Anna Olswanger is a literary agent with Olswanger Literary, LLC. She has been a literary agent since 2005. She started her career at Liza Dawson Associates in Manhattan, and in 2014 launched her own literary agency, Olswanger Literary LLC, where she represents picture books (author-illustrators only), middle grade fiction and adult nonfiction. She is a member of the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR).
Anna has sold to major publishers, including Bloomsbury, Chronicle, HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster.
Her clients have won the Newbery Honor, Asian Pacific American Award for Literature Honor, Flora Stieglitz Strauss Award for Nonfiction, Orbis Pictus Honor, PEN/Steven Kroll Award for Picture Book Writing, Parents Choice Gold Award, Bank Street College of Education Best Children’s Book, Sibert Award Honor, Ezra Jack Keats Book Award Honor, and been on The New York Times Bestseller list. You can view all her clients’ books on Pinterest.
Anna is always looking to add to her client list. She enjoys discovering new authors and illustrators, and is looking for Òvoice,Ó the sound and rhythm of an author that is hers alone. She has a particular interest in picture books (author-illustrators only).
She works hard with authors to get their manuscripts into shape for submission. She finds that most manuscripts need work on plot, so if you’re a potential author or illustrator client, be ready to go through many revisions before Anna agrees to send out your manuscript. Her job is to get the story to the point where an editor will make an offer. (And then be prepared to make more revisions for the editor.)
Through her work as an agent of children’s books, Anna has developed a special interest in animal advocacy. She is the agent for Jill Robinson and Marc Bekoff’s Jasper’s Story: Saving Moonbears, the story of a moon bear held captive in a cage by bear farmers in rural China until rescued by Animals Asia, the organization that Jill founded, and Alan Rabinowitz’s A Boy and a Jaguar, the story of a boy who fulfills his promise to speak for animals who cannot speak for themselves.
Anna is also interested in finding unusual books with a Judaic or Israel theme. She is the agent for Ruchama FeuermanÕs novel In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist, about the friendship between a rabbiÕs assistant and a devout Muslim janitor, and Santiago CohenÕs picture book The Yiddish Fish, about a fish who speaks Yiddish.
If you think Anna would be the right agent for you, start by sending her an email with a few details about your book and the opening pages in the body of an email (not in an attachment). If Anna likes what she reads in your query, she’ll ask to see the full manuscript.