Prospect Agency - a literary agency : about us

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It's just before sunset

a rust band glows
between the sunken horizon
and the dimming blue.

I'm sitting in the shadow
of the granite mountain
with cold waters
silhouettes of trees.

It's almost over now — darkness
is coming.

I am dissolving
     with one last
complicated movement
into sermons
of water and stone.

-ikk

Literary agency - Emily Sylvan Kim literary agent

Emily Sylvan Kim, agent - Emily Sylvan Kim is the founder of Prospect Agency. She started the agency with a vision of a literary agency that truly believes in the power of words and those who create them. Her focus is on maintaining a thriving literary agency that not only provides a high level of access and a sense of community but also savvy business acumen and technology to facilitate the process of turning great ideas into books on the shelf. The best part of being an agent for Emily is the joy of immersing herself in the editorial process one moment and turning around to negotiate a killer deal the next.

Emily grew up in Denver, Colorado and spent much of her childhood unable to put down whatever book she was reading...and honestly, that obsession with reading remains strong many, many manuscripts later! Emily graduated from Carleton College with a degree in English. After spending a year at law school learning very useful skills, she discovered she still couldn't put down her current novel. Clearly, it was time to translate her favorite obsession into a career. She moved to New York City and found herself a job within the publishing industry. After over five fascinating years learning the business at Writers House Literary Agency, she opened the door to her own agency.

Emily's publishing experience also extends to a period writing reviews at Publisher's Weekly, as well writing her own fiction and poems. She has truly been on all sides of the divide!

Emily believes in beautiful sentences and compulsively readable stories and is always on the lookout for a new book to capture her imagination. She is currently on the lookout for fiction, both adult and young adult.

A partial list of recent sales information can be found at Publisher's Marketplace.

When she finally takes a break from reading, Emily can be found enjoying Prospect Park and spending time with her family. She also frequents numerous conferences throughout the year including SCBWI and RWA. Learn more about future appearances under Resources.

What she recently picked up at her local bookstore:

The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty
The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer

Emily is currently taking on new clients. (Do not submit unsolicited manuscripts or inquire about the status of submissions via email. Please read the submissions page.)

Rachel Orr, agent - Rachel Orr joined Prospect Agency in 2007, after eight rewarding years editing children's books for HarperCollins. She enjoys the challenge of tackling a wide variety of projects—both fiction and nonfiction—particularly picture books, beginning readers, chapter books, middle-grade/YA novels, and works of non-fiction. Rachel values her close relationships with authors and believes that nothing feels as good as a fresh, clean line edit.

Rachel grew up reading Lois Lowry, Shel Silverstein, and Richard Peck in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She attended Kenyon College, where she worked for the Kenyon Review, and had a terrific study-abroad experience at England's University of Exeter. (For all you Harry Potter fans, this happens to be the same university that J.K. Rowling attended.)

Besides reading, Rachel enjoys dancing, running, and attempting to master the Cantonese language. She also loves writing personal essays for adults and biographies for kids. Her most recent obsession is with Abigail Adams, who—with her ambition, business savvy, and love of literature—would have made a remarkable literary agent herself. Rachel current resides in Hoboken, just outside Manhattan, with her husband, Godfrey.

Rachel is currently taking on new clients. (Do not submit unsolicited manuscripts or inquire about the status of submissions via email. Please read the submissions page.)

Becca Stumpf, junior agent - Becca Stumpf joined Prospect Agency in 2006 after working as an assistant at Writers House Literary Agency. After graduating from Grinnell College with a B.A. in English Literature, Becca lived and worked in England to indulge her yen for cobbled streets, neighborhood pubs, and barbed wit. She came to New York armed with naïveté and a love of books, and couldn't believe her luck when she found a field that allowed her to work closely with authors and their manuscripts. As a reader, Becca falls hard for sentences that are beautifully crafted, for humor in unexpected places, and for characters that come to life and follow you around for a while. She rereads the first chapter of A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle every year because it still knocks her socks off with its simple evocation of a family awoken by a storm in the nighttime.

Becca is looking for adult and YA literary and mainstream fiction that surprises. She's also interested in select non-fiction, including narrative non-fiction, journalistic perspectives, fashion, film studies, travel, art, and informed analysis of cultural phenomena. She has a special interest in aging in America and environmental issues.

Recent reads:

Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name by Heather Lende

Becca is currently taking on new clients. (Do not submit unsolicited manuscripts or inquire about the status of submissions via email. Please read the submissions page.)

Interns:

	Rachel Carroll (2008) - Rachel Carroll attends Carleton College, where she studies English. She enjoys her tutees at the Carleton Writing Center (The Write Place), Aikido training, and creating new theater with the Experimental Theater Board and Barbra Berlovitz of the Theatre.de la.Jeune Lune. When not on stage, she can be seen fabricating her own drama and eating really good bread. Last summer, she volunteered as an English teacher in a rural Indian school, and is currently selling notebooks designed by the students to raise money for teacher salaries. As a Medieval and Renaissance Studies minor, her literary favorites include Much Ado About Nothing, The Canterbury Tales, and other creations by dead, white, British men. However, Middlemarch, Emma, Matilda, and anything by Arundhati Roy also have special places on her bookshelf. Rachel has a weakness for believably quirky characters and witty narrators of all shapes and sizes.
	Katie Silbiger (2008) - Katie Silbiger attends Carleton College, where she studies English and Psychology. She currently splits her time between playing guitar, tutoring elementary school students, reading poetry (particularly e.e. cummings and Sherman Alexie), DJ-ing on KRLX, and various creative projects. She has worked as a dance teacher at Atlanta Ballet and was editor of her high school newspaper. Her first love will always be American literature, and she is currently enjoying a Toni Morrison phase. As an Atlanta native, she nurses a particular fondness for Southern voices, new and old. Katie has also recently discovered slam poetry, and looks forward to further exploring the form.
	Lucia Pizzo (2007-2008) - Lucia Pizzo attends Kenyon College where she majors in English. She can frequently be found in local coffee houses immersed either in a book or in the fascinating snippets of conversations from her fellow coffee drinkers (only occasionally eliciting suspicion among the patrons). Lucia will soon continue her studies and "human research" at the University of Exeter in southern England. Right now, she is reading Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, though not as a mere guise, and hopes to plant her own tree in that borough some day. Living on the banks of Lake Erie, Lucia finds herself looking at her thumb's width of Cleveland's skyline and imagining it as New York. Recently, she has read Anne Carson's If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho, continued with Thursday Next in her literary adventures as recorded by Jasper Fforde, and returned predictably to her love of Carl Phillips in all forms.
	Jacqueline Kharouf (2007) - Jacqueline Kharouf is a writing major at Regis University. She is co-editor of the Opinions section of her campus newspaper, Highlander, and a writing consultant for the Regis College Writing Center. Jacqueline enjoys reading stories where realities can bend, where characters have something to learn. Her favorite authors include Don DeLillo, Chuck Palahniuk, Khaled Hosseini, Ward Just, Nicole Krauss, Gene Wilder, and her ultimate, Ernest Hemingway. As an intern at Prospect Agency, Jacqueline is excited to begin her journey into the literary world and eager to read the works of both new and experienced writers. Originally from Rapid City, SD, Jacqueline plans to attend graduate school in New York City. She plays the violin, draws, writes (constantly), and enjoys printmaking.
	Greg Hunter (2007) - Greg Hunter attends Carleton College where he majors in American Studies. When not in class, he can be seen laying out The Carl, Carleton's arts and culture magazine, or heard on KRLX,the student radio station where he serves as Program Director. Other pursuits include amateur punk rock cover bands and cautious forays into sketch comedy. Greg is currently navigating Don DeLillo's Underworld, and counts Joseph Heller's Catch-22 and Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire among his all-time favorites.
	Anne Czernek (2007) - Anne Czernek is an English major at Carleton College, where she also edits the literary section of the campus newspaper, The Carl. Anne likes most kinds of fiction, from short stories to postmodern beasts to Regency romances. The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn is next on her reading list and with a planned senior thesis exploring the "narrative representations of the zeitgeist in seduction and romance novels," Anne joyfully anticipates much more romance reading in her future. Originally from Mukilteo, WA, Anne enjoys skiing, cooking, and observing other people's internet identities.
	Alan Smith (2005-2006) - Alan Smith was born and raised in Nelson County, rural central Virginia, never far out of reach of a book. More recently, he graduated from Swarthmore College with a double major in English and History and set off to the big city to seek his fortunes. As a life long reader and writer, he hopes to contribute to the process of creativity while basking in the stream of cool new writers and enjoying that jolt of electricity that comes with a great undiscovered idea. He just finished reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and, when he isn't looking through submissions or trying his hand at radio and journalism, he enjoys Ultimate Frisbee.
	Gabrielle Moss (2006) - Gabrielle Moss is a graduate of Hampshire College, a native of New England, and a freelance writer. When not evaluating manuscripts for Prospect Agency, she can be found drinking a strong cup of green tea, getting a high score at Simpsons pinball, or listening to Depeche Mode. Recent book purchases include: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, The Shroud of the Thwacker by Chris Elliott, and Serious Girls by Maxine Swann.

(hide intern alumnae)

Foreign Rights:

Please contact Prospect Agency directly about any foreign rights query. Foreign rights transactions at Prospect Agency are handled by Betty Anne Crawford at Books Crossing Borders.