SUZIE TOWNSEND

Agent

Vice President, New Leaf Literary & Media

Suzie Townsend loves strong characters and voice-driven stories that break out of the typical tropes of their genres, and unique new voices. She loves novels with a commercial hook, compelling storytelling, and beautiful writing. Suzie is excited to add more writers of diversity (including, but not limited to, all ethnicity, sexual orientation, mental and physical health, and socioeconomic status) to her list. She’ll follow a character that she loves anywhere.  

In contemporary YA, she’s particularly looking for authentic teen voices and raw emotional stories that will make her laugh, cry, and swoon, as well as novels that tackle social justice issues with nuance and empathy. Some of her YA favorites are The Sun is Also a Star, I’ll Give You the Sun, All the Bright Places, Before I Fall, Where She Went, Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, and The Hate U Give.

In literary Middle Grade, she’s looking for literary and character-driven stories with poignant prose, whether it’s historical, contemporary, magical realism, or even fantasy. In addition to the novels she’s worked on, some of her favorites are Savvy, When You Reach Me, Summer & Bird, Lost in the Sun, The Thing About Jellyfish, Brown Girl Dreaming, Inside Out and Back Again, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, and Wolf Hollow. She’s also an animal lover and a sucker for beautifully written emotional stories that involve animals like Pax, and A Dog’s Way Home [by Bobbie Pyron, workshopped at PCCWW].

In Science Fiction and Fantasy, Suzie loves strong characters and voice-driven stories that break out of the typical tropes of their genres. She’s a huge fan of expansive world building and atmospheric settings. She’s excited about stories rooted in history, mythology and legends, especially those that are lesser-known or underrepresented in traditional publishing.

In Women’s Fiction, Suzie is looking for upmarket bookclub fiction, historical that explores cultural heritage--particularly untold non-European historical events, contemporary fiction that exposes a new light on a topical issue, or that features quirky, dysfunctional families. She also loves magical realism in the vein of Sarah Addison Allen or Alice Hoffman.

Additionally, Suzie is interested in Romance, and Psychological Suspense featuring strong and complicated protagonists who have dark secrets. She’s especially looking for inclusive and diverse stories with new and unique voices in all genres and age groups.

Examples of Suzie’s recent sales and/or forthcoming books:   

• Jennifer Wilson's Someday We'll Find It, about a 17-year-old girl who has finally stopped wishing for her mama to come back and rescue her from the small town where she left her behind; then her mama shows up, and she has to choose between the life and family she's dreamed of or the world she's starting to make for herself.

• Christine Day's The Sea in Winter, about a Native American girl struggling to find her joy again after hurting her leg, leaving her unable to dance; her family road trips along the Pacific Northwest coast and her anxiety and pain worsen but she knows she has to be strong or she'll become cold on the inside like the midwinter weather.
  
  
• Jas Hammonds's We Deserve Monuments, following a queer, black, biracial teen who moves to small-town Georgia to live with her estranged grandmother and becomes entangled in a web of family secrets, the town's racist history, and her growing feelings for the girl next door.

« Home page     » Next bio