Children & Young Adults

MFA, Vermont College of Fine Arts

Lisa is the author of A Tale of Highly Unusual Magic (a South Asia Book Award Highly Commended Title), the New York Times-bestselling novel Middle School: My Brother is a Big, Fat Liar and Homeroom Diaries (both with James Patterson), the Confectionately Yours series (over 750,000 books in print), and many other novels for middle grade and young adult readers. Her latest book, Apartment 1986, was a School Library Journal Popular Pick.

Her books have appeared on many prestigious lists, including Bank Street Best Books of the Year, the NYPL Books for the Teen Age, and the Texas Lone Star Reading List and have been translated into French, German, Spanish, Polish, Italian, Portuguese, and Japanese. A former editor, she is the founder of the humorous grammar website, IvanaCorrectya.com. Lisa evinces her passion for community and education by serving on the board of the Northampton Education Foundation, Click Workspace, and Athena Girls, and by giving workshops locally and across the United States on the subjects of writing, grammar, and creative courage.

Jess Regel is a literary agent at Foundry Literary + Media who represents New York Times bestselling and award-winning authors in both the children’s and adult literary market. Originally from Iowa, Jess was working at her local library when she was offered a job at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency and immediately packed up for New York City.

She spent eleven years at the Naggar Agency before moving over to Foundry in 2013. Some of her books include: Amber Smith’s New York Times Bestseller The Way I Used to Be (Margaret McElderry Books/Simon & Schuster), Emily Danforth’s award winning The Miseducation of Cameron Post (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins), Linda Liukas’ international bestseller Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding (Feiwel & Friends/MacMillan), Nora McInerny Purmort’s national bestseller It’s Okay to Laugh (Dey Street/HarperCollins), and Bryn Greenwood’s New York Times Bestseller All the Ugly and Wonderful Things (MacMillan/Thomas Dunne). She is a graduate of Hunter College with a degree in English Literature.

Regel only accepts submissions by email. Please send all queries to jrsubmissions@foundrymedia.com. For more information on submitting your project, please see the Foundry Submissions page.

• MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults, Vermont College of Fine Arts
• MA in Writing, Rowan University

Joe McGee is the author of the picture book, Peanut Butter & Brains (Abrams 2015), about which the Kirkus Review said “Run, don’t shamble to get this original zombie tale.” The New York Times praised it for “amusingly unit[ing] the seemingly unrelated contemporary obsessions of zombies and food,” and The Washington Post noted “Joe McGee keeps the story moving with flowing and engaging text.” Peanut Butter & Aliens, a sequel, was published in August, 2017, and Peanut Butter & Santa Claus will be released in 2019.

Joe’s writing has garnered many awards, to include the 2014 Vermont College of Fine Arts Holy Smokes! short story award, the 2013 Vermont College of Fine Arts Critical Essay award, and a Vermont College of Fine Arts merit scholarship. He was the recipient of the 2012 Medallion Award for the outstanding graduate writing student at Rowan University and the winner of the 2012 Denise Gess Literary Prize for Poetry. He has been awarded 1st place honors in fiction, short story writing, YA/teen writing, and poetry from The Philadelphia Writers’ Conference. His short story, Ink Soul, won 2nd place in the 2011 national Writer’s Digest genre fiction awards. Los Angeles Book Prize winner and Printz Honoree, A.S. King, called Joe’s short story, Leaves of Brass, “one of the best short stories” she’d ever read. National Book Award finalist and Newberry Honor recipient, Kathi Appelt, said of Joe’s short story, Tooth Fairy, that it was “one of the most authentic child’s voices” she’d ever read.”

He teaches several Creative Writing classes at Rowan University. He is a former airborne Army platoon leader and the father of three boys, ranging from high school to middle school to elementary school. He is an amateur cartoonist, has flown fixed-wing aircraft, and hiked an active volcano. Joe lives along the river, in a scenic and historic part of New Jersey with his fiancé, also a children’s writer.