Allegra Martschenko with curly dark hair, glasses, and floral earrings, standing outdoors with trees in the background.

Allegra Martschenko

LITERARY AGENT

Illustration of a stylized bird hatching from an eggshell with colorful abstract design on its back and small green leaves on its head.
Stylized, colorful bird with a blue outline, orange body, green wing, and black eye.

  • Allegra Martschenko is all about book magic, all the time. Their focus is marginalized writers, and they represent adult, YA, and crossover speculative fiction of all kinds + adult/crossover 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.

  • You can find their full wishlist on their website.

    Allegra is looking for marginalized writers with romances or romcoms in the adult + crossover space, or beautifully crafted speculative fiction in the young adult, crossover, and adult space.

    For romance, they always love highly competent characters, laugh out loud banter, and yearning.

    For speculative fiction their definition is broad: fantasy, science fiction, fabulism, horror, 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, light fantasy, found family, feral people doing feral things, and anything to do with gods, myths, or immortal beings who make bad decisions.

SUBMIT A QUERY

Client Books

  • Colorful poster titled "Beasts of Carnival" featuring a vivid green dragon skull with horns, surrounded by red flowers, green leaves, hummingbirds, and branches, with a purple background and yellow text.
  • A vibrant, colorful illustration of a screaming mouth with sharp teeth. Inside the mouth, the title 'Of Monsters and Mainframes' is displayed in large, multicolored 3D letters. A rocket ship is launching from the top left, and there are rainbow trails and abstract shapes around the mouth. A quote from Craig Montgomery appears at the top, and the author's name, Barbara Ruelove, is at the bottom.
  • Illustration of a castle atop a mountain, with a waterfall flowing down, and three figures standing on the water.
  • A dark illustration with a skull at the top, surrounded by wings and ornate framing. A woman in a dark cloak and hat holds a red heart in one hand and a spear or sword raised in the other. Behind her is a landscape with a house and trees. The text reads "The Duke Steals Hearts & Other Body Parts" and "Flias Cold."
  • Colorful fantasy book cover with a dragon, a mystical deer, a pagoda, and a volcano, titled 'The Last Soldier of Nwa' by Yejin Suh, featuring a vibrant sky with stars and swirling clouds.
  • Cover of a book titled "Sorcery and Small Magics" by Maiga Doocy, featuring illustrations of wolves' heads, mushrooms, butterflies, bees, and floral elements on a green background.
  • Cosmic-themed book cover with a pink background, featuring scattered playing cards, planets, and satellite illustrations. Central silhouette of two people in a romantic pose overlaid with large white text reading 'The Eleven in Space', and a quote from Eli Snow about love, revenge, and glittering lights.
  • A book cover with a red background featuring a side profile illustration of a woman with dark hair, a crown and lightning bolt, with Gothic-style white and red text overlaying and dark, textured elements.
  • A book cover with an illustration of a woman in traditional Indian attire sitting on a mountain, raising her hands, with a city skyline and factories emitting smoke in the background. The title reads 'To Bargain with Mortals' and the author's name is R. A. Basu.
  • A book cover titled 'VORD' with a stylized illustration of a hare with four eyes, set against a digital and lightning background, author S. Hati is written at the bottom.
  • Book cover titled 'Letters from the Last Apothecary' by Bita Behzadi. Features an ornate purple and gold border with a glass greenhouse at sunset in the center.
  • Book cover titled 'The Divine Gardener's Handbook' by Eli Snow with colorful, surreal artwork of a vibrant cityscape, large plants, and flowers, with a subtitle about handling accidental sunlight turning off.
  • Design featuring a serpent intertwined with roses, ornate details, and the name Sydney Olivia at the bottom with additional decorative text and patterns.
  • Book cover titled 'The Carousel of Forgotten Places' by S. Hati featuring a carousel with blue horses and two white silhouettes of a man and woman standing on a crescent moon crescent in the background, surrounded by stars and decorative gold accents.
  • A pink book cover titled "Slasher Girl: Of Monsters and Mainframes" with a 3D illustration of a doll's hand, a tag saying "girl victim doll," a patch with "A Novel" and price, and a dragonfly perched on a white furry object. The background features intricate patterns and the title in gothic font.