Bio
Hi! I'm a YA rom-com and mystery author who loves reading about love in all forms! I have a rom-com about a girl who studies abroad in India and finds love at the Jaipur City Palace, all while curating a museum exhibit to spotlight looted colonial art, a fake-dating-ish revenge rom-com about two former best friends after a rift, and two mysteries in the same universe, both with romantic subplots. My debut rom-com was published by Joy Revolution at Random House, my mysteries are with Delacorte, and my upcoming rom-com is with Penguin Workshop! I met my agent after querying multiple projects, and it took three books on submission to get my first deal, so I have some experience in the trenches :) I learned a lot from folks in the industry while I was querying and going on sub, and I love getting to pass it on.
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Outside of my author work, I'm an agent at Neighborhood Literary, an attorney doing criminal defense work, and a perpetual cat foster mom. I'm up to 46 fosters (over many years), and I'm based in Chicago. I'm really looking forward to working with a mentee!
Manuscript
Wishlist
(MSWL)
This year, I am specifically looking to mentor a BIPOC author in a manuscript where the leads are also BIPOC!
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I'm open to YA, NA, and Adult categories, and contemporary romance, rom coms, literary-ish/upmarket fiction with strong romantic elements, and mysteries with a romantic subplot. Note that for mysteries, I am not looking for dark romance or romantic suspense, but rather true mysteries that happen to also have a romance in the B story (think: AGGGTM!).
I love a high concept rom-com that feels like a movie pitch, new spins on familiar tropes, retellings, and sparkling, funny dialogue. In any romance, I want to know -- why are these characters the perfect people for each other, instead of someone else? Why *them*?!
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I am not open to oppressor-oppressed romances, on-the-page sexual violence/child abuse, erotica, or military/cop stories.
Mentoring Style
I consider myself very editorial; I'm used to writing long edit letters and leaving lots of comments on authors' manuscripts. Author vision, however, is super important to me, so I consider my editorial style to be very collaborative and focused on suggestions -- finding areas that I think could use improvement and suggesting options to address them, but always deferring to the author for the ultimate course of action. I also love to brainstorm, so I'm happy to jump on a brainstorming call to discuss edits and ideas before you start working on them, and I'm available to answer questions as they come up, too, both on the manuscript and strategic/career questions. I mostly like to communicate over email since I'm better at staying on top of emails than phone notifications, but I'd love to meet my mentee over a video call to kick things off and am always happy to jump on the phone as needed.
Applications
from Connections
I don't have a preference regarding who may submit to me, even if we have connected in the past