APRIL (2016)
A Visit with Kelly Sonnack
A literary agent who also represents illustrators
Include babies and toddlers in your website or online portfolio, a nice mix of anthropomorphized animal characters and realistic, naturally living animals and don't hesitate to include the occasional strange or exotic animal (narwhale? rhinoceros?) along with the more common animals children love to see in picture books.
These are just a few of the great tips we heard from children's publishing agent Kelly Sonnack of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency in our special online visit with her Thursday.
Kelly presented and answered questions on the topic of how illustrators can best show off their professional expertise online and in their promotional pieces (postcards, tear sheets, etc.) The replay, slightly edited for your time economy is above.
You might also enjoy this well-detailed interview of her by Casey McCormick on her blog Literary Rambles.
You can follow Kelly on Facebook here.
Below are the links to the all-import submission guidelines for Kelly's agency and some of the illustrators and author-illustrators websites Kelly referred to in her discussion with us. Lastly you'll find links to the Big Sur intensive writing retreats – one on the west coast and one on the east coast (and sadly for us, both sold out this year) – that Andrea Brown agents conduct each year for creators of picture books, early eaders, middle grade and YA novels.