Amanda Orozco

Amanda will be open to queries from April 1, 2023 through April 30, 2023. 

Amanda is looking for stories and projects that make her feel deeply and that surprise her, whether that be in form, voice, tone, concept, ambition, or all of the above. She is particularly drawn to stories from Asian and Latinx writers, though she is always looking for stories with compelling writing featuring protagonists with a distinct voice and personality; clever, quirky, gritty, and/or twisty stories that keep her reading through the night.

For fiction, she’s looking for literary and upmarket adult fiction that feature stories about love, complex relationships, messy family dynamics, folklore and mythology, ghosts, and/or magic, in whatever forms they may take. She is particularly interested in books that bend and mix genre elements, including but not limited to speculative, horror, romance, and fantasy, and books that present the full spectrum of joy and hope and explore both the lightness and darkness of the human condition. She has a soft spot for coming-of-age stories, unique settings, multi-generational family sagas, short story collections, and the occasional urban fantasy. Recent favorites include Weike Wang, Kiley Reid, Ling Ma, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Mary H.K. Choi, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Leigh Bardugo. Unless written by an author of color, she is not the right agent for thrillers, mysteries, procedurals, space operas, or historical fiction, and she is not currently looking for children’s picture books.

For nonfiction, she’s interested in stories that offer fresh cultural, political, and/or social critiques along with personal narratives on art, pop culture, tech, and forgotten, unexamined history. She is looking for perspectives from the margins or from emerging artists and academics with original ideas and sharp commentary. She is open to select poetry, memoirs, and illustrated gift/humor books. Recent favorites include Carmen Maria Machado, Cathy Park Hong, Alexander Chee, Ayad Akhtar, and Jenny Odell.

Before joining Transatlantic, Amanda Orozco gained a breadth of experience in academic publishing, publicity, subsidiary rights, and agenting. She graduated from UCLA with a degree in Physiological Science and an English minor and worked as a fine art instructor and freelance editor for several years before moving to New York to complete the NYU Masters of Science in Publishing: Digital and Print Media. While at NYU, she worked at the National Book Foundation, Shreve Williams Public Relations, and The Gernert Company; she was also selected to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Beijing International Book Fair. Upon graduating from NYU in 2019, she worked in Subsidiary Rights at Little, Brown, where she helped sell rights for authors such as Michael Connelly, Elin Hilderbrand, and Sarah Knight, until discovering agenting was her true calling. She worked at Park & Fine Literary and Media before moving back to Los Angeles, where she is building her list at Transatlantic and working with authors such as Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, Vickie Vertiz, Dr. Anthony Christian Ocampo, Nick Medina, Tania De Rozario, María Alejandra Barrios, and Vanessa Friedman.

Amanda has been a member of PoCinPub since 2018 and currently works for sin cesar (formerly Dryland), the literary journal born in South Central, where she aims to amplify marginalized voices from the literary underground.