Samantha Wekstein, Agent at Thompson Literary

Samantha Wekstein is an agent at Thompson Literary, after spending six years at Writers House. She graduated from the University of Maryland in 2012 with a B.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing. She interned at Rowman & Littlefield and Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency before landing at Writers House in 2013 with an internship. There, she was the assistant to CEO, Amy Berkower and then to founder, Al Zuckerman. She also briefly worked as an assistant at The Agency Group. She has been lucky enough to work with a variety of best-selling and award-winning authors across all genres. She is now in the process of actively building her client list.

Samantha’s passion is YA fiction. She loves creative and epic fantasies in the vein of Sarah J. Maas or Leigh Bardugo. But she is also drawn to contemporary YA with multi-dimensional female characters like those of Julie Murphy and Melina Marchetta.

She also loves middle grade of any kind, but especially books that deal with themes of friendship, adventure, or encountering tragedy for the first time. Her favorites are Sharon Creech and Gail Carson Levine.

In adult fiction, she is looking for historical, romance, women’s fiction, fantasy, and sci-fi.

She doesn’t have a huge interest in nonfiction, but is open to humor, and pop culture.

Member Reviews of Samantha

Constructive Criticism with Extra Care

I met with Samantha. She was really kind, but had specific constructive criticism (on a line level) and was generous enough to go a few minutes over to answer my questions.

Jennifer Harris

I thought the critique went just fine. Nothing earth shattering. Just fine.

Kelly Kandra Hughes

Gives Concise and Helpful Feedback

My sister and I are co-authors and enjoyed every minute Samantha Wekstein spent with us. Her feedback on our first page was concise and helpful. We have already made the revisions and hope to work with her again as we continue to prepare our submission packet.

Lacy Graham

She knew what I needed to move my story along!

Samantha was wonderful! She was very positive, and knew exactly what I needed to move my story forward.

Kathi Most

I already took her advice and am confident about querying and having my first pages read by other agents.

Samantha’s suggestions on improving my first page by adding a little more emotional depth were spot-on. I already took her advice and am confident about querying and having my first pages read by other agents.

Rachel Remick

Exceptional feedback

I am grateful for Samantha Wekstein’s insight. In ten minutes, she welcomed my questions first and then provided me the feedback she planned to share after reading my query. She let me know areas of the query that confused her, encouraged me to add more detail to the second paragraph about the book’s summary, invited me to add another paragraph for the story’s content to tell enough about the project, made a couple of minor edits, and told me to be specific about why I selected her that goes beyond “per your manuscript wish list” since she knows what’s on her wish list. I need to highlight in the first paragraph what it is about my book I think will interest her. My advice to other writers is to be certain you come with a list of your own questions, but not too many. Also, know that ten minutes is plenty of time to listen to the feedback to help inform the next revision. In hindsight, I regretted not recording the conversation on my handheld recorded. Writing the notes in the moment was messy; I spent the next thirty minutes rewriting my notes. Exceptional feedback and experience.

Danielle DeFauw

Elevates Query with Targeted Advice

Samantha did a live videoconference, which was very helpful in connecting with her as well as interpreting her feedback to my work. She had prepared feedback and questions concerning my work to help enhance the overall query letter. In answering her questions, she listened to me tell my high-end story verbally to provide helpful feedback to better elevate my synopsis and pitch. She spent extra time to make sure I had the right focus and answered questions I had. She made the overhaul of my query letter easier. BEST Manuscript Academy meeting I have had!

Margaret Izard

I am grateful for Samantha Weksteinís insight. In ten minutes, she welcomed my questions first and then provided me the feedback she planned to share after reading my query. She let me know areas of the query that confused her, encouraged me to add more detail to the second paragraph about the bookís summary, invited me to add another paragraph for the storyís content to tell enough about the project, made a couple of minor edits, and told me to be specific about why I selected her that goes beyond ìper your manuscript wish listî since she knows whatís on her wish list. I need to highlight in the first paragraph what it is about my book I think will interest her. My advice to other writers is to be certain you come with a list of your own questions, but not too many. Also, know that ten minutes is plenty of time to listen to the feedback to help inform the next revision. In hindsight, I regretted not recording the conversation on my handheld recorded. Writing the notes in the moment was messy; I spent the next thirty minutes rewriting my notes. Exceptional feedback and experience.

Danielle DeFauw

Delivers Actionable Query Improvements

Samantha was really awesome. She had great ideas for how I could improve my query and I found her extremely easy to talk to. She was concise and specific in her feedback, and I walked out of our meeting feeling like I knew exactly what I needed to do next. She was also great enough to answer a few questions for me about the querying and submission process.

Mikayla Poole

Samantha was a real pro. She took it in stride that I had to do the Zoom session from the airport, due to a last minute family issue. Her feedback on my query was extremely worthwhile. Talking with her led me to come up with a central insight into the best way to present my manuscript.

Kristana Arp

Expands Genre and Agent Options

Samantha’s 10-minute consultation on my query was immensely valuable. She was well-prepared, answered all of my questions, and even gave me a couple of names of agents who she thought might be interested in my WIP. Most importantly, she gave me an agent’s perspective on how I should categorize my work in terms of genre. I was being far too narrow-minded about it, and now I know I can expand my prospective agent list. I highly recommend her!

Bonnie Gordon

Great, constructive feedback!

Samantha is very helpful with great, constructive feedback. She’s also fantastic at making authors feel at ease and relieving anxiety on phone calls.

Madeline Dau

Reveals Overlooked Story Weaknesses

The critique with Samantha was so helpful and in unexpected ways! In the flurry of writing a writer can sometimes overlook the most obvious problems, which was the case during this critique. As always, these critique opportunities provided by The Manuscript Academy have proven to be invaluable to my progress.

Elyse Cregar

Improves Reader Connection and Engagement

Samantha had read my first page in advance and prepared very helpful comments, especially in regards to how I can improve the reader’s connection to my character and draw the reader in right from the start. She also answered questions I had about a couple sentences in my first page, assuring me that the level of detail I had incorporated was fine. I felt great about my first page and the revisions I can make when the call was over. (She also checked a couple times to make sure I didn’t have any additional questions, which I really appreciated.)

Jennifer Dupuis

Samantha was incredibly helpful! I appreciated her honesty and the intuition she showed in ìgettingî my characters. She offered concrete advice that will help me improve.

Jaimie Hunter

Spot-On Emotional Depth Tips

Rachel Remick

Samantha give me very insightful line by line comments so that I could tighten the point of view of my characters and bring more clarity to their thoughts and dialogue.

Hoong Yee Lee

Work with Samantha

LIVE Meetings: Meet face-to-face, from home. Choose Zoom, Google Meet, or phone, and speak for the appointed time about your query, first page, and/or first ten pages (for longer meetings). Does not include written notes, but is a chance to have an honest discussion about your work, and to ask follow-up questions. International meetings welcomed.

HYBRID is a live meeting at the appointment time, with written notes.

WRITTEN Critiques: Get detailed, thoughtful notes on your work. Comes with large-scale edits (character, world, plot, tension, concept, conflict, and similar as needed) in an editorial letter and small-scale, line-by-line notes as needed (for longer critiques, an average of three per page). Work arrives in your inbox within 24 hours of thedate on the calendar.