Valentina Sainato

An agent with JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc. (see other agents at this agency).

About

Valentina (she/they/Mx.) is an associate agent at JABberwocky assisting Eddie Schneider. She also handles all merchandise and third-party licensing proposals.
They graduated from Cal Poly SLO with a B.A. in English and have lived in New York City ever since. Outside of her literary interests, Valentina is a dancer of many different styles, a video game lover, and a ~very~ amateur digital artist.
Before joining JABberwocky, Valentina worked as an Events Manager with Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side, where they hosted a huge variety of author events, book clubs, children’s activities, and more. She has also interned at Foundry Literary + Media, Folio Literary Management, and the Feminist Press at CUNY.

Country

United States

AI Policy

Unknown AI policy

4 members set this agent as a Favorite.

Fiction Open

Horror is my favorite genre to read, and I’m looking for lots of different flavors here. If it’s spooky, eerie, disorienting, thrilling, existential, or horror-lite, I want to read it. Blends with sci-fi/fantasy are also welcome, but it should still feel at home on the horror shelf!
I love stories featuring monsters, witches, and demons, but I really want to see fresh takes on them with unexpected twists. A good ghost story or haunted house will always catch my attention; Carmen Maria Machado’s work is among my all-time favorites. Other elements I enjoy: body horror, cults or secret societies, natural phenomena like fungi and flora, and settings that make me feel claustrophobic.
I’m more selective about science fiction and speculative fiction; I’m a big character reader and want stories with an emotional core that drives them. I was absolutely blown by Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go in the Dark as well as Simon Jimenez’s The Vanished Birds; projects in those vein are what I’d love to work on. I also love narratives that play with time and/or space as part of the plot. Sci-fi books that deep-dive into spaceship mechanics or battle sequences generally are not for me.
I also like reading more grounded contemporary books that have a speculative or off-beat twist such as Quan Barry’s We Ride Upon Sticks. Absurdity is also welcome but it has to mesh well with the voice, like in Hilary Mantel’s Temporary.

Audience:

Open to a broad Audience.

Genres:

Horror Open to all/most Subgenres, including: Dark Fantasy, Science Fiction Horror, Supernatural

Lengths:

Novel

Styles:

Open to all/most Styles, including: Mainstream.

Topics:

Open to all/most Topics.

Submissions:

Method: QueryTracker.
Simultaneous submissions: Unknown.

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No recent cover image of a book represented by Valentina Sainato available.

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Social:
Bluesky @valentinasainato.bsky.social
X (Twitter) @val_so_
Bluesky @awfulagent.bsky.social
Instagram @awfulagent

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Valentina Sainato Submission Statistics

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Accuracy

We have received 2 reports from 2 different members within the past 12 months, not including pending responses (see below). The more responses reported, the more accurate the information.

Pending

2 responses are pending (30 min | 51.5 mean avg | 51.5 median | 73 max days waiting | 30.4 std dev) from 2 different members

Other Information

Most recent response reported was received on 03 Apr 2026.
Responses have been received for submissions sent as recently as 06 Nov 2025.
Date compiled: 05 Sep 2026 19:14 UTC (4 hours ago).

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Your Submissions

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Joshua Bilmes
James Farner
Jordan Hamessley
Brady McReynolds
Lisa Rodgers DNQ

Eddie Schneider
Bridget Smith
Susan Velazquez Colmant
Yezanira Venecia DNQ
Christina Zobel

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Dates

Last Updated: 30 Jun 2026

We check their guidelines for changes every four weeks, and we audit the listing twice a year.