Why Handspun?
About the Agency
Our Team
Courtney Miller-Callihan (she/her/hers) [CLOSED to Queries] founded Handspun Literary Agency in 2016, after more than ten years with Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. Her eclectic list has a strong emphasis on work from underrepresented voices and includes women’s fiction, historical fiction, mysteries, romance and rom-coms, horror, science fiction & fantasy, YA novels, humor, and nonfiction.
A graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz (B.A., Literature), and Johns Hopkins University (M.A., English), she lives in San Diego with her family.
She is always looking for stories she can’t stop reading.
For adult fiction, Courtney represents a wide range of genres, including historical fiction, women’s fiction, romance and rom-coms (all subgenres except inspirational), mystery novels, and speculative fiction.
For nonfiction, Courtney represents work targeting all age groups (children and adults). Though she will consider nonfiction on any topic, work that deals primarily with issues of religion or spirituality is unlikely to be a good fit.
She is not currently accepting middle-grade, early reader, or picture book submissions. #mswl
Ben Miller-Callihan (he/him/his) [OPEN to Queries] joined Handspun Literary Agency as an agent in 2019, after working behind the scenes since the agency’s founding in tech support and bookkeeping roles, as well as more than a decade teaching high school English.
He is looking for quirky, cozy, character-driven fantasy, sci-fi, and other speculative fiction, as well as crossover fiction a la The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and The Lost Apothecary. He also loves the macabre (for all ages), off-the-beaten-path folklore, Deaf culture and community, and anything food-related. Writers from marginalized communities are especially welcomed. #mswl
A graduate of the University of Kentucky (B.A., English), and New York University (M.A., English Education), he lives in San Diego with his human, canine, and kitchen appliance families.
Cheyenne Faircloth (she/her) [OPEN to Queries] joined Handspun Literary Agency as an agency assistant in 2021 and was recently promoted to Agent. Cheyenne graduated with a BFA in Creative Writing, and a certification in Publishing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Before Handspun, Cheyenne interned as an editorial assistant at Howland Literary, and was a member of the editorial and acquisition teams at Lookout Books, an independent publisher that is home to National Book Award Finalist Edith Pearlman. Cheyenne also independently managed a book blog where she collaborated with both major and indie publishers to promote upcoming titles, participating in various promotional activities centered around supporting debut authors.
Cheyenne is most interested in manuscripts from historically excluded communities, i.e. queer, BIPOC, AAPI, neurodivergent, and disabled voices, etc.
Her interests include gritty/dark romantasies (especially ones centering historically excluded voices), cozy fantasy with high stakes, horror (feminist-leaning; horror-romance crossover), grounded sci-fi, epic fantasy, Southern Gothic stories (speculative stories set in rural communities), and stories with folkloric and atmospheric elements.
She is not currently accepting rom-coms without a speculative twists, middle grade, picture books, contemporary YA, or nonfiction.
Justina Ireland (she/they) [CLOSED to Queries] joined Handspun in 2026 as a junior agent. She is also an award winning and New York Times bestselling author of numerous books as well as a writer of both comics and television. She is a United States Army Veteran and holds a BA in History from Georgia Southern (previously Armstrong Atlantic State University) and an MFA in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University.
She loves meticulous worldbuilding and complicated characters and is currently looking for well executed speculative fiction in most categories. She is drawn to Middle Grade and Young Adult that asks complicated questions without talking down to a reader and adult books that skew a little offbeat–Bitter Karella’s Moon Flow and Sarah Gailey’s Spread Me are recent examples.
Justina does not accept non-fiction, picture books, romantasy, contemporary, or previously self-published works.
Writers from historically marginalized backgrounds are strongly encouraged to submit.
Loni Crittenden (she/her) joins Handspun Literary Agency as an agency assistant. She holds a BA in Creative Writing from SUNY Oswego and an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University. Loni brings several years of freelance developmental editing experience across YA and speculative fiction, and recently completed an editorial internship with Sourcebooks. Based in Western New York, she loves imaginative, character-driven fantasies and romances with a touch of whimsy. She shares her workspace with her cat, Bibby, who (rightly) considers herself the true editorial authority in the household.