Laurie Abkemeier

Laurie Abkemeier started her career in publishing more than thirty years ago and has been a literary agent with DeFiore and Company since 2003. Previously she was a senior editor at Hyperion, where she acquired and edited dozens of nonfiction books, including five New York Times bestsellers and many national bestsellers. As a former editor with extensive experience in what goes on behind publishers’ doors, she works closely with her authors to develop their ideas, polish their proposals, and guide them from deal to publication. She has represented more than a dozen New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. 

Laurie strives to maintain an eclectic list that spans history, science (physical, biological, and psychological), nature, sports, adventure and the outdoors, health and wellness, self-improvement, investigative journalism, big ideas, women’s studies, pop culture, food, technology (digital and analog), the traditional past and speculative future, and the offbeat. She is very interested in working with people of color and those from historically marginalized communities who are writing on these topics. 

How to Query Laurie Abkemeier:

Laurie accepts only email queries. Send a brief email describing you and your project to Laurie@defliterary.com Please include the word “query” and your book title in the subject line. Attachments will not be opened unless requested. Submissions do not need to be exclusive, and response time is generally no more than two weeks. If you have not received a response within four weeks, please check that the defliterary.com domain name is on your email server whitelist; the response might have been rejected by your server. Please note that Laurie does not consider fiction queries of any kind.