Samantha Wekstein

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Samantha Wekstein grew up in Westchester, NY. She attended the University of Maryland,College Park and received a B.A. in English. Go Terps! She now lives in NYC with her husband and dog. After internships with Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency and Rowman & Littlefield, she began her career in 2013 at Writers House LLC. She then briefly worked as an assistant at The Agency Group (now UTA) before returning to Writers House for the next 5 years where she began supporting the CEO, and then the Founder, before becoming an agent. She’s been lucky to work with a variety of best-selling and award-winning authors across all genres. She joined TLA in 2019 where she’s excited to grow her list.

In YA, she loves creative and epic fantasies in the vein of Sarah J. Maas or Leigh Bardugo. But she is also drawn to realistic stories with multi-dimensional female characters like those of Jenny Han, Julie Murphy and Melina Marchetta. She is always interested in elevating diverse voices, particularly through feminist narratives.

She is seeking middle grade of all stripes, but especially stories that deal with themes of friendship, adventure, or encountering tragedy for the first time. Her favorites are Sharon Creech, Shannon Hale, and Gail Carson Levine.

She is also on the lookout for whimsical, meaningful, and funny picture books by author/illustrators. ***Please do not send text-only projects.*** Here’s a website for her illustrators: https://wekstein-illustrators.weebly.com/
Some favorites include: DON’T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS, I WANT MY HAT BACK, DRAGONS LOVE TACOS, THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT, and HAIR LOVE.

On the adult side she is drawn to commercial voices in Romance (in the vein of Christina Lauren, Jasmine Guillory, or Emily Henry), and Women’s Fiction.

She’d love to find Historical Fiction that focuses on female or queer perspectives and is particularly interested in underrepresented settings and voices.  

In fantasy, her tastes are broad. She’s always on the hunt for romantic second world fantasy (romantasy!). She loves epic and high fantasy, intricate court politics, plotting and intrigue, historical fantasy or fantasy rooted in world mythologies (specifically from underrepresented perspectives and cultures), fantasy as an exploration of social justice, feminism, or family dynamics. She loves ride or die friendship groups, and redemption arcs. Overall, she’s looking for well-developed relationships and friendships, slow-burns, well thought out magic systems (she’s pedantic about the logic of magic and cares about the rules). Some specific wish list items: Jewish fantasy, magic school books (dark academia included), and cozy fantasy.

For sci-fi she’s looking for stories grounded in the human experience, world-building that’s logical and not too technical, female, nonbinary, BIPOC, and Queer led stories. She loves and prefers romantic subplots. She’d like genre-blending (like a rom-com set in the apocalypse), near future premises, and sci-fi where only one aspect of the world is changed. She’s open to epic storytelling, but if you’re sending her a space opera, it needs to be grounded in specific human experiences and she feels that space pirates/bandits/thieves and space Westerns have been too well-trod and is looking for something fresh in the space. She’s not the best fit for stories with alien main characters, plots where the main focus is aliens, technology that edits dreams or memories, anything militaristic, anything with a cop or detective main character, anything that focuses too much on evil corporations or anything with virtual reality or video games. She finds it really hard to care about robot main characters.

In nonfiction, she’s open to humor, pop culture, history, social justice, and anything feminist.

Please do NOT send her literary fiction, stories featuring angels/devils from biblical mythology, adult thrillers (or anything that can be described as “hardboiled”), crime, mystery, suspense (even the romantic kind), picture books about Christmas/Santa, and works with themes of suicide or drug addiction as the main focus.

Thompson Literary LLC was formed in 2014 by Meg Thompson. In this exciting new venture, Meg and her colleagues will continue to be attentive to their clients’ needs for the life of their books, from developing ideas and editing manuscripts, to placing books with the best publishers, to working with the publisher on all aspects of a project, including editorial, design, marketing, publicity, and sales.

**Please peruse my Bluesky page before sending me a submission. I update it regularly with query tips and special requests.** @swekstein.bsky.social

Some projects:
The Do-Gooder by Jessie L. Star (Pocket/S&S)
Cake at Midnight by Jessie L. Star (Pocket/S&S)
The Seventh Sun by Lani Forbes(Blackstone)
The Jade Bones by Lani Forbes (Blackstone)
The Obsidian Butterfly by Lani Forbes (Blackstone)
The Big Sibling Getaway by Korrie Leer (Albert Whitman)
Zoo-Mate Wanted by Korrie Leer (Albert Whitman)
The Exceptional Maggie Chowder by Renee B. Lute (Albert Whitman)
World In Between by Kenan Trebincevic and Susan Shapiro (Clarion/HMH)
The Forgiveness Tour by Susan Shapiro (Skyhorse)
The Book Bible by Susan Shapiro (Skyhorse)
Your Mind Makes Thoughts Like Your Butt Makes Farts by Todd Strauss-Schulson (Wisdom)
The Last Tamale by Orlando Mendiola (Harpercollins)
Peg Gets Crackin’ by Jo Renfro (Beaming Books)
Face the Night by Lani Forbes (Blackstone)
Forever Journal by Ashley Sirah Chea (Clarkson Potter/PRH)
American Shield by Sgt. Aquilino Gonell and Susan Shapiro (Counterpoint)
Dinner at the Brake Fast by Renee Beauregard Lute (HarperCollins/Quill Tree)
Joey the Good by Erin M. Fry (Jolly Fish)
Landing in a New Pond by Marisa Ramel (Charlesbridge)
Peg’s Egg by Jo Renfro (Beaming Books)
Autoimmunity and the Good Girls: How the Power to Put Ourselves First Keeps Us Well by Sara Hirsh Bordo (Harper One/Harpercollins)

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be emailed to https://QueryManager.com/SamanthaWekstein

I am closed to queries.

Please fill out my Query Manager form. You’ll be required to submit a query letter and your first 10 pages as an attachment. If you’re submitting a picture book, please include illustrations.

https://QueryManager.com/SamanthaWekstein

Please do not notify me about full requests, but do let me know if you receive an offer. Thank you!

I plan to close to queries on 11/1/2024.

Guidelines & Details

Consultations