Q&A with Sheyla Knigge, agent and author!

Welcome to the interview 🗣️

It’s a chilly Sunday in Brooklyn, I’m cuddled up in bed with a lit candle, and I’m so stoked to bring you this Q&A with my incredible friend Sheyla Knigge! Sheyla has been a friend for the past two years, and together we’ve traveled through periods of unemployment and onto the other side — I got a job and an agent, and she got a job as an agent! #Winning

If you don’t know who she is, Sheyla is a new literary agent at High Line Literary Collective. She’s already making waves and signing clients, and I’m so thrilled to see her soar. In addition to agenting, she’s also a writer, though, working on some super cool projects. I’ll let her tell you all about everything she’s up to in the Q&A, though!

Karis Rogerson: When did you first start writing?

Sheyla Knigge: Honestly, I started writing smut in middle school. Am I allowed to say that? I got in so much trouble because my choir teacher read it and called my mother. Jokes on them because now I can make it a career. Ha!1 

KR: What inspires and motives you to write?

SK: Currently my inspiration to keep writing is a little different. My stories come in waves and with agent work I definitely haven’t been writing as much. All that to say? My son keeps asking when I’ll sell my book so he can go to Disney. 🫠

KR: How did you get into agenting?

SK: You know it’s funny, my father-in-law just asked that today. I always tell people it fell into my lap. I was talking to my friend about what I wanted to manifest over the next few months and I really just wanted a job in publishing. I had had so many informational interviews and applied to SO many internships. That same friend’s agent actually needed someone to read through their slush pile. Getting paid to read?! It was the DREAM, and it was one I was really good at. Now, I am an agent? I’ve sold three books for my clients and I am just in awe that this is the life I get to lead.

KR: What is the best part about being an agent?

SK: The best part of being an agent has to be picking stories that I am passionate about to represent, and does it always work out in my favor? No. I have been rejected quite a few times as an offering agent but every rejection just means that I was not the right reader for that story and that’s okay. Like I mentioned a little while ago I get to find these stories and help usher them into the real world. Someone called me a book doula the other day? And now that’s how I look at it, I get to help usher these books into the world and it is the BEST part of my job.

KR: What is the most challenging aspect of being an agent who also writes?

SK: For the longest time I had the hardest time with the rejections, because as a writer, I recognize that there are so many authors that are putting years of their work in my hands, and there are so many good writers, but I can’t represent every story just because I think it’s good. I have to have a plan for it. I have to be able to feel like I can sell it and so I would say the hardest part of this is rejecting people in a way that I would want to be rejected, I guess?

Like rejection is hard all the way around from being a writer to not being chosen as an agent and I try to be really mindful that this is art and it’s subjective and sometimes as much as as I know an author has put their heart into their work, that doesn’t always mean that I should be representing it.

KR: Can you share a bit about the inspiration for the book you’re currently working on?

SK: 6. Oh my current project is 100% fanfiction of my real life and that’s about as much as I can say? I mean, I guess if you’re into tattoo artist romances…you’ll like this one.

KR: Do you have any advice for aspiring author/agents?

SK: I would say be kind to yourself and remember that while this is a business, publishing, it’s also a business of art, and as I said before art is very subjective and while it’s very easy to get dejected over being rejected or not getting a book that you want or even the idea of something not selling on submission, it’s not because your writing isn’t good or you aren’t good at selling books, it is simply that the book has not found its reader yet.

KR: Can you share 1-3 recent reads you’d love to recommend?

SK: Ooh! Books I’d recommend is hard because some aren’t out yet! I joked that I no longer read outside of work, but I HAVE had quite a few phenomenal audiobooks recently. So I would say my CURRENT top three are:

1. Curious Tides

2. The All Souls Trilogy - yes the whole series #JusticeforGallowglass

3. Throne of the FallenSubscribe now

Alla prossima 👋

That’s all for this Q&A sesh! I hope you enjoyed getting to know Sheyla a bit more — fun fact, we did this interview over email and as I was reading her answers, I heard them in her voice in my head. What a time!

I hope you’re taking care of yourselves. Have you had some water today? Eaten anything?2 Stepped outside and enjoyed a breath of fresh air? Do those things.

I’m just resettling at home from my trip to South Carolina for 10 days. I’ve yet to unpack, I need to clean off my desk, do laundry, get ready for work tomorrow. I need to write my book. I have a week and a half of schoolwork before closing out my fourth (and final!) semester of grad school (!!!) How is this possible? I need to cry about that for a bit.

I’ll see y’all next week. All my love!