© Jullian Woods
Cecile B Literary Agency is a full-service agency that represents fiction and nonfiction for which we see a worldwide readership. We handle international rights on behalf of authors, literary agents, and publishers. With experience in most genres, our strongest interest is in upmarket cross-over fiction with a universal appeal and international setting. The subjects and themes of our nonfiction cross borders, strike a cord emotionally, and focus on personal growth.
We have in-depth knowledge of the global publishing market and close relationships with publishers in the US and abroad. We sell rights directly in most markets and work with a team of co-agents in Asia and Eastern Europe, and with book-to-film agents for movie rights. The E3 team processes data, Kasey Poserina handles contracts and SKM & Company the bookkeeping for the agency.
Cecile Barendsma is a member of the AALA, and serves as co-director of the Literary Agents of Change Mentorship Program. She grew up in the Netherlands, studied Linguistics and Literature at the University of Amsterdam, and moved to New York after finishing the Radcliffe Publishing Course. She studied International Relations at the New School, and Spanish at El Taller. She speaks Dutch and German, and reads French.
With decades of experience in international publishing, and as Director Foreign Rights at Janklow & Nesbit Associates she worked, among many others, with President Carter, Joan Didion, Tom Harris, Rachel Khong, Rao Pingru, Eric Schlosser, Gay Talese, Craig Thompson, and Tom Wolfe. Cecile attends the Frankfurt and London Book Fairs, is a Jerusalem Book Fair Fellow, and was a guest speaker at the Abu Dhabi Book Fair, and Penn State writers workshop.