Meet Literary Agent Etta Wilson

Meet Books & Such Literary Agent Etta Wilson

Etta Wilson has always loved reading, but eventually realized her broader passion was to find authors with significant words to share with children and helping them be published. Starting with her training and experience as a school librarian, she developed a broad knowledge of children’s literature, which she later honed in the publishing world serving as children’s editor at Abingdon Press, children’s book reviewer for BookPage, and a literary agent with March Media representing children’s authors. She also has served as an editor at Thomas Nelson Publishers. In 1989 she moved into functioning as an agent when authors whose work she had edited asked her to expand her role in their careers.

Etta works with publishers in both the general and the Christian markets. In 1992, she placed the picture book manuscript Peppe the Lamplighter with Lothrop, which became a Caldecott Honor book. That same year she published Tennessee Trailblazers, a collection of historical stories that was adopted for use in Tennessee elementary schools. In 2000, she began representing Elizabeth Orton Jones, whose Prayer for a Child was an early Caldecott winner, and placed several of her books for re-issue. Etta’s clients are currently contracted with numerous houses including Viking, Boyds Mills, Ideals, Abingdon, Standard, Tyndale, Group, and Rainbow Publishers. Firefighters to the Rescue, a recent picture book by her client Kersten Hamilton, has been selected for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.

In addition Etta has written 12 children’s books herself. Her picture book Music in the Night (Penguin, 1993) was also issued in oversize format for use in classroom reading instruction.

She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators for which she has compiled the Religious Book Markets Guide, the Women’s National Book Association for which she has served as Nashville chapter president, and a founding member of the Tennessee Writers Alliance. She particularly enjoys bringing children’s authors to Nashville and has worked in close alliance with the Southern Festival of books to make that happen. It gives her great pleasure to realize she lives in one of the nation’s major publishing centers with many opportunities for children’s authors.

Literary Agent- Children’s & Young Adult Books

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