Emily Forney

Currently Looking For

In picture books (CURRENTLY NOT ACCEPTING UNSOLICITED PICTURE BOOKS): A kid-friendly Drunk History-esque humor book about hidden histories. Black stories about Black women in the vein of Beyoncé’s Homecoming documentary. A montage of impactful women, mottos, and teachings. An artistic collage of Black culture. Stories about community (gardening, bodegas, neighborhoods that feel alive). Cozy, Addams Family-like stories with spooks, monsters, especially mythology and lore from non-western cultures. I love monsters that can be read year long and don’t need to have a seasonal window. Books that have the impact of a Carl Sagan theory, but with kid appropriate humor and whimsy. I love science books in the picture book space, but they need to have the ability to be extra unique and whimsical, I know, the irony. Make science feel like magic. Stories about food and identity. Book about tattoos and a cultural significance of tattoos, explorations of symbols or names in various cultures, fictional arcs of festivals and ceremonies. Narrators like Louise Belcher and kids who threaten to burn down summer camps, characters who want to (and do) eat other characters, and sassy protagonists who are kind of the worst. Strong non-fiction that goes outside of just the simple biography. It’s somehow an interdisciplinary approach to history and tackles big ideas with a grounded and strong hook. ​ ​ In middle grade fiction:​ Adventure stories with a lot of movement, exploration, but also have solid grounding in the heart and emotions of the kids within the story. I love Rick Riordan-type novels rooted in epic adventures, cultural retellings, trickster gods, and mythology and lore brought into our time. Something spooky, without horror, and a lot of fun twists. This includes stories where the paranormal and the supernatural are not the traditional villains and can be the protagonists or the everyday character. Books in this vein that I love are Ghost Squad by Claribel A. Ortega, Eva Evergreen series by Julie Abe, The Girl Who Drank The Moon by Kelly Barnhill. Camp stories or settings that place several characters in one environment to explore their arcs in. Paranormal and fantasy stories in which the strange is “normal.” Think The Addams Family. I want a supernatural or paranormal Gilmore Girls town with the humor and energy of Disney’s The Owl House. I would love towns full of spooks and magic, tea shops and hotels that hum with energy of their own, and ghostly encounters on the regular. Think of me as a less artsy Tim Burton and more of his cozy, colorful counterpart. Cozy Studio Ghibli-esque stories that feel warm, have a quiet magic, and have such rich environments that are beautiful and lush, similarly to Raiani LaRocca’s Midsummer’s Mayhem. Genre fiction with MCs with disabilities, but their disability is NOT a twist, a fixation for someone abled, or in any way a “someone needs to learn to love someone else with. a disability” story. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pan