Susan Velazquez Colmant

I have gotten several questions about when I’ll be opening to queries since I typically start opening on June 1 and remain open through the end of the summer.

Unfortunately, I will not be opening this year because I have some exciting personal news: I’m having a baby girl, due in December!

This is very exciting because this is my first baby and the first grandbaby on both sides of mine and my husband’s family. However, this means that my focus for the remainder of 2026 is to settle up with my current clients vs seeking new ones. I need to prioritize the manuscripts that have already been sent to me, keep my reading pile available for the additional manuscripts that I know will be coming in shortly, prepare as many people to go on submission before publishing people disappear for the winter holidays, and tie up any and all loose threads before my due date.

In short: I will not be opening my Query Manager this summer 2026.

I’m sorry to be closed, especially since I’ve heard from several people that they were looking forward to submitting to me this summer. I’ve thought of opening my query box on a limited basis but as much as I do enjoy looking through the query box and there are certain genres my agency is looking to increase representation for. However, I have to concede that I can’t do it all. It’s already quite the balancing act between my current clients and my subrights management role at the agency so I don’t want to include the added pressure of sifting through queries, reading full requests, sending feedback, and potentially onboarding new clients all when I have so many existing responsibilities plus a forthcoming newborn who will require my attention.

However to my however, I will host two Threads on Saturday, July 25 and Saturday, August 1 starting at 12pm EST until midnight EST as a limited opportunity to pitch to me. Obviously, I’m going to be 100x more selective than I typically am with my query box but if even something is not for me, I am going to review in mind whether it may be a better fit for one of my fellow agents.

So here’s what I am concentrating on:

• BIPOC authors, especially Latine/Latinx authors
• Adult book club/upmarket fiction in contemporary, speculative, or historical settings – I want books like Caro Claire Burke’s YESTERYEAR, Emily St. John Mendel’s STATION ELEVEN, or Johanna Rojas Vann’s AN AMERICAN IMMIGRANT. I want books that capture or drive current discourse or books that clubs will have fun discussing and analyzing.
• Contemporary romance and romantic comedies featuring charming locales and fresh takes on favorite tropes. I saw YOU, ME, AND TUSCANY 3 times in theaters. That’s the happy stuff I want. Speculative romance stories are also welcome like Natalie Messier’s EVERY VERSION OF YOU.
• Fast-paced thrillers for fans of Freida McFadden but with added thematic layers for book clubs to dissect like Marisa Kashino’s BEST OFFER WINS and Meagan Church’s THE MAD WIFE. I want things dark, biting, and have something to say.
• Nonfiction in pop science, pop psychology, and select pop culture/history – I already represent some select pop culture and I hate getting told in translation submissions that everything I represent is too American-centric. Even if we start with a specific lens, I want books that can be pulled back to have a bird’s eye on how a topic will be of interest across countries/cultures. As a future mom, I am particularly fascinated by topics that affect new parents–momfluencers, tradwives, fearmongering and misinformation about health and medicine, how algorithms are targeting and influencing children, the challenges Gen Alpha and Gen Beta faces, etc. I LOVED Fortesa Latifi’s LIKE, FOLLOW, SUBSCRIBE, Melissa Wirt’s I WAS TOLD THERE’D BE A VILLAGE, and Angela Garbes’ LIKE A MOTHER.
• I’m open to authors self-pub or hybrid authors who are looking to sell more projects into trad publishing in the genres listed above 

Things I am taking a break from casting a wide net for:

• Romantasy/fantasy submissions in YA or adult – Sorry, everyone! I already have a very robust client list in these areas and I need to focus on selling my current clients. (I did request some romantasies/fantasies to query me privately on social media and I just want to say, don’t worry! I’m considering you like normal but rather I am just not soliciting any more in this genre.)
• YA in general – Again, my existing YA authors keep me pretty busy so I prefer to focus on them at the moment. (Same as above, I am just not soliciting any more YA fantasy beyond what I already have privately requested.)
• Horror
• Science fiction
• Anything I did not put in my “want” list
• Self-pub authors who ONLY want representation for subrights – I already represent several prolific self-pub authors so I’m afraid mine and my subrights department’s bandwidth is quite limited at the moment. I am only considering self-pub authors who are looking to sell projects to trad publishing.

I am writing a separate post for Pitch to Me guidelines.