Welcome to Debutiful’s Agent Week! We gathered up some of our favorite literary agents representing the most exciting debut books and asked them some questions about what makes them love a submission, their agenting style, and what books they’re working on.
Stephanie Delman spent 10 years at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates before starting Trellis Literary Management with Michelle Brower and Allison Hunter in 2021. Her client list includes countless Debutiful favorites, including Vanessa Chan, Eshani Surya, Jenny Tinghui Zhang, and Gina María Balibrera.
We dug into what makes her a “hands-on” agent, why starting Trellis was the best decision in her life, and what makes her excited for a submission.
What types of projects are you most interested in right now? What feels oversaturated in your inbox?
I’m interested in projects that feel both urgent and wildly original. Urgent in the sense that the story must be told, and the author feels uniquely qualified to write it. I don’t particularly care about trends in fiction; I find that the most impactful stories come out of left field, not from well-trodden soil. I’m seeing a lot of speculative fiction that deals with AI, and while that’s timely, it gives me fatigue. I’m seeing a lot of gothic fiction and horror that feels overly dramatic and/or familiar. I’d love to see more literary fiction that feels timeless, whether it’s set in the present or the past, driven by fully embodied characters contending with high stakes and powerful desires.
Kate McKean recently told me, “I want to forget I’m reading a query.” What makes you gobble up a submission? What makes you stop dead in your tracks once you start?
I love an authoritative voice, an opening that tells me the author knows exactly where they’re going. I love a bit of suspense in any kind of fiction, because it’s the most natural driver of propulsion. And in every submission that I end up signing, I will inevitably hit a certain sentence or paragraph in the first 10 pages that makes me say, DAMN. This person can WRITE. It’s often a keen observation, a specificity of prose that makes me see the world in a wholly new way.
What should all first-time authors know about the publishing industry? Either submitting, or selling, or marketing, or… anything!
Everything takes longer than you think it will! Patience is key. And there are a lot of people working behind the scenes, from the time you submit until well past publication. If anything feels opaque (and it will), your agent should be able to decipher and decode things for you. It’s our job! And: always turn to your next project as soon as this one is out of your hands. The only thing you can control is the writing.
Who are some recent debut clients you represented in the last few years? Any upcoming ones you can brag about?
I want to brag about all of my clients! I have some incredible debuts this spring, each of which happen to be horror: She Made Herself a Monster by Anna Kovatcheva (Mariner/February 10), a cathartic literary novel set in 19th century Bulgaria about a self-proclaimed vampire slayer who is actually a con artist; Spoiled Milk by British author Avery Curran (Doubleday/March 10), which is a queer gothic about a boarding school that experiences a spiritualist awakening; and Until Death by Mary Berman (Little, Brown/May 20), a darkly funny take on the horrors of daughterhood and the wedding-industrial context. In early 2027, I’ll have Charlotte Cane by Susan Fox (Harper), a novel about moral ambiguity that follows an aging writer whose career resurgence is threatened by dark secrets from her past; Maria, Maria by Jennifer Galvão (Random House), a literary love triangle driven by a profound epistolary relationship and set between 1950s Portugal and Newfoundland; and Hello, World! by Karisa Tell, a speculative novel that follows a group of people living in a simulation fully customized to their preferences, and what happens when strange glitches reveal the true cost of ‘optimization.’ And so much more to follow!
You (along with Michelle Brower and Allison Hunter) started Trellis in 2021. Why? What made that the right decision?
One of the best decisions of my life! We had admired each other for years, and wanted to build something reflective of our values: a nimble, forward-thinking agency that thrives on collaboration. There are 15 of us now, including our brilliant foreign rights team and our excellent assistants. We’re an overlapping Venn diagram of taste, and that’s by design. We all work in similar spaces so we speak the same language, we can help each other through tricky negotiations and in brainstorming creative ways into the market. We pass along submissions that aren’t 100% right for us but might be perfect for a colleague; we share information about editors, industry intel, marketing plans, submission strategies. We put our clients in touch, we help them foster community together. We’re in constant conversation, and it lifts each of us—and our authors—higher and higher.
You consider yourself a “hands-on” agent? What does your process with writers look like, generally?
I typically go through at least 2-3 rounds of revision with my clients before we send their book out on submission. This starts as an editorial letter/conversation, and moves quickly to notes in the margins. My goal is to patch plot holes, elevate the stakes, make sure the characters are richly developed and that there’s payoff in the execution. Some manuscripts need more tinkering than others. I want to make the book undeniable for editors, to trim any loose thread that might stand in their way.