I am a literary agent at Triada US, a literary agency founded in 2004 by Dr. Uwe Stender. Over the last twenty years, the agency has launched the careers of many award-winning and bestselling authors of fiction and non-fiction.
After years of interning for numerous agents, I joined Triada US in 2014 as a summer intern and was hired as an assistant agent that fall. I was promoted to associate agent in November 2015, to agent in April 2017, and to senior agent in October 2020. In 2019, I was named a PW Star Watch Honoree. I am incredibly proud of my list—my clients’ books have won major awards, collected starred reviews, and hit the bestseller lists. I have represented numerous New York Times bestsellers (including a #1 New York Times bestseller), numerous USA Today bestsellers, numerous ABA IndieBound bestellers, numerous Publishers Weekly bestsellers, a Wall Street Journal bestseller, and an Amazon Charts bestseller. I’ve represented a Newbery Honor winner, a Printz Honor winner, a Schneider Family Book Award winner, a YALSA Award for Excellence in Non-Fiction for Young Adults winner and finalist, numerous Stonewall Honor winners, a Walter Dean Myers Award winner, and an E.B. White Read Aloud Honor Book. My clients’ books have collectively earned over 80 starred reviews from the trade reviewers such as Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, School Library Journal, and others.
I am a member of the Association of American Literary Agents.
Please visit the MSWL page on this website to see what types of books I’m looking for and submission guidelines.
I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. As a kid, I struggled with reading and was always behind grade-level. It wasn’t until middle school when I fell in love with books. As a sixth-grader, I was desperate to make friends, and the group of kids that I wanted to be friends with were all reading Twilight. I got my hands on a copy and was hooked. This was when I realized books weren’t just for school, but they could be for entertainment: it was like watching a movie in your mind!
As I started voraciously reading YA novels, I had another epiphany about books: not only were they entertaining, but they helped you find your place in the world. I was discovering gay characters in books at the same time that I was figuring out my own identity. It was powerful and life-changing for me to meet characters in stories that were living as their most authentic selves.
In high school, I was obsessively checking the internet for updates on all my favorite authors and book series. I would pore over their websites and social media — and I was always struck with curiosity when they would mention their editors, publicists, and agents. I was fascinated by the idea that there was an entire industry of people that helped authors publish their books. I knew instantly that I wanted to work in book publishing, but more specifically, I knew that I wanted to be a literary agent, because the job was such a unique blend of creativity, business, and entrepreneurial spirit.
During my sophomore year, I started an internship reading queries and manuscripts for literary agents. I would read queries at 5am before I had to get on the bus to go to school, and then I would do my homework on the bus ride home so that I could write reader’s reports in the evenings. I was also asking the agents I interned for every question under the sun about book publishing — what’s a premium sale? What are the industry standard royalty rates for premium sales? At one point I realized that when there was legal action between an author and publisher, the publishing contract was usually an exhibit to that lawsuit filing and became a public record, and I learned so much about the industry by poring over those documents.
I applied to colleges in NYC, because back then, in the pre-covid era of 2013, you could only work in publishing if you were in NYC. I got into my dream school, which was an honors college program that came with a full-tuition scholarship, study abroad stipend, and so many other amazing perks. I got in, and it was the happiest day of my life. (I drove to school that morning and the Alicia Keys/Jay Z song Empire State of Mind came on the radio — I felt it was a sign of fate, and the universe smiling upon on me!) Unfortunately, when I showed up for my orientation, the academic advisor dropped a bombshell: because my parents weren’t New York State tax payers, I didn’t qualify for the scholarship. I could still attend this program, but I would have to pay for it, while all of my peers got free rides.
This was devastating for me. This honors program was honestly the only way college was going to be possible for me, because I came from a very blue collar background. I had no money, I had no prospects of easily getting a student loan. I got so close to my dream that I could taste it, and then that very dream died right before my eyes. It was a painful period of my life. I got a job at Target for $7.25 an hour, and I started thinking about other options. Perhaps I could be an English teacher, or work in HR? But nothing felt as right in my heart as book publishing.
About 6 months later, I made a deal with myself: I would do one more internship, and I would try my hardest to be so excellent that it turned into a job. If it didn’t work out, I would officially move on with my life.
I sent off an email to Uwe Stender, the president of Triada US, and asked if he was looking for an intern. I got the internship and it was an amazing experience. That fall, I was hired as an agent and began building my own list of clients.
Publishing is notoriously difficult to break into. I had to kick down the door and create a space for myself. I am honored to represent such wonderful authors, to negotiate best-in-class deal terms and contracts for them, to watch their books catapult atop the bestseller lists, win prestigious awards, and garner dozens of starred reviews.
Being a literary agent is truly my teenage dream come true. I can vividly remember how I felt when I was 17: I yearned for my dreams so badly that I was wracked with nerves about what the future would look like if they didn’t come true. I wish I could give 17-year-old Brent a phone call from his future self. I would tell him, “Buckle up. You are about to become one impossibly happy, impossibly lucky boy.”