late but #MSWL I love animals so much pls I would 🖤to read more lush, gentle, culturally specific stories about our friendships with these beautiful (and enraging and hilarious) beings

My #MSWL: ALL the romance. Give me love triangles and quadrilaterals. Give me hate to love and slow burn, and firsts. Contemporary & historical & dystopian & speculative. Stories from marginalized voices and new perspectives.

IN GENERAL:
- Mother / daughter relationships
- Diverse stories by diverse creators
- And of course, stories that I don’t even know I want. I love to be wowed. (And proceed to ramble about how much I love something to @GraceKendallLit) 😉❤️

YOUNG ADULT:
- A fresh, self-aware diverse romance ala #JaneTheVirgin for teens
-A LGBTQIA+ story that doesn’t feature a coming out story
-A freshman year of college story!!
-A gritty, heart-pounding thriller rooted in character with a slow-burning romance

MIDDLE GRADE:
- #OwnVoices magical realism, reimagined folk tales, and sweeping, character-driven adventures
- Literary, contemporary stories about tween female friendship and the ins and outs of tweendom (if that’s a word)

PICTURE BOOKS: thoughtful, uplifting pbs that make me want to cry and also read to every child I know.

i can’t believe i forgot to say—in these most autumnal of falls, i’d love to acquire a #middlegrade or #graphicnovel with strong “over the garden wall” vibes 💀🍁🌕

This entire vibe #MSWL
twitter.com/kalidraws/stat…

Oh, and always romance of course—all kinds! #MSWL

On this #MSWL Day, I’m aiming high: Agents, I would be absolutely over the moon to get a modern-day Phantom Tollbooth. Adventure, innocence, sophistication, and my god the wordplay. My inbox awaits the next Lands Beyond.

#mswl also memoir/narrative nonfic that braids together research with personal experience. Kind of like 'The Crane Wife' essay, but a book, meets LAB GIRL. Extra points if it's about marine life because we all kind of wanted to be marine biologists when we were younger didnt we?

All ages: Female friendship, gender subversion, Southern Gothics, wordplay and puns, under-explored chapters in history, Jewish characters beyond WWII/shtetl, economic #diversity, genre blends, stories set in the deep South, rural America, and the Southwest. That's my #MSWL.

YA: Form-challenging fiction of all genres, thrillers and twists, stories set outside the U.S., big-world fantasies with settings that feel truly new & original, contemporary stories that explore themes like identity, code-switching, and female rage, young (12up) YA. #MSWL

MG (young or mature, w/or w/o illustrations, traditional or graphic novels): adventure plots, fantasy drawing from mythologies outside the Western and/or white canon, classics rebooted, LGBTQIA+ fantasy & magic realism, explorations of subcultures, hidden history. #MSWL

Picture books: illustrator-driven projects that are high-concept and/or highly detailed; concept or platform-driven stories with a commercial hook that resonate with my core values of inclusion, empowerment, and making the world a better place. #MSWL

For the first time in my editorial career, I'm building a list entirely from scratch (at @SimonKIDS). So agents, here is a thread of my #MSWL, though if you want to try me with something totally different from this list, that's okay too!

another age old #mswl that I cannot believe has not been written yet: PLEASE send me a novelization of Frida Kahlo's life by a Mexican woman writer

Happy #MSWL day! Agents, I'm currently acquiring middle grade, YA, and picture books. My page on the #MSWL site gives a pretty good sense of the kinds of projects I'm looking for, but here's a few other things I'd love to see in my inbox right now.

Honestly gimmie anything that’s as ridiculous, funny, and charming as Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency #MSWL

Women who aren't what you expect, who have strong or indelible (not necessarily likable) voices. Again, in lit fic or commercial women's fiction; also YA and MG. #MSWL