Literary Agent Jes Trudel
The information below is for research purposes only. Click the “Query Jes” button above for the most up-to-date information and query inbox status.
Jes Trudel is a literary agent with The Rights Factory who spent 15 years prior to that as a freelance editor and storytelling instructor. She has taught workshops to thousands of people around the world. She’s been a guest presenter with SCBWI, the 12×12 Picture Book Challenge, Write For Kids, and TSNOTYAW podcast, and has contributed to BoldFace, Children’s Book Insider, and the SCBWI blog. She founded WritingCommunity.ca and organizes writing-adjacent events in her local community.
I’m so happy you’re considering querying me. Please carefully read the guidelines below to determine if we might be a good fit. When in doubt, query me anyway!
At the moment, I’m accepting queries for children’s literature only, including:
– Board books (BB)
– Picture books (PB)
– Chapter books (CB)
– Middle grade (MG)
– Young adult (YA)
I love all styles of storytelling, including novels, graphic novels, novels in verse, wordless stories, and poetry/short story collections for kids.
In BB, PB and CB categories, I’m especially interested in high concept, commercial stories (I already have several clients who excel at quiet, lyrical stories). I love both kid characters and animal characters. I prefer lyrical over rhyming texts, but if you do have a rhyming story, please make sure the meter is perfect and the rhymes are not cliche/forced.
In MG and YA, I especially like action/adventure, contemporary, mystery, romance, low fantasy, present or near future speculative, and suspense/thriller. I prefer kid characters in these categories, though I will still look at stories with anthropomorphized characters in MG. I’m not a fan of vampires, werewolves, aliens, zombies, ghosts, fairies, fae, or other supernatural creatures in MG or YA.
I’m eager to take on nonfiction projects across all age groups, especially related to mental health, DEI, social justice, arts, community building, environmentalism, and entrepreneurship.
Thematically speaking, I especially like:
– complex adult/child relationships
– complex friendships
– non-traditional and found families
– anti-heroes
– unreliable narrators
– love triangles (romantic or platonic)
– slow burns, friends to lovers, and enemies to lovers
– forced proximity
– stories that are dark, but not graphic or gory
I’m not a good fit for:
– horror
– paranormal
– historical fiction
– high fantasy or hard scifi (send me only present day or near present day Earth stories only)
– books with heavy war and military themes
– books for the Christian market
– Stories that center on traditional/Christian holidays like Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving.
Some of my favourite storytellers are:
– Annie Barrows
– Peter Brown
– Kate DiCamillo
– Kelly Dipucchio
– John Green
– Jenny Han
– Alison Hughes
– Molly Knox Ostertag
– Ursula K. Le Guin
– Kyo Maclear
– Kate Messner
– Lindsay Moore
– Diana Murray
– Gary Paulsen
– Jael Richardson
– Ashley Spires
– Helen Yoon
I’m an editorial agent. My goal is to submit only the best work to publishers. If you like workshopping ideas and are open to constructive criticism, we’ll probably work well together.
I want to work with clients who have worked to develop their craft in multiple age categories and/or genres. I ask for bonus pitches because I want a sense if your overall body of work is a good fit for me. Sometimes, I’m not interested right now in the manuscript you’ve sampled, but will ask for one or more of your bonus manuscripts. If you don’t fill out the bonus pitch section, I will decline your query. It’s nothing personal, just what I’m looking for in my clients.
I’m looking to represent authors across their careers, through multiple age categories and genres. If you’re interested in writing books for adults in the future, don’t worry: I absolutely plan to represent adults books in the future, especially those of my existing clients. You can include manuscripts for adults in your bonus pitches.
I hope this information helps you decide whether to query me, and I hope ultimately you’ll find us to be a good fit! I prefer submissions through Query Manager, but if you’re neurodivergent, disabled, or otherwise find it difficult to use this form, feel free to query me at jes at therightsfactory dot com. You don’t have to tell me why you chose email; you can just send it, no questions asked. Make sure you put QUERY in the subject line and your query letter and sample in the body. No attachments.
DIVERSITY IS IMPORTANT TO ME! If you’re part of a marginalized group, and are comfortable revealing yourself as part of that community, please share that in your bio. This is especially important if your identity informs the stories you tell. I want to make sure marginalized people are given space to tell their own stories. For the record, I am neurodivergent, queer, and nonbinary, but acknowledge that I exist with an immense amount of privilege passing as normative. My pronouns are she/her/mx.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably ready to submit to me. Now it’s time to decide which story it will be. Rule of thumb: submit your best work!
Please don’t worry if the formatting of your submission looks weird, or if you see a typo after you submit, or if you messed up my name or pronouns/salutation. I don’t care about those things! I just need a clear, concise query, an intriguing, well-written sample, and bonus pitches that sound like projects I’d love to work on with you.
I look forward to reading your query!
