Kelly Bergh is a Lucinda Literary agent who hunts for intellectually rigorous, research-backed adult nonfiction — especially popular psychology, health and wellness, and self-transformation — while selectively taking on children's, gift, and fiction projects in those same thematic lanes.
In brief
Her sales record skews heavily toward contemporary poetry and popular psychology — Josie Balka (NYT-bestselling poet) and Chris Moore, PhD are confirmed clients — suggesting she has real commercial muscle in emotion-driven, research-grounded narrative nonfiction and accessible verse.
Publisher relationships span the full prestige tier: Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, Bloomsbury, and specialty houses like Hay House and Andrews McMeel — a range that signals comfort placing both mainstream commercial titles and spirituality/wellness books.
Her background as a certified yoga and meditation instructor plus a stint as a children's librarian before moving into academic publishing shapes a distinct taste: she wants intellectual rigor AND embodied, experiential resonance — not one or the other.
Despite listing fiction and children's as areas she'll consider, her confirmed deals are entirely nonfiction and poetry; treat fiction and children's as selective at best and lead with your nonfiction credentials.
Her form was directly observed closed as of March 11, 2025 — verify the live form before submitting; do not rely on any older signal that showed her as open.
Lately
Her agency bio, updated after she joined in 2023, frames her core interest as books that 'question inherited truths about complex, universal subjects and offer new frameworks that resonate beyond the page' — signaling she wants paradigm-shifting argument, not incremental self-help.
What Kelly is looking for
This is her clearest sweet spot — intellectually grounded books that challenge received wisdom about how people think, feel, and change. She wants authors who bring genuine research credentials (PhDs, clinicians, journalists with deep sourcing) and a fresh conceptual framework, not just a repackaging of familiar ideas. Emotional depth and rigor should coexist. Think guilt, grief, resilience, meaning — explored through a lens that surprises the reader.
Her yoga and meditation certification is not decorative — she brings practitioner knowledge to this space and can spot both authentic depth and surface-level wellness content. She wants books that interrogate how bodies, breath, movement, and mind interact, backed by science and lived experience. Embodiment and resilience are recurring themes she returns to. Influencers with a genuine platform and subject-matter experts are both welcome; credential or audience is required.
She is drawn to big-idea nonfiction that reframes how we understand complex, universal subjects — written for a trade audience, not an academic one. The author's voice must carry the reader; dense expertise alone is not enough. Journalists and researchers who can translate their field's cutting edge into a page-turning argument are the targets here.
She is open to books on creative practice, productivity, and leadership philosophy — but only when the author brings a distinctive framework or a demonstrably large platform. Generic life-optimization content will not cut through. The strongest pitches will pair an original intellectual contribution with a built-in audience.
Her confirmed sales include two NYT-bestselling contemporary poets, which is unusual for an agent who does not foreground poetry in her pitch bio. This appears to be an emerging strength rather than a stated priority. Accessible, emotionally resonant verse with strong commercial positioning — especially for gift or anthology formats — seems to be where her taste lands. Query with strong sales comps.
She will consider children's books and gift products (including card decks) that fall squarely within her nonfiction thematic lanes — wellness, self-discovery, creativity, mindfulness. This is an explicitly selective category; she is not seeking general children's fiction or picture books outside these themes. Lead with how the project connects to her core areas.
Her current agency page notes that she takes select fiction projects, but only those that align with her thematic areas (self-transformation, psychology, wellness). Her confirmed deal record contains no fiction, so treat this as a narrow door. A query should make the thematic overlap explicit and lead with a strong nonfiction-style hook about what the novel illuminates.
Not the right fit
On Kelly's list
Taste fingerprint
How to query Kelly
Her form was closed as of March 2025 — check the live form before doing anything else; querying a closed form is wasted effort.
Referrals are explicitly prioritized. If you have a connection to Lucinda Literary or one of her clients, lead with it.
Establish your credentials in the first sentence: PhD, clinical background, journalism track record, or a documented platform size. She does not take on generalists.
Frame your book as challenging or reframing a received truth — her stated filter is 'questions inherited truths about complex, universal subjects.' Show what the reader will think differently after reading your book.
If you are pitching poetry or a gift format, connect it explicitly to her wellness/psychology/self-transformation lane — she has sold in this space but does not foreground it, so make the thematic link obvious.
Author-models from her wishlist (Gladwell, Pollan, Brené Brown, James Nestor) can anchor a comp sentence, but pair them with a recent published title to ground the comparison — she is looking for a specific intellectual register, not just a category.
For fiction or children's queries, lead with the thematic overlap with her nonfiction interests; a pitch that reads like a general-fiction query will not land.
Keep the query concise and argument-forward: what is the book's central reframe, who is the author, and why now? Her academic publishing background means she can read proposals closely — but the hook has to earn that deeper read.