiction, I’m usually looking for:

• Funny, lush, or voice-y character-centric picture books (like ELIOSE or DON’T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS!);
• Offbeat or unexpected ecosystem-centric books (like CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS or BROWN BEAR WOOD: IT’S BUSY DOWN IN THE WOODS TODAY).

For Middle-grade, I typically look for:

• Humor;
• Stories for kids who are “scrollers” and need consistent input to transition to reading;
• Interactive, interesting format, and illustrated stories;
• Adventure, quest, and mystery books with voice-y, sometimes oddball protagonists. (THE FOURTH STALL, TIMMY FAILURE, SPACE CASE, DRAGON RUN, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, and the FUNJUNGLE books are very indicative of my taste). I also like big fantasy or second-world adventure (magical and non-magical), eco-adventure, and school/daily life-adventure books (think THE WORST SCHOOL TRIP EVER, HOOT, TAPPER TWINS, THE CHRONICLES OF EGG, LEMONY SNICKET, HALF UPON A TIME, LIAR & SPY, and anything that can make me laugh!);
• Shorter books for lower middle-grade readers and books for upper middle-grade readers.

For YA, I usually most look for:

• Material that wraps around a simple, high impact hook regardless of genre;
• Books with characters and relationships that jump off the page; or
• Unreliable narrators you can’t help but love who lead you on twists and turns.
• Some books indicative of my taste in YA include:
  • THE FALSE PRINCE series by Jennifer A. Nielsen
  • The HEIST SOCIETY and EMBASSY ROW series by Ally Carter
  • Maurene Goo’s books
  • Holly Black’s THE FOLK OF THE AIR series
  • Brigid Kemmerer’s books
  • Megan Whalen Turner’s books
  • A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE and its sequels by Brittany Cavallaro
  • Heather Fawcett’s books
  • The LEGENDBORN series by Tracy Deonn
  • TROUBLE IS A FRIEND OF MINE and its sequel by Stephanie Tromly
  • IVORY AND BONE and its sequel by Julie Eshbaugh

In New Adult/Crossover, I’m most looking for:

• Material with a flavor similar to my YA list but for readers who are adults or “new” adults themselves; or
• Authors with buzzy, hyper-fresh, or daring self-published work who are looking to transition to traditional publishing

For Adult fiction, I’m leaning less commercial (or purely commercial) these days and am most looking for:

• Elegant, deeply thematic, feminist fantasy in the vein of THE KNIGHT AND THE MOTH;
• Lyrical historical fantasy or historically-inspired contemporary or futuristic fantasy — I’d love an adult RAVEN BOYS or something with the stunning writing of Megan Whelan Turner’s books;
• Books with strong fantasy, historical, or other genre elements that have something important to say; examples: BLACK WATER SISTER by Zen Cho; THE RESURRECTIONIST by A. Rae Dunlap;
• Feminist-centric novels: commercial, upmarket, literary;
• Elevated dark academia with strong themes:  think like BABEL and beyond; or
• Upmarket and literary work in all genres from BIPOC and queer writers.

For Adult nonfiction, I’m most interested in:

• History for a mainstream audience that focuses in on interesting topics, time periods, places, or themes;
• Feminist pop culture; or
• Esoteric topics that have mainstream appeal, particularly from authors with a platform in the area in which they are working.

For Graphic Novels, I only represent graphic novels for kids and am most looking for projects from author-illustrators with:

• A strong sense of place and character; and
• Elements of fantasy and/or simple, concise, high-impact hooks.

Submission Guidelines

I only accept unsolicited queries through QueryManager.  You can reach my QueryManager page here: https://bradfordlit.com/submission-guidelines

No use of Generative AI:

Protecting author’s and illustrators’ work is extremely important to me; I never use AI to review or read queries/submissions and do not represent material that has been created or edited by generative AI.

For Fiction:

Guidelines & Details