Today I’m thrilled to have agent GiannaMarie Dobson here. She’s an associate literary agent at Neighborhood Literary.
Hi
GiannaMarie! Thanks so much for joining us.
About
GiannaMarie:
1.
Tell us how you became an agent, how long you’ve been one, and what you’ve been
doing as an agent.
I always wanted to work in publishing! I spent
5 years interning, working freelance in publishing, and networking before I
made the jump up to agent in June 2025 when I joined Neighborhood. By the time
this interview is posted, it’ll be about a year! I’ve spent that year learning
as much as I possibly can from my bosses, my colleagues, and my peers; meeting
as many editors as possible; and building my client list very slowly and
deliberately.
About
the Agency:
2.
Share a bit about your agency and what it offers to its authors.
Neighborhood is a boutique literary agency led
by Eric Smith and Rebecca Podos, who are some of the kindest people in
publishing! Eric’s vision is very community-focused, and he runs events both
virtually and IRL in Philadelphia to offer resources and help demystify
publishing. Additionally, all the agents on our team are very focused on
finding and uplifting diverse voices.
What
She’s Looking For:
3.
What age groups do you represent—picture books, MG, and/or YA? What genres do
you represent, and what are you looking for in submissions for these genres?
In kidlit, I’m looking for MG and YA novels of
all genres. In adult, I’m looking for SFFH and romance. Across all my genres
and age categories, my priority is to find books about disability, featuring
disabled characters, or written by disabled authors.
4. Is there anything you would be especially
excited to seeing in the genres you are interested in?
Inside the umbrella of disability, I’m very
focused on finding intersectional disability stories too, especially queer and
BIPOC. If you’re a disabled author of color and write in my categories, please
query me! More specifically:
In MG, my heart lies with serious stories
about the unique circumstances of being disabled when you’re a child, like Aniana
Del Mar Jumps In, Iveliz Explains It All, and Hear Me by
Kerry O’Malley Cerra. The first time I read Aniana, I was listening to
the audiobook, and I had to keep pausing because it was so intense I wanted to
throw my phone across the room! Please make me upset! Up until recently, the
only intense disability stories were objectifying and written for the abled
gaze, so I’m so excited that these other books are starting to pop up, ones
that are written from an authentic disability perspective and reflect the very
real hard parts of disability that have so far been invisible to the mainstream––Aniana
wrestles with cultural moralizing of chronic illness and generational trauma; Iveliz
centers a grieving child who experiences hallucinations and struggles to care
for her grandmother with memory loss; Hear Me is about parental rights
and the violence of inflicting unwanted healthcare on a child who legally has
no medical autonomy. On the more fun side, I would also love to see a
Percy Jackson-esque story where disabled kids get to be heroes and go on
adventures but have disabilities that realistically limit them––Vanya
and the Wild Hunt is a great example of what I mean by this, reinventing
the familiar (magic school) through a disability lens!
In YA and adult, I’m especially eager for some
disability SFFH. I am dying for disability horror that interrogates
ableism/sanism as the source of the horror (rather than disability itself), and
I’m always, always, always dying for disabled dragons, dragon riders, and
anything like that. Please send me Eragon-but-he-stays-disabled or How
to Train Your Dragon where the disabilities are relevant and respectfully portrayed––please
no more magicures or supercrips! We need to carve out a space for ourselves in
sweeping, epic fantasy!
I’m also perpetually looking for disability
romance––badly enough that I’ve opened up to adult romance specifically for
this purpose. If you’re an author with a romance like Sick Kids in Love,
Kissing Kosher, or It’s All in Your Head in your back pocket, I
need to see it! I love disability-focused romance in particular because a close
examination of disability requires a story—and potential couple—to break down
what intimacy means for them, and build a relationship around unique
characters’ needs, desires, and vulnerabilities, rather than defaulting to more
familiar allo, hetero relationship beats and structures.
Lastly, I would just love to see a broader
variety of disabled authors in my inbox! When I say I’m looking for
neurodivergence and disability, I mean it in the broadest possible sense––I am
actively looking for projects that deal with other neurodivergences, especially
more stigmatized mental illnesses and brain injury. So far, my inbox has
trended very heavily towards autism and ADHD––and please know, I’m autistic and
I’ve signed two incredible autistic authors already!––and I would love
to mix it up and get some more physical disabilities, mobility impairments,
chronic illness, and chronic pain!
If any of that sounds like you, I have a
thorough MSWL here: https://manuscriptwishlist.com/mswl-post/giannamarie-dobson/.
What
She Isn’t Looking For:
5.
What types of submissions are you not interested in?
Right now, I’m not looking for picture books, graphic
novels, novels in verse, or nonfiction. I’ll give almost anything a shot if
it’s through a disability lens, but I’m not interested in considering
“inspirational” disability stories, stories centering able-bodied caregivers or
siblings, or stories leaning on disability tropes (like amnesia, a last-minute
psychosis reveal, or the supercrip) without deconstructing the harm they cause.
Agent
Philosophy:
6.
What is your philosophy as an agent both in terms of the authors you want to
work with and the books you want to represent?
My goal as an agent is to get more disability
stories on shelves—art has a profound capacity to educate, humanize,
destigmatize, and change the culture. As someone active in both the publishing
industry and disability community, I’ve noticed that these two worlds don’t
overlap much—the knowledge, culture, and history of the disability community
rarely makes it into mainstream art, even art that centers disability.
Thankfully, this has begun to change in the last 10-ish years, but there’s a
lot farther to go! Disability is vast and complicated, but the authors and
books I’m especially eager for are ones that understand it as a political
category.
Editorial
Agent:
7.
Are you an editorial agent? If so, what is your process like when you’re
working with your authors before submitting to editors?
I am! I love editing. With the authors I’ve
signed so far, I’ve given my most important editorial thoughts on the offer
call, and then followed up with a detailed edit letter. Character and voice are
the most important things to me, and I rarely want to edit those––but if those
are solid and draw me in, anything else can be fixed! My edits usually focus on
bringing out the wonderful parts of the manuscript and tweaking plot and
worldbuilding to enhance the themes.
Query
Methods and Submission Guidelines: (Always verify before submitting)
8.
How should authors query you and what do you want to see with the query letter?
QueryManager! What I
ask for is a standard query and then the first 10 pages of your manuscript.
9. Do you have any specific dislikes in query
letters or the first pages submitted to you?
I have an accessibility note on my form, but
other than that, I really recommend r/PubTips as a query resource. The
community there is very active and will help you get your query into shape!
Response
Time:
10.
What’s your response time to queries and requests for more pages of a
manuscript?
I set aside one day a week to clear my query
inbox. Currently, that’s Monday, so it should be under a week for a query
response. I usually read partials and manuscripts within a week as well, too.
If it’s taking longer than that, there’s a 99% chance I thought your project
would be a better fit for one of my colleagues at Neighborhood and handed it
off to them, so it’s in their queue!
Self-Published
and Small Press Authors:
11. Are you open to representing authors who have
self-published or been published by smaller presses? What advice do you have
for them if they want to try to find an agent to represent them?
Most of the time, it’s
all about framing. If you’ve got a poor sales history for your selfpub or small
press book, drawing attention to that may lead industry professionals to
believe that your books weren’t very good or that you weren’t a very savvy
businessperson. On the other hand, if you’re very successful in either space, a
lot of agents will be eager to partner with you! Regardless, write the
strongest book and the strongest query you can––you can figure out the best
strategy for the next step of your career once an agent falls in love with your
work.
Clients:
12.
Who are some of the authors you represent?
My client list is
very small at the moment, and all yet to debut!
Interviews
and Guest Posts:
13.
Please share the links to any interviews, guest posts, and podcasts you think
would be helpful to writers interested in querying you.
I was interviewed in
the November/December 2025 issue of Writer’s Digest, but I’m not sure that
that’s available anywhere online!
Links
and Contact Info:
14.
Please share how writers should contact you to submit a query and your links on
the Web.
I only accept
queries through QueryManager. My form is linked here: https://querytracker.net/query/3926
Find me on Bluesky
at https://bsky.app/profile/giannamarie.bsky.social! That’s where I
announce that I’m opening/closing to queries and where I participate in pitch
events.
Additional
Advice:
15.
Is there any other advice you’d like to share with aspiring authors that we
haven’t covered?
Make use of free
resources and communities online—there’s so much excellent information
out there and generous people who will help you!
Thanks for sharing all your advice,
GiannaMarie!
Have any experience with this agent? See something that
needs updating? Please leave a comment or email me at natalieiaguirre7@gmail.com
Note: These agent profiles and interviews presently focus on
agents who accept children's fiction. Please take the time to verify anything
you might use here before querying an agent. The information found here is
subject to change.
Upcoming Interviews, Guest Posts, and Blog Hops
Monday, June 29th, I’m participating in the Sparkle Time Giveaway Hop
Monday, July 1st, I’m participating in the Sparkle Time Giveaway Hop
Wednesday, July 3rd, I have an interview with Amanda Connolly and a giveaway of her YA romantasy The Lure of Wolves and Whispers and my IWSG post
Monday, July 9th, I have an agent spotlight interview with Justina Ireland Handspun and query critique giveaway
Monday, July 13th, I have an interview with Amy Tern and a giveaway of her MG Sneaks
Thursday, July 16th, I’m participating in the Sip Sip Hooray Giveaway Hop
I hope to see you on Monday!
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