Jenny Bent

Jenny Bent

President and Literary Agent
She/her

Jenny is open to queries.

queries@thebentagency.com

Jenny’s clients

In the course of my career, I have represented a great many award-winning and New York Times-bestselling authors, a list which includes Stephanie Garber, Liv Constantine, Gary John Bishop, Lori Nelson Spielman, Goldy Moldavsky, Tiffany D. Jackson, Elise Kova, Yangsze Choo, Dustin Thao, Arvin Ahmadi, Lynsay Sands, JT Geissinger and Samantha Bailey.

I’m currently looking for literary and commercial fiction and young adult fiction as well as select non-fiction in the areas of self-help and lifestyle. My client list is diverse and I welcome submissions from BIPOC authors.

In adult fiction, I’m looking for high concept, upmarket women’s fiction; grounded fantasy; speculative fiction and horror (I particularly love a good scary ghost story, along the lines of writing by Simone St. James and Jennifer McMahon); and domestic suspense, but the bar is very high in suspense right now so it has to be an extremely creative concept. I also rep some romance and rom-com, but no other genre fiction: I’m not a good choice for high fantasy, cozy mystery, or sci-fi.

In young adult fiction, I’m pretty open to genre — I love fantasy, rom-coms, suspense, contemporary, almost anything except for sci-fi. I do notice that my YA taste does tend to skew towards older readers, more in a crossover direction.

In general, I tend to prefer plot-driven books to character-driven ones and pacing is very important to me. I also love novels — for adults or young adults — that have an element of magic or fantasy to them or that take me into a world that is new to me, whether real or imaginary. And while I love books to be dark and weird in terms of content, I find that I am more drawn to traditional, rather than experimental, methods of structure and storytelling. Finally, I am not the right fit for books with overtly political or extremely complicated plotlines.  

In nonfiction, I am looking for authors with a unique approach and a very large existing platform. I’m not generally the right choice for memoir or narrative non-fiction, but I’m always open to hearing a pitch just in case.

All of the books that I represent speak to the heart in some way: they are linked by genuine emotion, inspiration, and great writing and storytelling. I love books that make me laugh, make me cry, or ideally do both.