So you want my arts job: Literary agent

Loving books is mandatory but being a literary agent necessitates many different avenues of advocating for authors.

Alex Adsett is a literary agent and publishing consultant with over 25 years’ experience working in the publishing and bookselling industry. She has managed Alex Adsett Literary since 2008, and as an agent or consultant has helped thousands of authors review and negotiate their publishing deals.

As an agent she represents more than 50 authors of all ages and genres, including Melissa Lucashenko, Peter Greste, Isobelle Carmody, and many more. As a consultant, she reviews and negotiates publishing contracts for authors without an agent.

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Thuy On is Reviews Editor of ArtsHub and an arts journalist, critic and poet who’s written for a range of publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Sydney Review of Books, The Australian, The Age/SMH and Australian Book Review. She was the books editor of The Big issue for 8 years. Her debut, a collection of poetry called Turbulence, came out in 2020 and was released by University of Western Australia Publishing (UWAP). Her second collection, Decadence, was published in July 2022, also by UWAP. Her third book, Essence, will be published in 2025. Twitter: @thuy_on Instagram: poemsbythuy