Sara Shandler

Senior agent

Sara Shandler joined The Book Group in 2025 after twenty-six years in publishing, most recently as the Editor-in-Chief of Alloy Entertainment, where she collaborated with authors from the inception of their stories through publication. Sara’s introduction to publishing began around the dinner table with her can-do-anything hippie parents who encouraged her to write the bestselling book Ophelia Speaks, which gave voice to the experience of teenage girls and was published when she was just eighteen-years-old. This early success inspired Sara’s lifelong passion for connecting the dots between a blue sky idea and a best seller.

Sara is proud to have worked on many New York Times best sellers, Book Club selections, and award winning novels, including two National Book Award finalists, a Printz Honor, Walter Dean Myers Award Honors, the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Carnegie Medal, the William C. Morris Award, the Stonewall Award for Teens, the Lambda Literary Award and the Coretta Scott King-Steptoe Award for New Talent. Many of the novels Sara developed and edited have been successfully adapted to TV and film. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, three children and dog, and spends summers in Fire Island.  

Sara is interested in working with authors across a range of genres, especially upmarket and book club fiction, plot-driven and emotionally resonant YA and middle grade, narrative non-fiction, topical personal development, social psychology and parenting non-fiction and author-illustrators telling stories in unconventional ways. She is compelled by narratives that connect with readers and contribute to cultural conversations.

A few books I loved reading in my free time... Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger, Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera, The Guest by Emma Cline, Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Bess Kalb, Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam, Wintering by Katherine May, This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub, Untangled by Lisa Damour, Ph.D., Essentialism by Greg McKeown, None of This is True by Lisa Jewell, You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith.