 ABOUT THE AGENT: Valentina Sainato (she/they) is an associate agent at JABberwocky assisting Eddie Schneider. She also handles all merchandise and third-party licensing proposals. They graduated from Cal Poly SLO with a B.A. in English and have lived in New York City ever since. Outside of her literary interests, Valentina is a dancer of many different styles, a video game lover, and a ~very~ amateur digital artist. Before joining JABberwocky, Valentina worked as an Events Manager with Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side, where they hosted a huge variety of author events, book clubs, children’s activities, and more. She has also interned at Foundry Literary + Media, Folio Literary Management, and the Feminist Press at CUNY. VALENTINA IS SEEKING: “Horror: Horror is my favorite genre to read, and I’m looking for lots of different flavors here. If it’s spooky, eerie, disorienting, thrilling, existential, or horror-lite, I want to read it. Blends with sci-fi/fantasy are also welcome, but it should still feel at home on the horror shelf! I love stories featuring monsters, witches, and demons, but I really want to see fresh takes on them with unexpected twists. A good ghost story or haunted house will always catch my attention; Carmen Maria Machado’s work is among my all-time favorites. Other elements I enjoy: body horror, cults or secret societies, natural phenomena like fungi and flora, and settings that make me feel claustrophobic. While I tend to gravitate more to supernatural or suspenseful horror over serial killers, I do like self-aware homages to slasher and cult films like Stephen Graham Jones’ brilliant My Heart is a Chainsaw. Survival horror or horror with thriller elements are also categories that I like but don’t read as often. Horror media I love:
AND “Science fiction / speculative fiction: I’m more selective about science fiction and speculative fiction; I’m a big character reader and want stories with an emotional core that drives them. I was absolutely blown by Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go in the Dark as well as Simon Jimenez’s The Vanished Birds; projects in those vein are what I’d love to work on. I also love narratives that play with time and/or space as part of the plot. Sci-fi books that deep-dive into spaceship mechanics or battle sequences generally are not for me. I also like reading more grounded contemporary books that have a speculative or off-beat twist such as Quan Barry’s We Ride Upon Sticks. Absurdity is also welcome but it has to mesh well with the voice, like in Hilary Mantel’s Temporary. Sci-fi / speculative media I love:
You can also find Valentina’s Manuscript Wishlist here. HOW TO SUBMIT: “Please visit my submissions page http://QueryManager.com/ValentinaSainato. I do not take queries over email or on the phone, so this is the best (and only) way to submit to me.” Please note: When we post a New Agent Spotlight, we try to make sure the agent is open to submissions at the time of posting. But as time goes by, an agent can close and open to submissions at any time. If some time has passed since this spotlight was posted, you will want to check their agency website and/or QueryManager before submitting, to be sure.  Attend a Writers Conference in 2026:
 This post by Chuck Sambuchino, freelance editor and lead director of Writing Day Workshops. Chuck is a former longtime staffer with Writer's Digest, editing the Guide to Literary Agents. He is the author of the writing guides CREATE YOUR WRITER PLATFORM and GET A LITERARY AGENT, as well as the bestselling humor book HOW TO SURVIVE A GARDEN GNOME ATTACK. His most recent books are all about pickleball -- daily tear-off calendars as well as the picture book GOODNIGHT, PICKLEBALL. He is a proud #GirlDad, movie geek, and guitar/piano player. Connect with him through WDW's Instagram and Twitter,
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