Paula Weiman

I’m most actively seeking YA rom-coms. I want to see rom-coms with teeth, I want to see joyful romances following girls and queer protagonists whose stories are rooted in a larger social or cultural topic — but still full of shenanigans. I’d love something in the vein of Felix Ever After, TJ Powar Has Something to Prove, This May End Badly, or Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did).

In YA suspense, I want to see well-developed plots with beautiful prose following teenagers who tackle systemic injustice and corrupt power systems. I’m looking for books like Sadie, A Long Stretch of Bad Days, Where There’s Smoke, Not Like Other Girls, and Margot Mertz Takes it Down.

For YA thrillers I’m exclusively interested in heists, either contemporary or historical, where the team is trying to fight injustice or right a wrong from behind the scenes – think Anatomy of a Thief for a teen audience. Recent favorites are Thieves Gambit and Medici Heist.

I’m interested in literary, psychological horror for both YA and adult readers. I love stories where it’s not initially clear if the speculative element is literal or metaphorical, as well as folk horror that’s deeply rooted in a specific setting or culture (especially if it examines colonization). Editors have been asking me about genre-blending categories like horror-romance and horror-comedy and I’m interested in books that fit that description. Some YA favorites include Fiendish, Burn Our Bodies Down, and Sawkill Girls; and on the adult side: Chlorine, Summer Sons, Our Wives Under the Sea, Bunny, and The Monster of Elendhaven. I’m not usually the right fit for slashers, creature features, paranormal romance, or narratives that draw heavily on nostalgia for classic horror films.

I am NOT representing text-only picture book manuscripts or text-only graphic novel proposals at this time. I am ONLY considering queries from creators who are both writing and illustrating their own picture books and graphic novels.

I’m looking for picture books with dry but accessible humor. I’m interested in stories with incidental representation for disabled characters, queer characters, and blended families, as well as narratives that center multiculturalism or celebrations of cultural moments that haven’t been widely platformed in US publishing. I tend to connect with gentle, warm art styles. I always enjoy a ghost story that leans more toward “cozy” than “spooky!” I’m a big fan of Marianna Coppo, Vern Kousky, Kenard Pak, Banana by Zoey Abbot, I Am Not a Fox by Karina Wolf, The Good Little Mermaid’s Guide to Bedtime by Eija Sumner and Nici Gregory, and Hidden Gem by Linda Liu. I also have a soft spot for weird and ambitious picture books – think Shaun Tan, Zeno Sworder, X. Fang, and Esme Shapiro. I always enjoy a ghost story that leans more toward “cozy” than “spooky!”

Across age categories, I’m interested in graphic novels that feature a tight one-shot adventure, whether that’s contemporary or speculative. I also enjoy memoirs that take advantage of the illustrated medium to make me feel like I’m seeing the world through the creator’s eyes. Some of my favorites are Squire by Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas, In Limbo by Deb JJ Lee, The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen, The Infinity Particle by Wendy Xu, Beetle and the Hollowbones by Aliza Layne, Snapdragon by Kat Leyh, One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg, and Emily Carroll’s entire body of work.

Across these genres and age categories, I welcome stories about marginalized characters and stories written by marginalized authors.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be emailed to submissions@ashliterary.com

Please include a note in your query letter if your manuscript includes depictions of sexual assault or dead children. For novels, please send the first three chapters. For graphic novels, please include a proposal and up to ten pages of samples. For picture books, please send sample illustrations that include at least one image of the main character and upload the entire text.

Paula can be queried through QueryManager or su*********@as*********.com. Submissions sent elsewhere and those sent to both QM and the email simultaneously will be deleted unread.

Guidelines & Details