Divergent Literary: Neurodivergent Publishing
Connecting writers to agents, editors, and publishers.
When I published Divergent Mind, I began hearing from writers and artists and academics, designers and creatives, about their work in the world — the emails would pour in with unique stories, innovations, and contributions. And I would think, “This is so amazing but I’m *just* a writer?! I want to support everyone, but what avenue exactly?!”
Backing up — since 2018 I’ve been simmering on this idea of becoming a literary agent. I care a lot a lot a lot about representation and narrative change, and I’ve had the good fortune of working with a range of NYTimes bestselling authors on the publicity/marketing/events side of publishing for half a decade. In 2019 I got on the phone with a former publishing exec (who became a therapist!) who told me the biz just didn’t care much about representation. She and I are good friends and colleagues and we were having a wide-ranging discussion about women of color in publishing and neurodivergents in publishing.
Then I published my book with HarperOne (love them!) and have continued running events and interviews with authors, and during 2020 (of course) the publishing industry went through an upheaval of its own, alongside racial protests and alongside the pandemic.
And I’m happy to report that the tide of book deals is now finally tilting toward better representation and advocacy.
*It’s still a tough market,* don’t get me wrong, just as it always has been, but there’s a window opening, an openness to narrative change that feels as though the traffic light became green, like the switch. just. turned. on.
Divergent Literary is an initiative of The Neurodiversity Project and is a full-service literary agency with folks managing foreign rights, contracts, legal, negotiation, and more. Many kind agents — allies, agents of color, disability advocates — all jumped on the phone with me to support this effort. Beyond grateful for the village.
To kick things off there will be a short “class” to get everyone up to speed on how book publishing works — this ancient, beautiful, intricate web of relationships that I love. The class is July 31st from 10:30-12 PST and we’ll go over proposal writing, platform building, pitching to agents, the timeline and sequencing of book deals, positioning yourself as a writer, content strategy, publicity, list building, and more. It’s for established writers as well as emerging writers and I’ll guide you through it all.
I might end up working with you as your agent or I may refer you to one of the amazing ones I’ve crossed paths with. Most importantly I want you to learn, I want to share all of this information, and I want to democratize this vital cradle, this narrative hotbed that is book publishing.
I’m here to answer questions if you’ve got any — I’m a bit faster at responding over on Instagram if you’re able to post there. And there will be time for questions and answers during the class.
See you on the 31st — look forward to connecting, I hope the sun is reaching you wherever you are, and I’ll share a bit more about my days swimming and the ways in which my body has navigated this intense time of individual, professional, and collective transition as we somewhat hesitatingly emerge out of a hard, fertile, trying year.
-Jenara