Lauren Bajek

I represent adult genre and speculative fiction. I’m drawn to projects and authors who have potential to thrive on either side of the genre divide, and I am particularly seeking SFFH that can appeal to mainstream readers, as well as mainstream fiction, mysteries, and romances with speculative or surreal elements. I also represent select adult nonfiction projects.

I do not represent YA or children’s fiction.

Fiction

I’m looking for books with strong genre elements (SF, fantasy, horror, mystery, romance) that are also accessible to readers who are less familiar with those genres. I like to work on books that are fun, smart, weird, and rooted in a strong theme, commentary, or big idea.

I’m generally bored by violence, so I often bounce off books that involve life-or-death stakes, kidnapped loved ones, or gladiators, and I don’t like being asked to enjoy murders or assassinations. On the flip side, I often enjoy plots driven by puzzles, exploration, discovery, compromise, and gossip. I love books with a strong grounding in fact– niche expertise, specific history, clearly drawn subcultures. I’m not strict about genre boundaries– I love genre-mashing, genre-blending, and any book where it feels like reality is squishy.

Catering to specific MSWL elements is always tricky, because the more specific the ask is, the more picky I’m going to be. But here are a few things that always make me take a closer look:

• Nonhuman intelligences that really feel nonhuman.
• Queer and trans fiction, especially when it doesn’t fit into tidy boxes.
• Butches! I love butches.
• Collective action, community organizing, and indirect resistance.
• A new angle on fertility, pregnancy, and parenthood– but no forced-birth, infertility angst, kidnapping, or child harm, please!
• A surreal, speculative take on reality TV.
• A truly fresh, theme-driven take on werewolves.
• Historical settings that are well-researched and vivid, especially if they’re new to me or particularly resonant with the current moment.
• A true fair-play mystery plotline– I love Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh, and I’d love a genre book that hits that sweet spot.

I am a tough audience for secondary worlds, epic fantasy, or stories that take place on spaceships. I rarely enjoy military elements, thieves or assassins, chosen ones or demigods, pirates, vampires, mermaids, or D&D style “races” (though I do have a soft spot for orcs and goblins). I rarely enjoy novels where the main speculative element has to do with sleep, dreams, memories, AI, or time travel. It’s fine to query me with these, just know that it will likely not be a fit.

Please do not send me books with graphic, on-page child harm or books with an evil baby plot. If you think your project may be on the line, please just mention it at the top of the query.

I always appreciate seeing more work from BIPOC authors, queer and trans authors, disabled authors, working-class and poor authors, non-US authors, and authors from other marginalized and underrepresented communities.

Nonfiction

I am open to select science and nature nonfiction, especially touching on ecosystems and non-human intelligence, or a project where “hard” sciences and “soft” sciences interrelate. My nonfiction list is extremely small, but I am always happy to be surprised by a proposal I didn’t know I wanted.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be emailed to querylauren@lizadawson.com

I ask for a query letter and first three chapters (or 25 pages) pasted into the body of an email. Please check the agency website to see whether I am open to unsolicited queries.

Liza Dawson Associates is a “one at a time” agency, so if you have an open query with one of my colleagues, please do not query me until they respond. Please query only one book at a time.

I respond to all queries (with the caveats below), and my target response time is six weeks. Feel free to nudge me after that time.

I do not respond to queries in genres I don’t represent, queries sent by someone other than the author (unless there are extenuating circumstances such as incarceration), queries where I am on CC or BCC with other agents, or to authors who send the same query over and over.

I rarely respond to requests for reasons why I passed on a project– if you received a form response, it’s probably because I didn’t have anything useful to say.