Larissa Melo Pienkowski

As a queer, mixed-race Latina who grew up hungry for stories that mirrored my own and those around me, I’m focused on centering BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, disabled, neurodivergent, and other historically excluded voices and experiences across all genres. I’m especially drawn to books that pull me in emotionally and let me lose myself in the pages; unforgettable characters with propulsive, clearly defined desires; unique voices that leap off the page; lush and lyrical writing; and underexplored themes and topics.

In adult fiction, I’m looking for:

• voicey stories of diaspora and displacement from authors with these experiences, like Daphne Palasi Andreades’s Brown Girls
• gripping, beautifully written heists, cons, and scams with high personal stakes and sharply drawn cultural context, like Grace D. Li’s Portrait of a Thief
• BIPOC- and queer-led reinventions of “classics,” such as Nghi Vo’s The Chosen and the Beautiful
• multigenerational family sagas and braided narratives featuring characters of color, like Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing
• stories with charming settings that hold the power to transport you elsewhere, especially bookstores, libraries, and seaside villages (bonus points if there are fabulist elements to the setting as well)
• haunting and atmospheric queer, feminist, and non-Western horror with subtle social commentary in the vein of Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties and Silvia Moreno Garcia’s Mexican Gothic
• timely, laugh-out-loud romance/rom-coms with a unique premise and chemistry that makes me fall in love with the characters myself, like Bolu Babalola’s Honey & Spice
• lush, relatable “women’s fiction,” New Adult, and coming-of-age stories with surprising twists on tropes, like Morgan Rogers’s Honey Girl
• historical fiction where the protagonist defies societal expectations in some way (I would especially love to see more LGBTQ+ regency stories and more historical fiction about familiar time periods in less familiar settings and contexts)
• stories based in South and Central America, including titles in translation (Cantoras by Carolina de Robertis is a favorite)—I would especially love to represent more Brazilian writing
• quirky light fantasy grounded in real-world social themes, in the vein of TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea
• darkly complex mother-daughter, sister-sister, and best friend relationships with propulsive plots
• mysteries and thrillers that are either cozy by way of including food, books, friendship, and found family as key themes, or eerily seductive by way of charming and beautiful yet murderous femme fatale characters
• revenge stories with feminist and anticolonial themes
• novels that stretch and transcend genre, such as Angela Mi Young Hur’s Folklorn

In middle-grade and YA fiction, I’m looking for:

• ragtag misfits-turned-best friends, especially in heartfelt mystery-adventures like The Mysterious Benedict Society
• stories that incorporate family, friendship, and strong cultural elements without being exclusively issues-driven, like K. Tempest Bradford’s Ruby Finley vs. the Interstellar Invasion and Claribel Ortega’s Ghost Squad
• enchanting magical realism and fantasy grounded in the experiences and insecurities that accompany growing up (as above, bonus points if it takes place in a bookstore, library, seaside village, or portal world)
• as above, revenge stories with feminist and anticolonial themes
• personal journeys and adventures that dive into non-Western folklore and mythology, like Erin Entrada Kelly’s Lalani of the Distant Sea
• deeply emotional, lyrical books that unapologetically explore heavy emotions and experiences, like The Line Tender by Kate Allen

On the adult nonfiction side, I’m looking for:

• narrative nonfiction that blends personal experience with investigative reporting, like Sexographies by Gabriela Wiener and How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
• cookbooks that feature diverse, authentic, traditionally underrepresented cuisines
• food writing that weaves together culture, society, and the food we eat in community, like The Way We Eat Now by Bee Wilson
• essay collections that chronicle contemporary life through the lens of pop culture, social justice, decolonial thinking, and liberation, in the vein of Hanif Abdurraqib and Rebecca Solnit
• cultural history and analysis of niche topics (bonus points for topics like fragrance, beauty, poison, and psychedelics/plant medicine)

I’m not the best fit for:

• stories exploring issues of identity written by authors who don’t share that identity
• apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, or dystopian novels
• space operas and deep sci-fi (though I loved Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki and would love to read something equally character-driven)
• angel/demon, heaven/hell stories
• pro-military, pro-detective, or pro-police books
• anything having to do with Nazis or terrorists
• fantasy featuring elves, aliens, robots, fae, dragons, vampires, werewolves, or unicorns (but I do love ghosts, mermaids, bruxas, non-western mythological creatures, and feminist monsters)
• WWII or Civil War historical fiction (unless written from a marginalized perspective we haven’t heard from before)
• COVID memoirs
• nonfiction centered on business, economics, or capital-P politics

Submission Guidelines

Please submit to me via info (at) jillgrinbergliterary (dot) com. Your email subject line should follow this general format: QUERY: [Title of Project] by [Your Name] / [Age Category/Genre] / ATTN: [Larissa Melo Pienkowski].

Please paste your query letter in the body of the email and attach your materials as a docx. file. You will receive an auto-response confirming your submission was received.

For all fiction submissions, please send a query letter and the first fifty (50) pages of your manuscript. For all nonfiction submissions, please send a query letter and complete proposal. Your nonfiction proposal should include an overview of the project, proposed chapter summaries, a sample chapter, comparable titles, your biography, and bibliography of any additional works. You may also include promotional ties/materials if relevant.

Guidelines & Details

Consultations