Aashna Avachat

I am excited to build my list in a variety of different categories and genres! I am currently building a list of authors/illustrators of color. Within submissions by creators of color, I am especially interested in queer representation, religious diversity, and disability representation in all age categories. For all fiction, I am looking for #ownvoices stories that feature protagonists of color.

My goal as an agent is to champion diversity in publishing, to uplift creators of color and marginalized communities. I have pretty commercial taste across the board, from kidlit to adult, fiction and non-fiction.

Picture Books:

• Laugh out-loud funny books with clever illustration potential (think: Meet the Dullards, The Paper Bag Princess)
• Family, culture, SEL, nature/environment themes
• NOT currently looking for food-based books or rhyming books!
• NOT currently looking for PB non-fiction or biographies. Fiction only, please!

Illustrators:

• Artists interested in picture books, chapter books, or covers, whether children’s books or adult

Graphic Novel:

• Author-illustrated graphic novels for children, teens, or adults
• I am open to GNs in the genres listed below
• Also open to GN memoirs and historical GN

Middle Grade:

• Primarily contemporary MG with a strong hook
• MG featuring queer characters, characters with disabilities
• Spooky MG
• Some MG favorites: Almost Flying, Clues to the Universe, From the Desk of Zoe Washington
• NOT looking for anthropomorphic books

Young Adult:

• Romantic comedies where both leads are POC
• Mysteries/thrillers
• Contemporary spy/heist novels in the vein of I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You or a YA Portrait of a Thief
• Palace intrigue: NON-magical, NON-dystopian, royalty-based stories in the vein of The False Prince or Liar’s Kingdom (but without faeries!)
• Mythology/fantasy retellings with twists, and so long as the fantasy elements are very light (think YA Kaikeyi or YA Song of Achilles)
• Plot-driven horror
• Modern retellings of classics
• Pre-modern historical novels in the vein of June Hur
• Speculative fiction with very light sci-fi/fantasy elements (think These Violent Delights)
• cross-over into New Adult under the same genres
• Dark academia with political critique of academia
• Cozy fantasy (light fantasy)
• Witches in a light fantasy setting

Adult:

• Romantic comedies where both leads are POC
• Mysteries (not looking for police/organized crime focused mysteries)
• Epic mysteries in the vein of God of the Woods; All the Colors of the Dark
• Domestic thrillers in the vein of Stacy Willingham, Lisa Jewell, Emiko Jean
• Funny contemporary in the vein of Anxious People and The Wedding People
• Literary-ish books like Everything I Never Told You, Such a Fun Age, Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow
• Plot-forward horror
• Cozy fantasy (A Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches)
• Mythology/fantasy retellings with twists, and so long as the fantasy elements are very light (think Kaikeyi or Song of Achilles)

Non-Fiction:

• Pop culture criticism
• Gender/feminist criticism & journalism (The Right to Sex, Girls & Sex, How to Date Men When You Hate Men)
• Accessible pop science (Everything is Tuberculosis)
• A deep dive into a niche area through narrative journalism style
• Unique cookbooks
• Some of my non-fiction favorites: Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve; The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks; Perfect Victims; Just Mercy

Ultra-specific MSWL:

• The Clique but about girls of color
• OCD representation where OCD is not the only primary plot (Think: Turtles All the Way Down)
• YA wilderness camp horror/mystery
• Something like Yellowjackets 

I am NOT currently looking for:

• Sci-Fi
• Fantasy (I have very very few, specific exceptions to this; see above!)
• War novels
• Novels in-verse/poetry
• Short story/essay collections
• Oppressor-oppressed romances
• On-the-page sexual violence/child abuse
• Vampires/werewolves/faeries
• Board books
• Dystopian
• Chapter books
• Epistolary formats
• Children’s non-fiction
• Erotica

Submission Guidelines

Please submit your query via Query Tracker, linked below.

Picture Books:

Please submit the entire PB text in the writing sample section & (if applicable) include your dummy/art samples in the “upload sample artwork” section.

Graphic Novels:

Please submit the first 10 pages of your script in the writing sample & include 10 sample pages in the “upload sample artwork” section.

Illustrators:

Please submit a query with information about the kinds of projects you’re interested in illustrating along with any experience. Please link your website and submit a sample portfolio in the “upload sample artwork” section.

Novelists:

Please submit the first 10 pages of your MS and include a synopsis.

Non-Fiction:

Please paste your entire proposal in writing sample section. A proposal should include a pitch, your author platform/bio, comparative titles, a manuscript overview/outline, and sample pages. For an excellent non-fiction proposal overview, please see here.

Guidelines & Details