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Adria Goetz


By Margaret Lea   


Agent Adria Goetz from KT Literary will be presenting “Navigating the Agent/Author Relationship at our virtual chapter meeting on July 6, 2026. Below is my email interview with Adria. 


1) How and when did you get into agenting? 

My first exposure to agenting was when I got an internship with a local literary agency when I was 19. At the time, I thought that I wanted to be an editor, but applied to the internship because I thought it would still be valuable to experience the industry from the agent’s side of things. It was supposed to be a quick little blip on my resume. But when I showed up to the office on the first day and there was an auction going, I was hooked. I knew right away that it was the path for me, and I’ve never looked back. I interned at that agency for the rest of my college years, and then began agenting in 2016. 


2) What genres do you represent? 

I represent picture books, middle grade, adult fiction, and graphic novels. My favorite projects are cozy fantasy, magical realism, grounded contemporary fantasy—basically anything that has a pinch of magic. My overly detailed manuscript wishlist can be found at www.adriagoetz.com!


3) How much of each submission do you usually read, and do you read any if the query didn’t grab you? 


The majority of my passes happen at the query letter stage. And that’s not to say that you necessarily have to be incredible at pitching your work—it just means you have to have an incredible premise! If I’m not intrigued by the plot/premise, then I’m not going to make it to the pages. 


4) Do you have a unique story (fun, inspiring, terrifying, or whatever) that’s somehow related to writing?

One of my favorite behind the scenes stories is the origin story of THE OTHER SIDE OF TOMORROW, written by Tina Cho and illustrated by Deb JJ. Lee, which won SCBWI’s Golden Kite Award in the middle grade category. It wasn’t always in the form that it’s currently in! Many years ago, Tina Cho wrote a picture book about characters who flee North Korea through a secret network of safe houses that’s referred to as Asia’s Underground Railroad. She brought the manuscript to her critique group and they said, “There’s a lot to explore here. What if… you turned it into a middle grade novel?” So she did! This was before Tina and I started working together. Once we teamed up, I read the middle grade novel manuscript and said, “I’d love to see you lean into the lyrical aspect of your writing. What if… you turned it into a novel in verse?” So she did! We shopped it as a novel in verse and when Carolina Ortiz at HarperCollins read it she said, “There’s so much visual potential here. What if… we turned it into a graphic novel in verse?” Sometimes it takes a while to find the right container for a story to exist in, but now that it exists as this beautiful graphic novel in verse, it feels like it was always supposed to take this form. The moral of this story shouldn’t be: Just follow every note you’re given! Exploring revisions and taking constructive feedback is always a case by case basis and you should never follow the path if you don’t like where it’s leading. But I do think there’s something really valuable about how curious and open Tina was to exploring different formats for this story. This project was a labor of love and about a decade in the making, but the final product is really special. 


 

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