Marissa is open to a wide range of children’s book authors, illustrators, and author-illustrators. Across the board, she is on the lookout for stories by traditionally underrepresented and marginalized creators. She is especially drawn to stories inspired by personal experience. For picture books, she is interested in lyrical texts with a focus on friends, family, big ideas, or feelings. For middle-grade and young adult, she is drawn to fast-paced, high-stakes, voice-driven narratives featuring found family or ensemble casts and poignant coming-of-age stories. She is primarily interested in contemporary stories and enjoys genre-bending elements as long as the stories are grounded in the real world (or a world similar to our own). For graphic novels, she welcomes all genres for all ages but has a particular affinity for romance, slice-of-life narratives, or stories with a touch of magic. She’s also interested in spooky action-filled adventures (but not horror or thriller). She is also open to select fantasy and romance projects with strong world-building, complex dynamics, and characters with a unique voice and perspective. She prefers grounded fantasy with a recognizable world and simple magic systems. She is not currently looking for books featuring dragons or aliens. She enjoys fantasy featuring morally gray main characters that explore the complexity of being alive. As for romance, she prefers character-driven stories with a lot of heart and humor. She is not the best fit for rhyming picture books, bug books, books about or heavily featuring cancer, horror, historical fiction, or books created by or heavily featuring artificial intelligence (AI). Submission Guidelines Submissions should be emailed to I am currently open to queries. Please review my wishlist, and if you’d like to query me after doing so, please submit your query via. Vital Info Website Associate Literary Agent
Fiction
Action/Adventure, Children's, Contemporary, Family Saga, Fantasy, Folklore, Graphic Novel, LGBTQ, Magical Realism, Middle Grade, New Adult, Picture Books, Romance, Romcom, Young Adult
Non-Fiction
Pop Culture, Science
Favorite sub-genres
Adult Rom Com, Author-Illustrator, BIPOC Fantasy, Beginning Readers, Classic retellings with BIPOC characters, Clever picture book, Commercial MG, Commercial YA, Contemporary Romance, Contemporary Young Adult, Cozy Fantasy, Cozy Mystery, Ensemble Casts, Fabulism, Fairytale Retellings, Fantasy, Fantasy Grounded in Reality, Fantasy YA, Folklore, Graphic Novels (for all ages), Illustrators, Immigrant Voices, LGBTQ+, Layered Family Stories with multiple narrators, Literary Middle Grade, Literary YA, Lyrical picture book, MG Sci-Fi, Magic, Magical Realism, Marginalized Voices, Mental Health, Middle Grade, Middle Grade Adventure, Middle Grade Fantasy, Middle Grade Mystery, Modern Retellings of Fairy Tales, Modernized Mythologies, Monsters, Multicultural Romance, Multigenerational, Multiple POV, New Adult, Novels in Verse, Own Voices, Picture Book, Slice of life, Urban Fantasy, YA Crossover, YA Rom-Coms, YA Romantasy, Young Adult, classic retellings, coming of age, commercial middle grade, contemporary middle grade, crossover appeal, enemies to lovers, family saga, fantastical, found family, friendship stories, rivals to lovers, slow burn romance, spooky mg I’d like the next… Jandy Nelson Heartstopper Six of Crows Percy Jackson and the Olympians Gallagher Girls My favorites include…
Books
PJO
Six of Crows Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares Stargirl Caraval
Television
Teen Wolf Only Murders in the Building Ted Lasso Gilmore Girls New Girl Kuroko’s Basketball My Hero Academia Love Island
Movies
The Proposal Set It Up Any Disney movie