Allegra Martschenko
Literary Agent
Allegra Martschenko is all about book magic, all the time. Their focus is marginalized writers, and they represent speculative fiction, romance, and romcoms. From bestsellers to best-of lists, from award winners to book box placements—their client list represents a dynamic range of thoughtful, ambitious, and propulsive reads. Following up a career in scholarly publishing that took them to places like Princeton University Press, the University Press of Colorado, and Cornell University Press, they are also an author (under pen names) and an artist. Between the many hats they wear, they bring a well-rounded perspective to author-agent relationships and work expertly with various parties across the publishing industry.
They love cats, gardening, power tools, and books that love you back: sweeping stories, characters with big hearts, and prose that inspires.
You can read more about their wishlist, review their sales, or check out their client list on their website.
Open to Queries
Wish List
Generally, Allegra is looking for marginalized writers with romances, romcoms, or beautifully crafted speculative fiction in the crossover and adult space. They do have a Young Adult list, but are currently closed to new books in this area as they focus on existing clients. That means they are still more than happy to sign clients for an adult project and collaborate on any YAs they might bring with them. Or if you are a previously published author they will sign you for a YA if you intend to also move into adult.
For romance and romcoms, they always love highly competent characters, laugh out loud banter, and yearning. They want punchy voices that flow easily and dynamic, unique hooks.
For speculative fiction their definition is broad: horror, fantasy, science fiction, romance, book club, thrillers, mystery—it doesn't matter the home genre so long as there is an added speculative or magical element. They are open to both novels and novellas in speculative fiction, but are extraordinarily picky in the novella category.
They get extra excited about silliness/quirkiness/goofiness, characters with specialized jobs, love plots, settings that feel alive, historical fantasy, queer fiction, horror fantasy, found family, feral people doing feral things, and anything to do with gods, myths, or immortal beings who make bad decisions. When in doubt, try them! They respond within 3 weeks to all queries (and sometimes within a day).
You can find an even more detailed wishlist on their website (allegramartschenko.com).
