Secret Agent Unveiled: KATHLEEN ORTIZ

A huge amount of thanks to the delightful and dedicated Kathleen Ortiz of Lowenstein Associates.

Kathleen's Bio:

Kathleen Ortiz began her career in publishing at Ballinger Publishing as an editorial assistant and interactive media designer for the young adult section, working to boost the magazine’s online presence through social networking. She then moved on to uwirepr.com as online editor for the features, art & entertainment sections. She has also taught high school classes as a visual media instructor.

Kathleen is currently Associate Agent and Foreign Rights Manager at Lowenstein Associates. She is seeking children's books (chapter, middle grade, and young adult) and young adult non-fiction. While Kathleen enjoys everything from light-hearted and humorous to dark and edgy, she'd love to find an amazing romance from a male point of view or a steampunk with fantastic world building.

Lowenstein Associates believes with the continued demand for online marketing in publishing, a strong online platform is essential for today's authors. Kathleen uses her background in interactive media design to assist Lowenstein Associates’ clients with branding themselves. She maintains a blog on tips for querying and publishing at Neverending Page Turner and may also be found on Twitter.

What she's looking for right now:

For MG I'm big on coming of age stories, funny or adventure. For YA I tend to lean toward dark or edgy or topics that push the limits of everyday YA. I'd really love a good steampunk, YA or MG. Most of all, I'd REALLY love a good YA romance from a male POV. I also kind of have a thing for tragic love stories (think Othello, Tristan and Isolde, and Romeo and Juliet). I don't really want remakes of those stories but something along that vein would be great. I have a variety of tastes, but if I were to sit here and list them all, I wouldn't be able to get to my list of fabulous partials that need to be read :) In a nutshell, if it's YA, MG or a chapter book and it's polished and a plot that's unique and not overdone, shoot me a query. I'll be happy to let you know if it's something I'd be interested in reading.

Yay, Kathleen!

I was particularly excited for the opportunity to work with this month's Secret Agent. She's passionate, big-hearted, and awfully funny. If you're not following her on Twitter, you should be!

Winners coming up.