Stuti Telidevara

I am interested in diverse storytellers, vivid, detailed worldbuilding across genre, standout voices, and fiction with a strong, high-concept hook. While I appreciate sharp prose, I’m primarily looking for pace and sense of voice that leans more commercial than literary. As an agent I am editorially-minded and detail-oriented, and eager to work with writers, particularly those underrepresented in publishing, who are ambitious and imaginative.

Please do scroll to the bottom of this page for genres I’m not interested in at this time.

IN YA

I’m interested in all kinds of fantasy, especially books featuring marginalized perspectives. In high fantasy I like detailed, immersive settings and premises as in Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson or The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh, and characters and relationships to remember like in Joan He’s Strike the Zither or Maiya Ibrahim’s Spice Road. In contemporary fantasy I love a bit of edge, as in Krystal Sutherland’s House of Hollow or Holly Black’s Modern Faerie Tales, and a standout premise as in Tracy Deonn’s Legendborn or Ann Liang’s If You Could See the Sun. I’m looking for that transporting, escapist feeling even when a fantasy is set in our world — magic systems should feel rounded and, well, magical! Across fantasy subgenres, please send me stories influenced by mythology and history; I am especially eager for more South Asian fantasy.

In mystery/thriller, the darker the better, like Kara Thomas or Courtney Summers, or a YA Tana French. In horror, I’m looking for groundbreaking stories centering marginalized characters, and prefer the psychological and surreal to guts and gore. Recent favorites include The Honeys by Ryan La Sala, Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White, and The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert.

I am more selective with contemporary YA, but any story with a strong one-line pitch and lots of humor and heart will grab my attention, like I Kissed Shara Wheeler or This May End Badly. And a compelling voice, as in The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake and Slingshot by Mercedes Helnwein, is always key.

IN ADULT

On the adult fantasy side, my tastes are broad: I’m looking for gorgeous storytelling in the vein of Alix E. Harrow and worldbuilding as expansive as the Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee and Tamsyn Muir’s The Locked Tomb; I am always on the lookout for gritty contemporary fantasy like Ninth House or The Atlas Six; I love magical historical fiction from Zen Cho to Alexis Hall to H.G. Parry. I love stories that spotlight female characters in mythology as in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novels or Kaikeyi. I like my cozy fantasy to still have stakes, liveliness, and moments of real danger, as with Heather Fawcett’s Emily Wilde novels.

In sci-fi I’m drawn to unusual, complex premises like Yoon Ha Lee and Arkady Martine’s novels, and speculative fiction that movingly explores what it means to be human in the vein of Jon Bois’s 17776. And I love stories that are difficult to categorize, like Sarah Gailey’s Magic for Liars or Quan Barry’s We Ride Upon Sticks. Similar to my tastes in YA horror, I’m looking for stories about marginalized people that use speculative elements to tease out real-world horrors, like Mexican Gothic or All’s Well.

In mystery, once again I’m looking for psychological thrillers like Tana French and Gillian Flynn, with a literary bent and a strong sense of place and character. I am not a good fit for action/adventure novels, non-character-driven commercial thrillers, or plots centered on terrorism.

In romance and women’s fiction, I like the freshness and heart of Helen Hoang, Kate Clayborn, Bolu Babalola, and Emily Henry. I’m always drawn in by cinematic, celebrity-focused fiction in the vein of The View Was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements & Onjuli Datta; I’d love to find a romance novel reminiscent of HBO/BBC’s Starstruck.

IN MG

I’m more selective with middle grade, where I’m looking for fantasy, mystery, and adventure specifically with charm and complicated main characters — kids who are trying their best, and maybe stumbling a little along the way. I am not the best fit for contemporary or historical MG with no other genre elements.

What I’m not looking for: nonfiction; poetry; graphic novels; chapter books; picture books; literary fiction.

Unsure if your project is for me? As long as it doesn’t fall into the categories I’m specifically not looking for, please feel free to query me anyway — I am very often pleasantly surprised by what’s in my inbox.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be emailed to queries@parkfine.com

We currently welcome queries only by email.

Please put “Stuti Telidevara” as well as the category and genre of your submission (i.e.: “Stuti Telidevara – YA Fantasy”) in the subject line of the email. Send your query letter and approximately the first 10 manuscript pages for MG/YA OR 25 pages for adult manuscripts to queries@parkfine.com in the body of the email. Please do not include any attachments.

I aim to respond to all queries within 12 weeks of receiving them; feel free to follow up if you haven’t heard from me in that timeframe.

Guidelines & Details