Erin Murphy
Erin Murphy built her publishing career mostly in the arena of children’s books. She founded and led children’s book-focused Erin Murphy Literary Agency for more than 25 years before merging it with Aevitas in 2025. Previously she was editor-in-chief at a regional publishing house in Arizona, where she worked on adult nonfiction and lifestyle books as well as children’s books. As an agent, she has represented bestsellers and books that have won notices including a Caldecott Honor, a Newbery Honor, Sibert Medal and Honor, Stonewall Medals, APALA silver and gold, American Indian Youth Literature Honors, a National Jewish Book Award finalist, a Schneider Award, and multiple Edgar, Sydney Taylor, Boston Globe-Horn Book, Américas, Golden Kite, Jane Addams, Margaret Wise Brown, and Orbis Pictus awards or honors, among others.
Erin's favorite part of being an agent is strategizing clients’ long-term careers. While she is perhaps best known for her representation of picture book writers, she is currently looking to balance her list with more fiction for middle-graders and young adults, and is especially seeking novels that celebrate unlikely underdog alliances, close siblings/fierce friendships/found families, and queer and BIPOC community and joy. In middle-grade, she’s hungry for cozy, emotionally resonant fantasy and literary-leaning multi-layered mysteries. In YA, she’s hoping to find sweeping fantasy set in fully realized unique worlds, especially those inspired by non-European cultures, as well as thrillers with strong hooks. She is open to well-researched, propulsive narrative nonfiction for MG and YA. In all categories, she looks especially for authors from marginalized communities, and as you might expect from someone who has focused so much on picture book texts, she most appreciates writing in which every word counts, attention has been given to making it work on multiple levels at once, and she is effortlessly engrossed in the world on the page. She is also open to bringing on select author-illustrators whose visual voice is clear and unique and whose writing is as strong as their art.
Erin lives and works in southern Maine and can be queried only on Query Tracker.
Represents
The Collectors: Stories
Fat Angie
Fat Angie: Rebel Girl Revolution
Fat Angie Homecoming
Feels Like Home
Prizefighter en Mi Casa
Living Beyond Borders: Growing Up Mexican In America
A Girl Can Build Anything
Lupe Lopez: Rock Star Rules
Lupe Lopez: Reading Rock Star
Lupe Lopez: Rock Star Rivals
The Ghost Track Kids
No Brain the Same: Young Neurodivergent Activists Shaping Our Future
Who Owns the Moon? And Other Conundrums of Exploring and Using Space (co-authored with Jennifer Swanson)
Free to Learn: How Alfredo Lopez Fought for the Right to Go to School
The People's Painter: How Ben Shahn Fought for Justice with Art
The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist
Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights and the Flaws that Affect Us Today (co-authored with Sanford Levinson)
Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Graphic Novel
We've Got a Job: The 1963 Birmingham Children's March
Hillary Rodham Clinton: Do All the Good You Can
Watch Out for Flying Kids: How Two Circuses, Two Countries, and Nine Kids Confront Conflict and Build Community
A School for Problems: Myles Horton and the Highlander Folk School
Diffy
Cat Nap
Little Bat / Up All Night
Little Bat in Night School
Got to Get to Bear’s!
The Rough Patch
Gator Dad
Bats in the Band
Bats at the Ballgame
Bats at the Library
Bats at the Beach
Hamlet and the Magnificent Sandcastle
Hamlet and the Enormous Chinese Dragon Kite
Mega Mammals! by Melissa Stewart
Meet the Mini Mammals! by Melissa Stewart
Wombat Said Come In by Carmen Agra Deedy
Malcolm Under the Stars by W.H. Beck
Malcolm at Midnight by W.H. Beck
MORE by I.C. Springman
Deep in the Swamp by Donna M. Bateman
Finklehopper Frog Cheers by Irene Livingston
Lucky Duck by Ellen Weiss
Spy Hops and Belly Flops: Curious Behaviors of Woodland Animals by Lynda Graham-Barber
Popcorn by Elaine Landau
See the Yak Yak by Charles Ghigna
Where Are the Bears? by Kay Winters
The Midnight Fridge by Bruce Glassman
Flatfoot Fox and the Case of the Missing Schoolhouse by Eth Clifford
Flatfoot Fox and the Case of the Bashful Beaver by Eth Clifford
The Poet’s Pen by Betty Bonham Lies
Flatfoot Fox and the Case of the Missing Whoooo by Eth Clifford
Flatfoot Fox and the Case of the Nosy Otter by Eth Clifford
George and the Dragon Word by Dianne Snyder
Flatfoot Fox and the Case of the Missing Eye by Eth Clifford
Dream
Wish
Halfway to Harmony
Wonderland
Greetings from Nowhere
The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester
The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis
How to Steal a Dog
Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia
A Sock is a Pocket for Your Toes, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser
All the World, illustrated by Marla Frazee
Noodle & Lou, illustrated by Arthur Howard
Think Big, illustrated by Vanessa Newton
Happy Birthday, Bunny!, illustrated by Stephanie Graegin
The Good-Pie Party, illustrated by Kady Macdonald Denton
The Great Good Summer
In the Canyon, illustrated by Ashley Wolff
Bob, Not Bob, co-written with Audrey Vernick, illustrated by Matt Cordell
Another Way to Climb a Tree, illustrated by Hadley Hooper
Kate, Who Tamed the Wind, illustrated by Lee White
Dear Substitute, co-written with Audrey Vernick, illustrated by Chris Raschka
Wayne’s Cinquain’s, illustrated by Del Thorpe
One Dark Bird, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon
Five Minutes is a Lot of Time, co-written with Audrey Vernick, illustrated by Olivier Tallec
Thank You, Garden, illustrated by Simone Shin
I Want a Boat!, illustrated by Kevan Atteberry
Would You Come, Too, illustrated by Diana Sudyka
Lolo’s Light
Frances in the Country, illustrated by Sean Qualls
World’s Best Class Plant, co-written with Audrey Vernick, illustrated by Lynnor Bontigao
Full Moon Pups, illustrated by Chuck Groenink
Everyone Starts Small, illustrated by Dominique Ramsey
Bibsy Cross and the Bad Apple, illustrated by Dung Ho
Bibsy Cross and the Bike-a-thon, illustrated by Dung Ho
Bibsy Cross and the Creepy-Crawlies, illustrated by Dung Ho
Bibsy Cross and the Time Capsule, illustrated by Dung Ho
Family Tree, co-written with Audrey Vernick, illustrated by Fiona Lee
This Very Spot
Happy Snailoween, Escargot
Good Night, Escargot
The Big One
Deep Blue
Escargot and the Search for Spring
Wild Blue
Accountable: The True Story of A Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed
Love, Escargot
The Book of Stolen Time
A Book for Escargot
The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives
The Antlered Ship
Escargot
Dangerously Ever After
The Sea Serpent and Me
Firefighters in the Dark
Baby Shoes
Worthy: The Brave and Capable Life of Joseph Pierce
Summer at Squee
Luli and the Language of Tea
Watercress
The Many Meanings of Meilan
Magic Ramen
The Story of Momofuku Ando
The Nian Monster
The Year the Cold Didn't Come
The Diamond Explorer
Caged
The Rock in My Throat
From the Tops of the Trees
Yang Warriors
The Most Beautiful Thing
The Shared Room
A Map Into the World
The Blue House that Was
A Story of Our Own
A Home on the Page
New York, NY 10010
Special thank you to Tania de Regil for the ACM Kids & Illustrators Logo.