Author & Agent Interview: Leilani Lamb and Hannah Andrade

Today, we are thrilled to be interviewing Leilani Lamb, a Kanaka Maoli writer, and her literary agent, Hannah Andrade. You can learn more about Leilani on her website and Twitter, and more about Hannah on her agency's website.

We started this Author & Agent blog series to spotlight Pacific Islander creators and their agents for Asian and Pacific Islander month. Our hope is that this series will inspire other Pacific Islanders interested in pursuing traditional publishing as creators or as agents. As we learned in the creation of our website, there is not a single Pacific Islander agent, and we hope to see that change.

Thank you for joining us!

Leilani's Interview

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, and the project for which you've found representation? What inspired you to write it?

I grew up steeped in the stories and myths passed down by my parents and grandparents, and the legend of Hiʻiakaikapoliopele resonated most deeply of all. As a child, I found courage in her bravery and selflessness.

During the pandemic, when we were all isolated from the people we loved, I revisited Hiʻiaka’s story and saw it through a new lens. Her legend was an examination of love in all its (healthy and unhealthy) forms, validation that families can be messy, and permission to navigate how I fit into mine. It was exactly what I needed at the time.

I wrote KAIKAINA shortly after, a deeply researched retelling of the myth of Hiʻiakaikapoliopele that had been passed down for centuries through oral tradition. It was important to me to share this story with fidelity, in the wake of the systematic erasure of Hawaiian culture that followed. I knew I had to find an agent who understood what I was hoping to do with this novel, and that journey led me to Hannah.

What resources did you use to compile your list of agents to query? What criteria did you use to build your list?

I used the Big 3: QueryTracker for response timelines, Publishers Marketplace for sales history, and Manuscript Wish List for fit. I built a list of agents at agencies with strong sales who were well-regarded in the writing community. While I did query agents who had been in the field for a while, I was personally drawn to the idea of working with a newer agent at a reputable agency who could provide more hands-on editorial support while we built our careers together.

Did you tailor your query to each agent?

Very broadly. As I was compiling my query list, I found consistencies across MSWLs that fit my book. For example, many agents sought “myths from underrepresented communities,” “morally grey MCs,” or “messy family relationships.” I wrote a handful of housekeeping options that spoke to these common MSWL items and plugged them in for each agent as appropriate. This approach helped me distill my book down to its core marketable themes, which proved to be a useful exercise for revisions as well!

What about Hannah made you query her?

Where can I begin? Upon first glance at Hannah’s MSWL, I knew she would be an amazing champion for this story. I deeply appreciate how she consistently champions underrepresented voices and highlights the importance of diverse stories where identity isn’t the focus. While I write often from my perspective as a Native Hawaiian and Vietnamese woman, my work is about so much more than my marginalizations, and I wanted an agent like Hannah who would see that in my writing (and me!).

From a practical perspective, I was exclusively looking for agents who described themselves as editorial. Most of my growth as a writer has happened in revising, and I wanted an editorial partner who could help me lean into both my strengths and my opportunities to grow.  

From a deeply impractical standpoint, Hannah mentioned loving k-dramas and—as any k-drama fan can attest—we’re always looking for like minds (and show recommendations)!

What advice would you give creators looking for representation?

Find your community and buy a lot of cake (or treat of your choosing!). I cannot express enough how critical it was to my mental health to have a community of other querying writers who got it. Querying is uniquely hard and it’s not a process that many of us have had the opportunity to build resilience around. The community I’ve been fortunate enough to build has been the best thing about this experience by far.

Also, cake! Having a go-to treat to boost your mood when those hard rejections come in (and they will, through every step of the publishing journey) is imperative. Other friends have healthier treats like going on hikes or buying cute stickers, but for me it will always be cake.

When Hannah offered, what made you decide to sign with her? What criteria did you consider?

No one tells you how hard the decision period is! I had several offers to choose from and each one fit my querying criteria—established agency, strong fit, well-regarded. I felt a lot of pressure to make the “right” decision until I spoke to friends who went through the same thing, who helped me reframe it as “right for me.”

After the call with Hannah, I felt like she was the right choice for me. Her editorial vision was spot on and I was thrilled about her submission strategy. She was clearly thoughtful, strategic, and as hungry as I was. Still, the decision period was a fever dream of stress and I struggled to reconcile my head with what I felt in my heart.

That’s where client calls came in. After speaking to a handful of Hannah’s clients, I knew she was the right agent for me. Communication and transparency are extremely important to me, and Hannah’s strengths on both fronts rang clear through her client’s testimonies. It was a whirlwind two weeks squeezing in both agent and client calls, but making the time was so worth it. What advice would you give to Pacific Islander creators looking for agents?

This is advice I have for all creators, but I want to really emphasize it for my fellow PI writers: be discerning in the feedback you take. Early in my writing career, I took all feedback without reservation and that quickly led to losing the heart of my stories. As I grew in my craft, it became easier to tease out the difference between suggestions that would improve the work and those that were more reader preference.

This gets especially challenging when we grapple with balancing our identities with the demands of the amorphous “market.” KAIKAINA is a deeply researched, unapologetically Hawaiian novel. It was important to me to share this myth with authenticity, because as a child I yearned to see the Hawaiian stories I grew up with centered in media. Instead, I found a problematic mishmash of Pacific Islander cultures that was misguided at best and offensive at worst.

When I started querying KAIKAINA, I received feedback from some early readers urging me to westernize it to improve its marketability. Suggestions included removing the ʻokina from Hiʻiaka’s name to improve legibility, setting the story in a place familiar to western readers like a high school (!), and adding definitions of Hawaiian words in the footnotes instead of relying on context clues. Every creator I know from an underrepresented community has received feedback like this.

Beta readers are invaluable partners who can help us improve our pacing, plotting, and so much more. But when feedback veers into a reflection on the marketability of marginalization, we must protect our peace and pass.

How long have you been signed together? What’s your favorite thing about Hannah?

Hannah and I have worked together since October 2022, across two books that could not be more different (KAIKAINA and a romantasy that reads like a k-drama in all my favorite ways). There have been many bright spots about working together, but what stands out the most is her editorial eye.

I’ve grown so much as a writer working with Hannah. Together, we discovered that my voice really suits adult fiction and I’ve thrived leaning into that audience. She’s a true collaborator who knows my strengths and pushes me to improve on my weaknesses (“feelings!”). We’re currently revising KAIKAINA for adult audiences and I am so excited about it.

In that spirit of collaboration, she has been an incredible partner on the business side of publishing. She’s thoughtful, strategic, and communicative—I know my work is in good hands with her, and that security is so critical in a field that can often feel all too tenuous.

Hannah's Interview

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? What categories and genres do you represent? What do you love about agenting?

I've been in the industry since 2017 and have had the privilege of working with a variety of bestselling authors across multiple genres. I currently represent middle grade through adult across all genres and am particularly eager to acquire underrepresented voices and stories. I especially love reading work that checks off one or more of these boxes: magical realism, speculative thriller, dark romantasy, cozy fantasy, rooted in non-Western folklore/myth/magic, friendship breakups, complex family dynamics, found family, atmospheric, and high stakes/high feels (to name just a few). 

I was initially drawn to the versatility of agenting---no two days are the same! You're a mix between a talent scout, editor, contracts lawyer, accountant, sales rep, and manager. Some days I read/edit from start to finish, others I'm having strategy and/or brainstorming calls with my clients, other days all I do is have meetings with editors. I love discovering an absolute gem of a story and realizing that I'm one of the first ones to read it, that feeling of "very few people know this story and these characters even exist and I get to be one of the first people to meet them ever!". That feeling never gets old.

What I really love about agenting is the opportunity to discover and platform stories that I know may not get on the shelf without me. I love being integral to the process! The reason I decided to make the jump from agent's assistant to full on agent (I put it off for a few years because that "commission only" life is scary!) was because a wonderful middle grade (featuring Mexican-American characters and written by a Mexican-American author) came across my desk. I told my boss that she had to sign the author, but my boss couldn't relate to the character or the story. She couldn't understand why I cried reading it (I cried because it was like reading snippets of my childhood experiences growing up) and had no connection to it. In that moment I realized that if I don't advocate for this kind of story, there's no guarantee that anyone else will. I would have loved to read that story when I was a child, and so I knew that I had to be a part of the process of getting it onto the shelf for all the other kids like me. 

What do you look for in a query letter?

I look for a clear and concise grasp of your story. The query is not the time to world-build or paint the expansive, epic stage that your story is set in. I want to know what your story's about, why it matters, and why I should care. Oftentimes people spend way too long setting up who the characters are but don't tell me why I should care about their journey. What happens if they fail? If failure means the world gets blown up or the family falls apart or the marriage ends or they end up in prison, I want to know! If you boil your story down to its core, what is it about? If a query letter struggles to deliver the essence of the story, then I generally find that the story as a whole also struggles to know where to put its feet down and what the crux of it is. 

Do you ask for any pages with a query letter? What do you look for when you're reading those pages?

I always ask for author's to send me their first chapter and synopsis along with their query letter. I look for a clear sense of voice in the first chapter. Whether the story is written in 1st or 3rd person, a strong voice is crucial. It's the first thing that engages me with the world or helps me empathize with the characters. 

Any pet peeves when it comes to query letters and/or pages? Any dos and don’ts?

This is so minor but a big pet peeve for me is when anyone addresses the query letter to me as "dear sir". I understand querying is a tedious process and it's a lot of copying/pasting, but when I'm sorting through hundreds upon hundreds of queries, the fact that some people don't even look for my name makes me feel like the author is literally looking for ANYBODY to read their story and so it doesn't matter if it's me or not. I'm looking for authors who are as excited to partner with me as I am with them. It also shows that they've done zero research (statistically there are WAY more female agents and so, even if you're copy/pasting, "dear sir" shouldn't be your default) which means they also probably have no idea what I'm looking for and there's a far greater chance that their story will be a pass. Of course, I read everything sent to me, but someone writing "dear sir" is already ringing alarm bells that they clearly don't know who I am or what I'm looking for and so there's a high chance that they've sent me something that's not a good fit for me.

Do you have a Manuscript Wishlist? What sort of projects are you hoping to find in your inbox? Any specific stories you’d love to see from Pacific Islander creators?

Yes, here is the link if you want to give it a look! I usually update my MSWL profile once a year, so my Twitter profile is a better place to look to see things that I'm currently excited about or actively on the hunt for. 

In terms of what I'd love to see from Pacific Islander creators, the simple answer is: MORE. I simply do not get enough stories coming my way that feature Pacific Islander protagonists or inspired by/rooted in that mythology/folklore.This perspective is underrepresented in all genres, from contemporary to historical to fantasy. Give me your anti-colonial historical AU! Give me your contemporary YAs! Give me your speculative thrillers and your magical realism! Give me your complex intergenerational family dramas! I'm hungry for it all. One particular item that's been on my wishlist for years is finding a fantasy that has Pacific Islander inspired tattoo magic of some sort. I've been looking for this for years and have yet to find it. If that's something that you've written, send that my way!

What about Leilani's project grabbed your attention? What about Leilani as a client?

The first thing that immediately grabbed my attention was the premise of her story. It was AMAZING (and, even better, the story itself actually delivered on all the hype in the query letter)! It was a setting that I'd never seen before and based on folklore that I'd literally never read in a story. Additionally, her writing was atmospheric and evocative, I was immediately immersed and it was everything I didn't even know I was looking for! As for Leilani herself, we clicked so well in our initial call (not mandatory but always a plus!) and we bonded over kpop and kdrama, lol. She also was really excited about the edits that I suggested---not every suggestion I make needs to be taken but, as an editorial agent, I'm looking for an author who's amenable to tweaks and open to discussion. Leilani was everything that I was looking for!

What qualities do you look for in a potential client?

First, I'm looking for an un-put-downable project that I know I'll be able to read one hundred times and still love. Then I'm looking for a client who's excited to partner with me as we build our careers in the publishing career together. It's also very important for me to find someone who's comfortable discussing edits and potentially reworking pages so as to present editors with the strongest, purest version of the story they've envisioned. More and more editorial work is falling on agents before debut authors are published, so it's important for me to find clients who trust my experience in the industry and value my input. Not all suggestions I make need to be used, but if a potential client absolutely refuses to listen to any ideas or edits I have, then we probably aren't going to be a great fit.

Any advice for querying creators?

Don't give up! Querying is hard and can be disheartening. There's a lot of rejection in this industry: authors get rejected by agents who get rejected both by authors and editors who, in turn, get rejected. It's hard and so it's important to have a grasp of why write. Of course all authors want to be published and see their work on the shelves, but if that's the sole reason that you write, then you'll find the rejections that will inevitably come your way very hard to swallow. Find what drew you to writing in the first place and don't forget that! But be encouraged---the world needs your stories, your culture, your history, your everything! We absolutely need more stories written by Pacific Islanders and there are agents and editors out there who are hungry for them! It only takes one person (the right one) to say yes. 

Any advice for aspiring agents?

Honestly, agenting is a very difficult job. It takes a long time to build your client list and a longer time to get your first sales under your belt (and since it's a commission based job, who knows how long you'll be doing that for free!). You need to be prepared for a lot of rejections (from both authors and editors) and to juggle multiple side hustles as you start your career as an agent. However, if stories are your first love, there's no better job. We need more agents---there are too many writers with amazing stories and not enough agents out there! More importantly, we need people from all sorts of backgrounds and experiences to be agents. There are plenty of stories that will come your way that aren't a good fit/relatable to some agents, but will be perfect for you. They'll grab hold of your heart and demand to be published---and you'll get to be the one who recognizes that and helps put something amazing on the shelves!