Have a chat about the world of agenting children’s books with two esteemed agents, Lil Chase of Caroline Wakeman Literary Agency and Gill McLay of Bath Literary Agency. Lil herself is a children’s author so understands the challenges of writing and agenting, and Gill is co-founder and former Director of the Bath Festival of Children’s Literature. Is children’s fiction a difficult area of the market just now? What are the challenges? What is are the trends? And how can you make your submission stand out?
Lil Chase is Senior Editor at the Caroline Wakeman Literary Agency. She has over 15 years’ experience in the publishing industry. Prior to CWLA, Lil worked for Cornerstones Literary Consultancy, Harlequin Mills & Boon and Working Partners Ltd – the creatives behind massive commercial successes such as Beast Quest. Warriors and the Daisy Meadows series.
Lil is also an author in her own right: she has written 6 books under her own name, and ghost written many others under various pseudonyms.
Agent one-to-one appointments are available with Lil. Once you have booked your festival ticket you will receive link and details about Lil’s available timeslots. Please note #Agent121s are charged extra at £60 each.
She would like to see originality – particularly in voice. A strong character with depth, venturing on a quest that’s never been undertaken before, will get her excited. The ‘quest’ doesn’t have to be epic in scale, it could be as small as petting the next-door neighbours dog, it just has to be something new. She also loves humor and is happy to see anything quirky (perhaps even downright silly!).