Jessica Regel

About the Agent

I started Helm Literary with the goal of helping writers take control of their careers. My job as a literary agent is to help writers steer their ship. First and foremost, I work to ensure my writers are compensated for their incredible work, but I'm also their guide to navigating the industry as a whole. No nonsense, just the pure magic of publishing books. As a lifelong reader, I thought I'd found my dream job when I started working at my local library in Iowa. Then one day, I stumbled upon the inciting incident of my professional life: I shelved The Writer's Digest's Guide to Literary Agents. The summer of 2002, I moved to New York City to intern at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. Over the next decade, I worked my way through each department: royalties, contracts, audio, foreign, film, and domestic. I also began taking on my own clients, most of whom I still represent to this day. In 2013, I moved to Foundry Literary + Media where I continued to grow my list of award-winning, bestselling writers. Today, Helm is a full-service literary agency, representing fiction, nonfiction, and children's book authors. I've hired a team of industry veterans to support me in my back office and in my subsidiary rights department, allowing me to focus on selling books. Nearly two decades into my career, I still get giddy every time I call an author with an offer from a publisher. Dream job!