Agent 1:1 Consultations

Choose an agent/orpublishing professional for a 15-minute 1:1 consultation! Must be registered for the basic conference to add an appointment. 

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Jessica Berg, Rosecliff Literary 

Jessica Berg is a literary agent, author, and the founder of Rosecliff Literary, where she champions bold, emotionally resonant fiction with unforgettable characters, strong stakes, and a sense of urgency.

She is especially drawn to upmarket, historical, and supernatural suspense, with a soft spot for haunting atmosphere, richly layered relationships, and characters who carry deep emotional wounds. Give her a protagonist standing at the edge of reinvention, a world on the brink of change, or a past that refuses to stay buried. She loves stories that explore grief, longing, ambition, and survival and the complicated ways they intersect. If your book feels like it belongs in a candlelit room with a storm raging outside, she wants to see it.

 Cole joined JVNLA in 2021. He approaches agenting with a love for language and voice, and a sensitive editorial eye. Helikes to dive deep into an author’s work, offering comprehensive editorial guidance that centers the author’s unique, personal vision, ushering that vision into the world with close support through submission, publication, and beyond.

For fiction, he looks for character and voice driven literary or upmarket work that offers new perspectives on contemporary issues, while telling rich, original stories. Cole loves a deep character study, a messy social novel, or a book incorporating grounded genre elements such as surrealism, horror, some sci-fi, and queer erotica/romance. Emotionally charged novels are absolutely welcome, as are novels exploring subversive territories through unreliable, off-kilter, or abject narrators. He's also very fond of books told from multiple narrators and perspectives, and am a big fan of experimentation that draws the reader into the novel’s unique world. Of course, fiction is such an expansive form, and I’m always open to being surprised.

On the nonfiction side, Cole is looking for outward-focused memoirs, essay collections, history, journalism, cultural criticism, and left-wing political writing. He looks for books that engage with radical thought, anti-capitalist and anti-imperial movements, understudied queer history, art and pop culture, music criticism, environmental studies, science and technology, and mental health, among other topics. With memoirs, he prefer projects that move beyond immediate personal experience and look towards broader social and political concerns, blending personal narrative with cultural criticism and deep research. 

Ginger Hutchinson, Movable Type Management 

Ginger loves reading fast-paced, character-driven novels with a strong sense of place. As an agent, her approach is collaborative and editorial, and she loves working with writers who are committed to honing their craft one sentence at a time. She’s on the lookout for high-concept stories and fresh takes on familiar tropes across genres, and eager to work with historically underrepresented authors. 

Ginger is looking for thrillers, mysteries, book-club, horror, historical, light fantasy/sci-fi, and high-concept romance. She is especially keen to find stories that play with genre—thrillers with a romance sub-plot, historical mysteries, horror that investigates sociopolitical issues. When it comes to sci-fi/fantasy, Ginger leans more towards magical realism and five-minute-in-the-future stories than epic sagas. An interesting hook, compelling voice and complex characters are key to grabbing my attention. 

Carla Hoch, FightWrite

Carla Hoch is an award-winning writer, trained fighter and professional educator who regularly teaches on the craft of writing fight scenes as well as the mechanics of fighting for writers. She is the author of the Writer’s Digest book Fight Write: How to Write Believable Fight Scenes and Fight Write, Round Two: Crafting Chaos, Combat, and Crime. She is an instructor for Writer’s Digest University and Writing Mastery Academy.  Her award-winning blog, FightWrite.net, has been named in Writer’s Digest 100 Best Site for Writers six times. Carla is a world champion jiujitsu player and has experience in almost a dozen fighting styles. She lives and trains outside Houston, Texas.

Margaret Danko, High Line Literary Collective

Margaret Danko is a multi-faceted agent representing both fiction and nonfiction titles. 

Margaret is an expert at coaching authors from manuscript to finished book. As her clients can attest, she is uniquely gifted at helping authors stay confident, energized, and focused throughout the publishing process. She takes great pride in empowering authors to find the voice and the story that will engage and inspire each and every person who picks up their book.

Margaret is looking for upmarket women's fiction, grounded speculative fiction, surprising and heartwarming romcoms, mysteries with a unique twist or subversive premise, upmarket or literary horror & suspense, family/generational stories, latine and other marginalized voices, true crime (especially pink collar crime)
Smart contemporary business, fresh takes on self-help and self-care, practical nonfiction, popular science with approachable takes on niche topicshistory & social critique, accessible and trendy finance, 

Mara Hollander, Azantian Literary 

Mara Hollander started her publishing career at FinePrint Literary Management and joined Azantian Literary Agency in 2025.  She is actively seeking to represent authors from communities traditionally underrepresented in publishing, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA, and disabled and/or chronically ill writers.

Stories make us who we are, and everyone deserves a chance to write their own narrative. I’m actively seeking to represent authors from communities traditionally underrepresented in publishing, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA, and disabled and/or chronically ill writers.

In particular, I’m seeking accessibly-written novels for Adult and YA audiences that make you forget the world around you. I’m also open to a variety of platform- and expertise-driven nonfiction proposals and love to be surprised!

In particular, I'm looking for:  

FICTION:
Fantasy (including political and romantasy)
Romance
Thrillers/mysteries (including political)
Horror
Upmarket + book club/commercial fiction
NONFICTION
Mental health care, substance use disorder treatment, and the US health care system (no memoirs)
Academic research for a commercial audience
Making business better
Sports (literally anything in sports)
Gender + sexuality, focused on queer identities
The role of women in _________
Race + ethnicity
Psychology, neuroscience, and the human brain
Parasocial relationships
Multilevel marketing
Cults, schemes, and Fyre Festival-style scams
Politics, policy, and the future of government
Climate change
Science in modern life
Please don’t send/bring me:
Memoirs
Historical fiction set in Europe during WW2, including books that focus on the Holocaust
Main characters who are droids/androids, or stories about AI 
Fantasy world competitions
Middle grade, chapter books, or picture books
Novellas and short story collections
Books that center around child sexual abuse
Stories centering a culture/experience belonging to a minoritized group the writer is not a part of
Prescriptive books about Christianity, astrology, magic, and/or witchcraft

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