Kelsey Evans

Passionate about championing authors through the entire lifecycle of their careers, Kelsey combines editorial insight with a decade of marketing expertise to help her clients navigate both craft and career. Before entering publishing, she helmed marketing strategy and content development for agencies working with major brands like AAA, Dannon, and Target. 

She began as an editor, helping writers shape their work through developmental feedback, query critiques, and revision guidance. Through internships with Brent Taylor during his Triada tenure in 2024 and Creative Media Agency (CMA) in 2025, she gained hands-on experience in manuscript evaluation, submissions, and client development. 

For the last year, Kelsey has been building her client list as an agent, focusing on commercial fiction across YA and adult. An editorial agent, she loves helping writers clarify the shape of their book while providing big picture feedback and actionable steps for revisions. Solving that puzzle is her sweet spot. 

She resides in Philadelphia, but travels frequently with her partner, a pilot. When she’s home, you can find her rowing along the Schuylkill River, watching pro cycling, hunting for the best croissants, trying to pet every dog in sight, and drinking enough coffee to make Lorelai Gilmore smile proudly.

FICTION

I’m actively looking for all subgenres of horror! Books that explore cults, religion, power dynamics; creepy, strange, unnerving stories that feel like a X-Files or Twin Peaks episode; unreliable narrators…I’m excited about it all. A few of my favorite authors in this genre are Riley Sager, Lisa Jewell, Cassandra Khaw, Stephen Graham Jones, Grady Hendrix, and Andrew Joseph White. I would love anything that can be comped to a Mike Flanagan show! Horror + romance is also a favorite here (I will read anything that Brynne Weaver writes). 

Mystery, thriller, and suspense are at the top of my list. That can be a super dry, superbly paced English or Scottish standalone like Dept. Q, a series like Slow Horses by Mick Herron, or a multi-timeline, interwoven mystery like Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. I also love Richard Osman, Stuart Turton, Jessica Knoll, and Oyinkan Braithwaite in this space. 

I’m very excited by romance across all subgenres. Send all the sports romances my way (I’m still waiting for a WNBA story to hit my inbox). I would love a grounded, laugh out loud grumpy x sunshine story like Morbidly Yours by Ivy Fairbanks, a paranormal story that balances heart and humor like Bride, or a speculative romance in the vein of Ashley Poston. 

For science fiction and fantasy, I’m selectively looking for magic-first books. That can be academic (Ninth House, Katabasis, Babel, The Magicians, The Historian). My favorite book in this area in the last few years is Kirsten Miller’s The Change. Please bring me supernatural investigators, spooky romantasy, heist stories, and folklore! 

In YA, I’m searching for compelling romance, mystery, thriller, and horror stories. 

Finally, I’m also incredibly excited by indie authors who are looking to move into the trad space! 

Overall, I’m not the best fit for picture books, chapter books, MG, novellas, screenplays, memoirs, short stories, or literary fiction. 

Submission Guidelines

Please use the QueryTracker link provided. Fields marked (required) are required, all other listed fields are encouraged. I respond to every submission I receive.

Note: I will not accept queries emailed to me directly.

I look forward to reading your submission! ☺

Guidelines & Details