Samantha Wekstein

Samantha Wekstein grew up in Westchester, NY. She attended the University of Maryland,College Park and received a B.A. in English. Go Terps! She now lives in NYC with her husband and dog. After internships with Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency and Rowman & Littlefield, she began her career in 2013 at Writers House LLC. She then briefly worked as an assistant at The Agency Group (now UTA) before returning to Writers House for the next 5 years where she began supporting the CEO, and then the Founder, before becoming an agent. She’s been lucky to work with a variety of best-selling and award-winning authors across all genres. She joined TLA in 2019 where she’s excited to grow her list.

In YA, she loves creative and epic fantasies in the vein of Sarah J. Maas or Leigh Bardugo. But she is also drawn to realistic stories with multi-dimensional female characters like those of Jenny Han, Julie Murphy and Melina Marchetta. She is always interested in elevating diverse voices, particularly through feminist narratives.

She is seeking middle grade of all stripes, but especially stories that deal with themes of friendship, adventure, or encountering tragedy for the first time. Her favorites are Sharon Creech, Shannon Hale, and Gail Carson Levine.

She is also on the lookout for whimsical, meaningful, and funny picture books by author/illustrators. ***Please do not send text-only projects.*** Here’s a website for her illustrators: https://wekstein-illustrators.weebly.com/
Some favorites include: DON’T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS, I WANT MY HAT BACK, DRAGONS LOVE TACOS, THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT, and HAIR LOVE.

On the adult side she is drawn to commercial voices in Romance, Women’s Fiction, Sci-Fi and Fantasy. She’d love to find Historical Fiction that focuses on female or queer perspectives and is particularly interested in underrepresented settings and voices.

In nonfiction, she’s open to humor, pop culture, history, social justice, and anything feminist.

Please do NOT send her literary fiction, stories featuring angels/devils from biblical mythology, adult thrillers (or anything that can be described as “hardboiled”), crime, mystery, suspense (even the romantic kind), picture books about Christmas/Santa, and works with themes of suicide or drug addiction as the main focus.

Thompson Literary LLC was formed in 2014 by Meg Thompson. In this exciting new venture, Meg and her colleagues will continue to be attentive to their clients’ needs for the life of their books, from developing ideas and editing manuscripts, to placing books with the best publishers, to working with the publisher on all aspects of a project, including editorial, design, marketing, publicity, and sales.

**Please peruse my Twitter page before sending me a submission. I update it regularly with query tips and special requests.** https://twitter.com/SWekstein

Some projects:
The Do-Gooder by Jessie L. Star (Pocket/S&S)
Cake at Midnight by Jessie L. Star (Pocket/S&S)
The Seventh Sun by Lani Forbes(Blackstone)
The Jade Bones by Lani Forbes (Blackstone)
The Obsidian Butterfly by Lani Forbes (Blackstone)
The Big Sibling Getaway by Korrie Leer (Albert Whitman)
Zoo-Mate Wanted by Korrie Leer (Albert Whitman)
The Exceptional Maggie Chowder by Renee B. Lute (Albert Whitman)
World In Between by Kenan Trebincevic and Susan Shapiro (Clarion/HMH)
The Forgiveness Tour by Susan Shapiro (Skyhorse)
The Book Bible by Susan Shapiro (Skyhorse)
Your Mind Makes Thoughts Like Your Butt Makes Farts by Todd Strauss-Schulson (illustrator Phil McAndrew) (Wisdom)
The Last Tamale by Orlando Mendiola (Harpercollins)
Peg Gets Crackin’ by Jo Renfro (Beaming Books)
Face the Night by Lani Forbes (Blackstone)
Forever Journal by Ashley Sirah Chea (Clarkson Potter/PRH)
American Shield by Sgt. Aquilino Gonell and Susan Shapiro (Counterpoint)
Dinner at the Brake Fast by Renee Beauregard Lute (HarperCollins/Quill Tree)

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be emailed to https://QueryManager.com/SamanthaWekstein

***I will be closed to queries beginning 2/15/23.***

Please fill out my Query Manager form. You’ll be required to submit a query letter and your first 10 pages as an attachment. If you’re submitting a picture book, please include illustrations.

https://QueryManager.com/SamanthaWekstein

Guidelines & Details

Consultations