Regina Bernard-Carreno is a literary agent with Ladderbird Literary.

Born and raised in Hells Kitchen, New York City, Regina safeguards a deep, personal passion for her city and all of its history. She holds a PhD in Urban Education, a Master’s Degree in African American Studies, as well as, a couple of other graduate degrees in the humanities.

All of this continues to amplify her love of literature, bookstores, libraries, and really anything that has to do with books overall. As an academic and writer, she is always drawn to creative projects whether she is designing them for her own work or assisting creators to build them out into real projects. This adoration for all things makery and artisanal also reminds her of the work by women’s hands and so she tries often to braid together this with what is socially-just.

When she’s not editing, teaching, reading, and/or writing, she can be found alongside her children, among the trees of redwood arboretums in search of Jack Skellington.

She is currently open to: Middle Grade and Young Adult graphic novels that are fun and interesting and actively looking for these types of projects that deal specifically with coming of age experiences or something very interesting like This Was Our Pact. Rom Com graphic novels in Young Adult are also welcome. 

She is open to limited picture book projects by BIPOC author-illustrators only. Please do not send her any rhyming manuscripts. She would really like to see picture books that deal with diverse cultures, people, and experiences. 

While not open to YA prose/novels, she would like to see MG or YA novels in prose from BIPOC creators that deal with international issues and cultures.

In adult fiction: She is only looking for historical projects that deal with Caribbean and American slaves and their narratives.​ She would also accept a BIPOC rom-com a la Terry McMillan.

In nonfiction, she loves a solid book about wellness (think herbs and aromatherapy), cookbooks that have a fresh take and a solid platform. She also loves work around social justice issues and matters that are contemporary and where the author has some agency around solutions and critical ideas about how a particular social injustice could be examined and possibly rehabilitated. Think: Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter and Braiding Sweetgrass.​

She does not want:

No’s for her would be hard crime or spy thrillers, blatant and graphic violence against women and children. No fantasy or dark magic and/or heavy-handed horror. Board book projects are also a definite pass.