Ellen Klages – Jill Grinberg Literary Management

Ellen Klages

Ellen Klages is a critically-acclaimed and award-winning author of fiction for children and adults. Her first novel for young readers, The Green Glass Sea, won several awards, including the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and was followed by White Sands, Red Menace and Out of Left Field, winner of the New York Historical Society Children’s History Book Prize. She is also an acclaimed author of short fiction: most recently, her novella Passing Strange won the World and British Fantasy Awards for Best Novella, and her story “Amicae Aeternum” was adapted into an award-winning short film. Her work has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards and has been translated into eight languages. She lives in San Francisco.

Agent

Jill Grinberg

The Green Glass Sea (The Gordon Family Saga #1)

Winner of the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction

It is 1943, and 11-year-old Dewey Kerrigan is traveling west on a train to live with her scientist father—but no one, not her father nor the military guardians who accompany her, will tell her exactly where he is. When she reaches Los Alamos, New Mexico, she learns why: he’s working on a top secret government program. Over the next few years, Dewey gets to know eminent scientists, starts tinkering with her own mechanical projects, becomes friends with a budding artist who is as much of a misfit as she is—and, all the while, has no idea how the Manhattan Project is about to change the world. This book’s fresh prose and fascinating subject are like nothing you’ve read before.

Praise for The Green Glass Sea

“Klages makes an impressive debut with an ambitious, meticulously researched novel set during WWII. Writing from the points of view of two displaced children, she successfully recreates life at Los Alamos Camp, where scientists and mathematicians converge with their families to construct and test the first nuclear bomb.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review

Publisher

Viking Books for Young Readers

Publication Date

October 19, 2006

Age Category

Middle Grade

Genre

Historical Fiction

Rights

JGLM

White Sands, Red Menace (The Gordon Family Saga #2)

It is 1946. World War II is over, ended by the atomic bomb that Dewey Kerrigan’s and Suze Gordon’s scientist parents helped build. Dewey’s been living with the Gordons since before the war’s end, before her father died, moving south with them to Alamogordo, New Mexico. At the White Sands Missile Range, Phil Gordon is working on rockets that will someday go to the moon; at home, Terry Gordon is part of the scientists’ movement against the Bomb. Dewey and Suze have conflicts of their own. Where does a girl who likes physics and math fit in? How do you know the right time to speak up and the right time to keep your head down? And, most important of all: What defines a family?

Praise for White Sands, Red Menace

“First-rate historical fiction.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review

Publisher

Viking Books for Young Readers

Publication Date

October 2, 2008

Age Category

Middle Grade

Genre

Historical Fiction

Rights

JGLM

Out of Left Field (The Gordon Family Saga #3)

Winner of the New York Historical Society Children’s Book Prize

Every boy in the neighborhood knows Katy Gordon is their best pitcher, even though she’s a girl. But when she tries out for Little League, it’s a whole different story. Girls are not eligible, period. It is a boy’s game and always has been. It’s not fair, and Katy’s going to fight back. Inspired by what she’s learning about civil rights in school, she sets out to prove that she’s not the only girl who plays baseball. With the help of friendly librarians and some tenacious research skills, Katy discovers the forgotten history of female ball players. Why does no one know about them? Where are they now? And how can one ten-year-old change people’s minds about what girls can do?

Set in 1957—the world of Sputnik and Leave It to Beaver, saddle shoes and “Heartbreak Hotel”—Out of Left Field is both a detailed picture of a fascinating historic period and a timelessly inspiring story about standing up for equality at any age.

Praise for Out of Left Field

“A grand slam in every way.” –Kirkus, starred review

“Featuring powerful female characters, this is historical fiction that doesn’t drag for a second.” –School Library Journal

Publisher

Viking Books for Young Readers

Publication Date

May 1, 2018

Age Category

Middle Grade

Genre

Historical Fiction

Rights

JGLM

Wakulla Springs

A novella about four generations of an African American family and their ties to the beautiful and mysterious Wakulla Springs, the deepest submerged freshwater cave system in the world, in the jungle of the Florida panhandle. This remarkable work encompasses a unique history of the fantastic, featuring Tarzan, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, overlaid with the shadow of Jim Crow laws in the Deep South. Ranging from the late 1930s to the present day, Wakulla Springs is a tour de force of the human, the strange, and the miraculous, a masterpiece of American magic realism.

Praise for Wakulla Springs

“’Wakulla Springs’ is, without a doubt, an excellent book. It is beautifully written, has engaging characters, and builds up such atmosphere that you can’t put it down.” –SFF Book Reviews

Publisher

PS Publishing

Publication Date

January 1, 2018

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Magical Realism/Short Fiction

Rights

JGLM

Wicked Wonders

A rebellious child identifies with Maleficent instead of Sleeping Beauty. Best friends Anna and Corry share one last morning on Earth. A solitary woman inherits a penny arcade haunted by a beautiful stranger. A prep-school student requires more than luck when playing dice with a faerie. Ladies who lunch―dividing one last bite of dessert―delve into new dimensions of quantum politeness. At summer camp, a young girl discovers the heartbreak of forbidden love.

Whether on a habitat on Mars or in a boardinghouse in London, discover Ellen Klages’ wicked, wondrous adventures full of cheeky wit, empathy, and courage.

Praise for Wicked Wonders

“Magical stories unfurl with marvelous subtlety in this delightful collection from Klages (The Green Glass Sea).” –Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Poignant and relatable tales that push the barriers of the fantastical realism and beyond.” –Library Journal

Publisher

Tachyon Publications

Publication Date

May 9, 2017

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Fantasy/Short Fiction

Rights

JGLM

Passing Strange

Winner of the World and British Fantasy Awards for Best Novella

Inspired by the pulps, film noir, and screwball comedy, Passing Strange is a story as unusual and complex as San Francisco itself from World Fantasy Award winning author Ellen Klages, and a finalist for the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novella

San Francisco in 1940 is a haven for the unconventional. Tourists flock to the cities within the city: the Magic City of the World’s Fair on an island created of artifice and illusion; the forbidden city of Chinatown, a separate, alien world of exotic food and nightclubs that offer “authentic” experiences, straight from the pages of the pulps; and the twilight world of forbidden love, where outcasts from conventional society can meet.

Six women find their lives as tangled with each other’s as they are with the city they call home. They discover love and danger on the borders where magic, science, and art intersect.

Praise for Passing Strange

“A moving and genuine love story.” –The Washington Post

“Passing Strange is [Klages’] best adult work to date.” –The Chicago Tribune

Publisher

Tor.com

Publication Date

January 24, 2017

Age Category

Adult

Genre

Fantasy/Novella

Rights

JGLM