Lucy Hamilburg is a literary agent at The Hamilburg Agency.

Formerly, as a teacher, she worked toward the goal of motivating young people to love books. Lucy put great time and passion into curating a classroom library with a core foundation of equity and inclusion. Teaching allowed Lucy to pass on her love of books to her students and to instill in them that special sense of connection to story, to see themselves in the characters. As an agent, she uses her experiences to create long lasting relationships with her clients, editors, and publishers, to represent work that amplifies voice driven work, and most importantly, inspires and sustains life-long readers.

Lucy is looking for picture books, middle grade, and young adult fiction. As a former middle school teacher, she knows what flies off the shelves and is always seeking novels, graphic novels, lyrical prose, and picture books that make kids and young adults laugh out loud and simultaneously pull at their heart strings

Lucy is interested in books that cover universal experiences in humanity from authentic intersectional perspectives. She is drawn to character and voice driven narratives that examine relatable and real life issues that may be intertwined with magical realism or bits of fantasy, a combination of Jason Reynolds and B.B. Alston. She is a sucker for a series with well developed secondary characters as well as characters exploring their identity. She is also looking for page-turners with a strong hook – plots that would put her former students on the edges of their seats. Most importantly, Lucy strives to represent books that inspire empathy and empowerment through authentic perspectives while connecting and relating to all young readers.

She is open to all genres and categories within kidlit books — including fantasy, suspense/thriller, romance, contemporary, humor, paranormal, historical fiction, and everything in between.

Kaylee Zou is a literary agent with Williamson Literary.

Kaylee graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a double major in Writing Seminars and English in May of 2020. Since graduating, she has worked as a Technical Writer in the DC area. Recently, she left the corporate world and began pursuing writing her first novel full-time. Currently, she lives in Arlington with her roommate–but best friend first–Kinsey, who is Kaylee’s writing accountability and reads all her drafts of everything.

Kaylee joins Williamson Literary out of her passion for literature and writing while she continues to work on her manuscript. To many’s dismay, one of Kaylee’s favorite activities is spoiling movies and books for herself, and as such Wikipedia is her most visited website. Her favorite genre of content to consume is sad–anything tragic will do. Kaylee loves reality television, taking naps, and promenading around the ton like they do in Bridgerton. Having recently quit coffee, she promptly entered an identity crisis but found herself again in green tea. So it is with a belly full of green tea that Kaylee supports Williamson Literary as Associate Agent.

What the agency represents:

Nonfiction: history, sports, science, environmental, biographies, travel, culture, adventure, educational, motivational (i.e. work that informs or inspires social change or advocates for women and BIPOC). Give thought to your author platform and develop a strong marketing section for your book proposal.

Adult Fiction:  upmarket, contemporary, literary, and commercial; character-driven women’s fiction, book club fiction, domestic suspense, adventure, international, upbeat, feel-good, dark and dangerous, fiction with fantastical elements or magical realism, poignant social commentaries, humor, satire, new takes on old tropes. Pitch us writing that sings rather than tells, take us on an emotional journey, build vivid scenes for us, craft strong voices and unusual and unforgettable settings (we love stories where place is a character too). Any subject is welcome.

What we do Not represent:

– The heavily partisan, inflammatory, or hateful
– Children’s picture books, Middle Grade or Young Adult
– Genre Romance or Erotica
– Horror (as a strict genre, but we like classic horror elements)
– Hard Science Fiction and High Fantasy (again as a strict genre, but we love out-of-this-world stories)