Kerry-Ann Bentley

Kerry-Ann Bentley graduated from the University of Essex with a first-class degree in English & United States Literature and earned her Master’s in Literary Studies with a pathway in Caribbean Literature & its Diasporas from Goldsmiths, University of London.

She started in publishing as an intern for Janklow & Nesbit’s New York office, before joining in 2020 as literary associate to PJ Mark, working closely editorially with him and his list of award-winning writers.

In 2023, Kerry-Ann joined Janklow & Nesbit UK where she co-ordinates and represents US projects into the UK market, and is actively building a list of literary, upmarket and commercial fiction, as well as narrative-led non-fiction, memoir, and select poetry.

Kerry-Ann is Jamaican-born and has lived in the Caribbean, the UK and the US, and is particularly drawn to writers of a similar transatlantic experience. She would like to work with writers who are of the African Caribbean diaspora who explore race, class, gender, queerness, and the legacies of colonialism on family–especially mother-daughter relationships—love, sex, culture, and nation. Books she admires in this space are If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery, The Islands by Dionne Irving, Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson, The Day I Fell Off My Island by Yvonne Bailey-Smith, What A Mother’s Love Don’t Teach You by Sharma Taylor, Queenie by Candace Carty Williams, and How To Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair.

I enjoy a broad range of fiction, style, and prose, and am looking for writers with a strong command of voice and tone, and who have razor-sharp focus and insight into under-represented facets of humanity and culture.

For literary fiction, I admire beautiful language and voices that feel singular, urgent, and fresh. I appreciate lyrical, poetic sentences as much as sparse or formally inventive ones, but there must be vivid, inhabited characters and smart dialogue. In upmarket and commercial fiction, I need an exhilarating premise, tight plotting, loveable characters, and humour. I love books that are exploring contemporary issues by investigating recent histories from an unexpected lens, and uncovering something new and underrepresented about modern living. Writers I admire are Elena Ferrante, James Baldwin, Eileen Myles, Maddie Mortimer, Sarah Manguso, Toni Morrison, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Monica Heisey, Charmaine Wilkerson, Jessica George, Liv Little, Casey McQuiston, Jasmine Guillory, Angie Thomas, Sally Rooney, Brandon Taylor, Ocean Vuong, Marlon James, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Yrsa Daley-Ward, and Safiya Sinclair.

In memoir and narrative non-fiction, I like to read about people and places on subjects of a wider social resonance. I also love to read non-fiction by journalists, critics, and academics who are zeitgeist voices with their fingers on the pulse of modern issues. Writers that reflect my non-fiction taste are Nicole Fleetwood, Kiese Laymon, Imani Perry, Isabel Wilkerson, Cathy Park Hong, Bessel van der Kolk, Samantha Irby, Sarah M. Broom, Melissa Febos, Hafizah Augustus Geter, Natasha Trethewey, Aisha Sabatini Sloan, Rachel Aviv, Jia Tolentino, and Allison P Davis.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be emailed to KBentley@JANKLOW.co.uk

1. Please email with the following subject line:

“Query for KAB: [TITLE] by [Author Name], [Country of Residence].”

I.e., Query for KAB: BEST BOOK EVER by The Next Toni Morrison, USA.

Please also include the genre and word count of your work in the query letter. 

Thank you,

KAB 🙂

Guidelines & Details