Children's Literary Agency owned by Lori Kilkelly
 

SUBMISSIONS

LK Literary Agency is a boutique children's literature agency, so while we are open to general submissions, we kindly ask that you review our guidelines carefully ahead of sending in your submission to be sure we're a good fit for the wonderful work you do.

  • We are only open to electronic submissions, which means that unless someone from LKLA has specifically requested you send material by mail, we are not able to review or return any submission material sent to our offices.

  • We are exclusively a children's literature agency which means we do not represent work for adults.

  • We are currently considering the following for representation: writers who illustrate their own picture books (fiction and nonfiction) and graphic novels (GN), authors of middle-grade (MG) fiction and nonfiction, authors of young adult (YA) fiction. If you write older texts as well as picture book texts, please submit the older work for your submission.

  • We are not currently considering authors who solely write picture book texts, or illustrators who are not (yet) writing their own work.

  • While we wish we could respond to each submission personally, the relative ease of electronic submissions has made this, regrettably, virtually impossible. We hope you understand that a lack of personal response in no way indicates a lack of respect for the hard work that went into your submission.

Submission Guidelines:

  • Include a cover letter with pitch, synopsis, and contact information, including any online presence, in the body of your email to submissions@lkliterary.com.

  • To put your mind at ease, please feel free to address your letter to: ‘Lori Kilkelly’, or ‘Lori’, or ‘Ms. Kilkelly’.

  • An initial submission of 20 pages from a novel will suffice and should be pasted into the body of your email.  

  • Emailed portfolios from illustrators are accepted, but please keep the images at 72 dpi.

  • We are unable to download from file sharing sites, but are happy to visit an online portfolio.

  • Send picture book dummies as an attachment in PDF format.

  • For graphic novel (GN) submissions: include a PDF attachment of 2-3 illustrated chapters with text, in color. You do not need to have the illustrations complete for the full dummy, but the text should be complete. An illustrated character guide is also helpful. If you are not an illustrator, you may send the full GN text pasted in the body of the email.

  • Condense any file attachments to <10mb total or we can't guarantee the email will make it past our server.

  • We do not require exclusive looks at manuscripts, but if we've requested the full manuscript, we do appreciate status updates, and time to complete our review, if other representation is offered.

  • You are welcome to update your submission, whether or not we've requested a "full", if there is a status change (eg., an offer of representation, an offer on the project from a publisher, etc.).

  • If we haven’t addressed your specific question within these guidelines, please follow them as closely as you’re able, and send in the submission. If you’d like to include a request for clarification you’re welcome to do so, but we are unfortunately unable to address every inquiry.

PLEASE NOTE: While we enjoy our presence on social media, we do not accept submissions via social media sites, nor are we able to discuss submissions there.

Thank you for your interest in LKLA!