Faye Bender is a 29-year veteran at The Book Group who champions fiction across the full age spectrum—middle grade through adult—with a particular gift for launching and sustaining long careers for authors who blend sharp voice, propulsive plotting, and emotional depth.
In brief
Her deal record reveals a genuinely cross-category agent: she sells prestige middle grade (Newbery Medalist Rebecca Stead, NYT-bestselling Kelly Yang, Aisha Saeed), commercial and literary adult fiction (Liane Moriarty, Mary Alice Monroe, Maurene Goo), and YA with dark or edgy edges (Courtney Summers, Angeline Boulley)—her stated wishlist matches her actual output unusually well.
She has deep, recurring relationships with Nancy Paulsen Books and Putnam/Berkley, and her auction wins suggest she commands serious competitive heat even for debut-adjacent projects—her clients regularly land major and significant deals.
Her client roster skews toward women writing about women—girlhood, identity, power, and agency surface repeatedly across age categories—and books with a strong sense of place or culture are a clear through-line (low-country epics, Indigenous-led thrillers, Pakistani-diaspora MG, Korean-American matchmaker romances).
She is a long-career agent: most of her named clients appear in multiple deals over years, signaling she is not a 'one book and done' representative but someone who invests in an author's entire arc.
Her most recent sales (spring–fall 2026/2027) show her expanding into adult genre-bending territory—a horror novel-in-verse and an adult rom-com with a speculative twist—suggesting she is actively stretching her list in those directions right now.
Lately
Her agency's live submission page confirms she is currently accepting queries and asks writers to paste a query letter plus ten sample pages directly into the body of the email—no attachments accepted.
What Faye is looking for
She is actively seeking literary, standalone MG novels with a strong, distinct narrative voice. Her track record here is exceptional—Newbery Medalist Rebecca Stead, NYT-bestselling Kelly Yang, and Aisha Saeed are all current MG clients. She responds to MG that asks big questions about belonging, identity, and growing up, especially when rooted in a specific cultural or community context. The 'ah-ha' moment she describes—where a reader suddenly sees the world differently—is most clearly embodied in her MG list.
She wants edgy YA with a sharp, propulsive voice—books that push at the edges of what YA can do, both tonally and structurally. Her YA sales range from dark, suspenseful character studies to Indigenous-led thrillers with crossover appeal. Genre elements are welcome as long as the voice is distinctive and the stakes feel real. She is not looking for safe or predictable YA.
She sells adult fiction at a high level and is clearly expanding this part of her list. She is drawn to novels with propulsive plots and clever or unconventional structures, genre-bending premises, and big-hearted emotional cores. Her recent adult deals span domestic suspense, saga-style historical fiction, romantic fiction with speculative twists, and horror-inflected literary work—what unifies them is a strong sense of story architecture and a voice that commands attention. She is especially interested in fiction that gives readers a genuinely new lens on an experience or world they don't inhabit.
She explicitly names genre-bending fiction as a current interest, and her recent deals back this up: a horror novel-in-verse about competitive cheerleading, an adult rom-com with a supernatural past-lives mechanic, and a middle grade sci-fi about a family secretly from another planet all sold recently. She is not looking for straight-lane genre fiction but for work that crosses or subverts genre expectations in service of character and theme.
She takes on narrative nonfiction selectively, but her most recent deal—a true-story historical escape narrative sold at auction in a significant deal—shows she will champion nonfiction when it reads with the propulsion and stakes of the best literary fiction. The project must have a cinematic, story-driven structure; research-heavy academic work is not her lane.
Not the right fit
On Faye's list
Taste fingerprint
How to query Faye
Paste your query letter and the first ten pages of your manuscript directly into the body of the email—attachments will not be opened, so do not send them.
Include Faye Bender's name in the subject line of your email so your query is routed correctly.
Her wishlist rewards writers who articulate structure: if your novel has a clever or unconventional architecture, describe it upfront—she responds to propulsive, structurally distinctive work.
The 'ah-ha' moment is a genuine filter: in your query, identify the specific insight or revelation your novel delivers that a reader couldn't get elsewhere. Vague 'emotional journey' language will not stand out to her.
Her track record shows a preference for books rooted in a specific cultural identity or community—if that applies to your work, foreground it. She is not looking for generic universal stories.
If you write adult fiction with a speculative or genre-bending element, her recent sales suggest this is an active area of growth for her list—lean into the hybrid nature of the project rather than forcing it into one box.
She represents long-career clients, not one-book wonders. Mentioning your larger vision for your writing career (a series, a body of work in a genre) can signal you are the kind of partner she invests in deeply.
Check her agency's submission page immediately before querying to confirm the address and any updated guidelines; instructions have been stable but can change.