Tricia Skinner

About Tricia Skinner

Tricia is a Senior Agent at Fuse Literary, joining the company in 2015. She enjoys discovering fantastic writers who wish to establish long-lasting careers in publishing. She seeks to build a powerful client list of authors who produce original, extraordinary tales, especially writers from marginalized communities, because no one should feel excluded from their favorite fiction categories.

Writing has consistently played a significant part in Tricia’s life. After earning an undergraduate degree from the nationally acclaimed Journalism Institute for Media Diversity at Wayne State University, she started her writing career as a newspaper reporter for The Detroit News, Investor’s Business Daily, MSN, and The Houston Chronicle. She’s worked in academia and video games industry, later earning her graduate degree from Southern Methodist University.

Tricia’s experience as a published fantasy author informs her approach to agenting. She knows the highs and lows, the joy of accomplishment and the hurt of adversity. She communicates regularly with her clients, brainstorms ideas, gives feedback, and listens to their concerns. Tricia is Team Vader, listens to K-pop, loves everything Marvel, and finds great joy in learning a new language.

Adult Fiction

Tricia is seeking high stakes, solid conflicts, mounting tension, endearing characters, engaging dialogue, and emotional depth. The tone can be dark or light. Stories taken from a new perspective or experienced in a fresh way usually catches her attention. She wants intriguing cultures, gripping adventures, strong heroic and villainous arcs, and life or death moments on the page. Knock her over with emotion. Give her characters who are more than the prophecy-of-the-month. In Horror, Tricia leans more to the psychological rather than the physical, so send her stories that terrify because it’s not impossible to imagine.

Currently, Tricia wants to see more non-contemporary romance, which means fresh takes in paranormal romance and urban fantasy romance would be ideal. She’s also seeking stories with Mandalorian-styled single fathers, LGBTQ+ and BIPOC protagonists as lead characters, more space operas, more non-Milky Way planet colonies, more alien species POVs in stories. Tricia does not want medieval Europe in space!

She’s further drawn to protagonists who struggle (and fail) on their way to being the hero (gender neutral as used here). She’s a fan of characters on their journey of revenge and redemption, like John Wick. They do bad things to people who’ve hurt them or others. Her favorite writers include Nnedi Okorafor, Martha Wells, R.F. Kuang, Brenda Jackson, V. E. Schwab, Casey McQuiston, Nghi Vo, Joe Abercrombie, Holly Black, and Rebecca Roanhorse.

Genres Represented

  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • Romance
  • Psychological Horror

Children’s Fiction

Tricia is seeking middle grade books that reinvent classic tropes or invent new ones. Refreshing takes on location, creatures, situations, characters, and conflict usually get her attention. She’s drawn to expressive writing, emotional punches, and natural humor. Tricia enjoys stories that let her explore other cultures. Her favorite writers include Kwame Mbalia, Kheryn Callendar, Remy Lai, Holly Black, Kelly Yang, and Holly Goldberg Sloan.

Genres Represented

  • MG Contemporary
  • MG Fantasy
  • MG Science Fiction
  • MG Horror
  • MG Mystery

Tricia Does Not Represent

  • Non-fiction (Memoirs, Cookbooks, Biography, etc.)
  • Adult Mystery/Suspense/Thriller/Espionage
  • Young Adult
  • Picture Books
  • Novels in Verse
  • Literary
  • Historical Romance
  • Erotica
  • Novellas or Short Fiction
  • Faith-Focused/Religious

Submission Guidelines

Please submit to Tricia via the button below. To see her Manuscript Wishlist (MSWL), click here. If you haven’t received a response on your requested full manuscript after 4 months, send Tricia a message on QueryManager.

Meet Tricia Skinner

Contact

For conference, press, or rights inquires, email tricia@fuseliterary.com. Unsolicited submissions via this address or social media will be deleted, unread.