Emily S. Keyes, Agent

Emily S. Keyes joined Fuse Literary in 2013. Previously she worked at the L. Perkins Agency as a contracts manager and associate agent. Before entering the world of agenting, she worked in the contracts department of Simon & Schuster, Inc where she handled copyright, reversion of rights and assisted with author contracts. In 2008, she graduated from New York University’s Center for Publishing. She uses her knowledge of contracts, copyright and the publishing business to benefit her clients and the Fuse team.

Emily was born in New Haven, CT to a pack of feral lawyers. She attended the University of Connecticut as an undergraduate. Then she had a series of bookselling jobs and worked, briefly, at Yale University Press before she moved to New York to pursue her dream of working in the big publishing industry. Back when she had time for fun, she spent her time blogging about Sweet Valley at 1bruce1 (remember LiveJournal?) and shouting at her friends about the indignities female comic book characters suffer.

The “S” stands for Suzanne, which is her mother’s name and may seem pretentious but is actually to distinguish her from this Emily Keyes in search engines.

Emily loves reading books that make her feel like she is entering someone else’s brain. Voice and emotion are very important to hook her on a project. She loves all types of young adult and middle grade books. Her #MSWL right now includes a diverse YA fantasy in a non-western setting, particularly those based on real historical periods, middle grade stories that kids will WANT to read (if your goal is to “teach kids stuff”, I probably don’t want to read it), upmarket women’s fiction, and unique science fiction and fantasy.

Emily is also looking for a select list of commercial fiction which includes fantasy & science fiction, women’s fiction, along with pop culture and humor titles. She is not looking for poetry, short stories, screenplays or anything that is “publishable” and not amazing.

Submission Guidelines:

You can submit to Emily through QueryManager: http://QueryMe.Online/EmilyKeyes

For information on how to write a query letter, read The Short Fuse Guide to Query Letters.

For how to write a book proposal, read The Short Fuse Guide to Book Proposals.

You can learn more about Emily by following her on Twitter @esc_key and on Tumblr.