Zoe Aline Howard
Literary Agent
Howland Literary
Associate Agent at @HowlandLit , Literary Publicist at @PineStatePub , Lover of Patti Smith’s “This Is” captions on Instagram & OPEN TO QUERIES
Literary Agent
Literary Agent
Literary Agent
👀 Here's the official #MSWL post: manuscriptwishlist.com/mswl-post/zoe-…
Literary Agent
And more! Send me your lyrical, off-kilter, boundary-exploring books.
As a note, @HowlandLit is now fully moving to QueryManager, and you can find my link on our website!
Literary Agent
Bonus round for favorites: Patti Smith, Girls Can Kiss Now, Lot: Stories, Heavy, Swamplandia!, Sadness is a White Bird, Kevin Wilson’s “A Room at Madame Terreur’s,” Pam Houston, Binchtopia podcast, Troop Zero, Empire Records, 1970s rock, Jacqueline Woodson, Ali Smith.
Literary Agent
In nonfiction, I’d love to see writing about the relationships between people and their places, and CNF that blends research with personal narratives. I especially love pop culture, music, internet culture (women on the internet!), essay collections, etc.
Literary Agent
More in fiction: joyous LGBTQ+ characters. Contemporary, literary takes on the Western that critique genre tropes. Speculative/magical realism elements that are grounded in the “real” world (think Nothing To See Here, The Pisces)
Literary Agent
I’d love to see subversive, sexual, queer women gone rogue (Melissa-Broder-type characters who are shamelessly off-putting, and have not only rejected gender roles, but all social expectations entirely)—Think: Sedating Elaine, The Pisces, Otessa Moshfegh
Literary Agent
In fiction, I’m craving characters that are *so* possesed by their wants that their behavior takes a drastic turn—and alternately, melancholic characters who know that they can’t have what they want (and want it anyway).
Literary Agent
On the religious/spiritual side, I’m looking for well-researched subversions of what we expect about religion, and deep dives into how people live their religions, into death practices, what it means to "believe," and how religious backgrounds affect character decisions.
Literary Agent
Other topics! Send me writing about: material culture—our objects, histories of *things*, consumer culture, religious relics, and so on. Para-social relationships: celebrity obsession, internet culture, codependency.
Literary Agent
Across the board, I’d love to see: region-specific writing (southern writers on the coastal and “convenience store” south, the Western US, or international narratives), especially underrepresented voices from these regions—
Literary Agent
I’m always drawn to writing that lingers—on language, on character development, on the subtleties of character relationships, in one place, on the memory of a place, on a niche subject—and makes those details pop.
Literary Agent
SO joyful and overwhelmed at the support I’ve received after Wednesday’s announcement that I am now open to queries over at @HowlandLit, and as I’ve started reading the wild, wonderful queries rolling in, now feels like the right moment for a #MSWL: