Quill Shift Literary Agency: Bringing About Diversity In Literature

COMPANY INFO

Quill Shift Literary Agency understands that, in this climate, there is a greater need than ever to cultivate savvy writers, to provide them with resources to grow and flourish, and to connect them with readers who will most appreciate their works. For authors coming from different cultures or whose stories showcase characters of color, connecting with readers is that much more important because now more than ever authors are expected to market and publicize their books.

Quill Shift Literary Agency believes that the shift of responsibility should be taken on by the author's advocate, not fully by the author. The best way to work more publicity and marketing in the value chain is to move it to the beginning. To accomplish this, Quill Shift actively promotes its authors through social media and its website by providing opportunities for readers to get a sneak peek, interact with, and appreciate Quill Shift authors' works before they are sent to editors at publishing houses. This pre-publication platform on the website is all about connecting the end-consumer (librarians, booksellers, teachers, parents, and the discerning teen who is tired of the mainstream) to captivating stories that reflect the lives of kids and teens today. The interaction and support of stories that connect us will show publishing houses that there is a readership for the diverse works written by authors represented by Quill Shift Literary Agency.

BIO

Ayanna founded Quill Shift Literary Agency in 2013 to pursue her interest in representing unique and thoughtful books for middle grade and young adult readers that embrace and celebrate the individual and their story yet, at the same time, highlight human nature and the entry points that suggest that every story can bring you closer to another person. She has worked in the publishing industry in a number of capacities: in the digital department of a publishing house, within a literary agency, as a book reviewer, and most recently as a children’s librarian. She earned her bachelors degree at the University of Illinois with a major in Marketing and a minor in English and immediately went on to pursue and receive her masters degree in Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois with a concentration in Youth Services.

As an agent, Ayanna is looking for middle grade and Young fiction containing plucky, so-real-you-can-feel-them-standing-next-to-you characters, especially those representing our multicultural society. Ideally, characters in the books she represents are dealing with the complex and simple everyday problems of “normal” adolescent life–-normal being loosely defined by whatever world or dimension the characters find themselves in. Self-discovery and shifting world views are welcome, as are all manner of genre fiction (romance, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy).