Jill Marr is an agent at the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency. She graduated from SDSU with a BA in English with an emphasis in creative writing and a minor in history. She has a strong Internet and media background and nearly 20 years of publishing experience. She wrote features and ads for Pages, the literary magazine for people who love books, as well as book ads for publishing houses, magazine pieces, and promotional features for television.

Jill is looking for fiction and non-fiction by unrepresented voices, BIPOC and Latinx writers, disabled persons, and people identifying as LGBTQ+, among others. She is interested in commercial and upmarket fiction, with an emphasis on mysteries, thrillers, Gothic, horror, romantasy, romance, fantasy, speculative fiction, and historical fiction. She loves food-centric novels, no matter what the genre. She is looking to find more rom coms with a fresh voice, perspective and a strong hook. When it comes to suspense she likes it dark and psychological. Her tastes lean more in the vein of The Silent Patient, The Lost Apothecary, Mexican Gothic and the works of S.A. Cosby than Private Investigator and CIA stories. And she almost never takes on military or Western projects. However she is a sucker for novels with grounded magical realism, and is always looking for a new take on mythology or folklore.

She is also looking for non-fiction by authors with a big, timely, smart message. She’d like to see work that does a deep dive into subcultures and social commentary as well as historical projects that look at big picture issues. Jill is looking for non-fiction projects in the areas of current events, true crime, science, history, narrative non-fiction, sports, politics, health & nutrition, pop culture, humor, music, and very select memoir.

Some of Jill’s recent and soon-to-be-published non-fiction includes the New York Times best-selling The Menopause Manifesto (Citadel Press) and Blood by Dr. Jennifer Gunter; The Stadium (Basic Books) by Frank Andre Guridy; Becoming Baba (Doubleday) by Aymann Ismail; Big Dirty Money (Viking) by Jennifer Taub; Dateable (Hachette Go) by Jessica Slice and Caroline Cupp; Use the Power You Have (The New Press) by Congresswoman, Pramila Jayapal; Freedom to Win (Pegasus) by Ethan Scheiner;The Great Black Hope (Public Affairs) by Louis Moore; Goddess Energy (Tarcher) by Gabriela Herstik, Manifesting Justice by Valena Beety, the Founding Director of the West Virginia Innocence Project; Keep Marching (Hachette) by Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, the co-founder of MomsRising; Ali on Ali (Workman) by the daughter of Muhammad Ali, Hana Ali; Being Heumann (Beacon Press) by late American disability activist Judith Heumann.

Some of Jill’s new and upcoming fiction includes The Curse of Penryth Hall (Minotaur) the USA Today bestseller by the winner of the 2022 MWA/Minotaur Books First Crime Novel Competition Jess Armstrong; Come with Me (Thomas & Mercer) by Edgar Award-winning author Erin Flanagan; Do No Harm (Minotaur) by Robert Pobi; Edgar Award-winning A Dreadful Splendor (William Morrow) by B.R. Myers, A Sweet Sting of Salt (Random House) by Rose Sutherland; Hot Summer (Putnam) by Elle Everhart; Love and Other Conspiracies (Berkley) by Mallory Marlowe; The Last Witch in Edinburgh (Kensington) by Marielle Thompson; Kilt Trip (Canary Street Press) by Alex Kiley; The Mystery Writer (Sourcebooks) by Sulari Gentill; Juror #3 (Little, Brown) a thriller written with James Patterson, by Nancy Allen; The Fourth Prophesy (Grand Central) by international best-seller Glenn Cooper; In the Hour of Crows (Mira) by Dana Elmendorf; The Devil and Mrs. Davenport (Lake Union) by Paulette Kennedy.

Please note that Jill is specifically not interested in: screenplays, poetry, and novellas
Jill is interested in commercial fiction, with an emphasis on mysteries, thrillers, romantic suspense and horror, women’s commercial fiction and historical fiction. She is also looking for non-fiction by authors who are getting their work published regularly and who have a realistic sense of the market and their audience. Jill is looking for non-fiction projects in the areas of history, sports, politics, current events, self-help, cookbooks, health & nutrition, pop culture, humor, music, and very select memoir.
Some of Jill’s recent and soon-to-be-published nonfiction includes the Travel Channel’s Nick Groff’s Chasing Spirits (NAL); Maybe We’ll Have You Back (Skyhorse) by actor Fred Stoller; Get Over It (Seal Press) by Christina Pesoli; Doulas A. Wissing’s Funding Our Enemy (Prometheus Books); Why We Love Serial Killers (Skyhorse) by Scott Bonn; America’s Greatest “Failing” School (Nation Books) by journalist Kristina Rizga; Don’t Lick the Minivan (Skyhorse) by Leanne Shirtliffe; William Jones’ More Than the Dream: The Untold Story of the March on Washington (Norton); Rocking the Pink (Seal Press) by singer-songwriter Laura RoppŽ; Stop Reading Baby Books (Skyhorse) by JJ Keith; Drunks: America’s Search for Sobriety by Christopher Finan; and Argyle Armada: Life with America’s Top Pro Cycling Team (VeloPress) by Mark Johnson.
Some of Jill’s new and upcoming fiction includes Bloodman and American Woman (Thomas & Mercer) by Robert Pobi; Reckless Disregard (Seven Stories Press) by Robert Rotstein; Three Souls (HarperCollins) by Janie Chang; Madam (Plume) by Cari Lynne and Kellie Martin; The Cordell Logan thriller series (The Permanent Press) by David Freed; Benefit of the Doubt (Tor/Forge) by Neal Griffin; Garbo’s Last Stand (Entranced) by Jon Miller; The Crossroads thriller series (Thomas & Mercer) by Eyre Price; The Dog Year (Berkley) by Ann Garvin; The Change Your Name Store (Sky Pony Press) by Leanne Shirliffe; and the Jaden Terrell series that includes the Shamus Award nominee Racing the Devil and A Cup Full of Midnight (The Permanent Press).
Please note that Jill is specifically not interested in: YA, children’s books, sci-fi, romance, screenplays, graphic novels, or anything involving unicorns.