Roma Panganiban
Literary Assistant
Janklow & Nesbit
Reading for a living @janklownesbit , tweeting for free. Constantly mortified by the ordeal of being known. Don't buy books from Amazon. she/her
Literary Assistant
But please DON'T send me novels where someone dies with their inner turmoil tragically unresolved! I'm here for moral/emotional struggles that lead toward hope, if not happiness; not into screeds about the futility of existence and the impossibility of being truly good #MSWL
Literary Assistant
elise 🌿 @elise_forslund
i would love to see more stories of characters navigating well-deserved guilt. i read a lot of books about processing guilt and the arc is almost always the character realizing they aren’t truly at fault. but what about characters who really, genuinely are responsible?Send me your novels about guilt, shame, regret, seeking atonement, earning forgiveness; redemption arcs for someone who isn't necessarily a villain, but who has made choices with irrevocable consequences and has to find a way to live with their actions and keep going. #MSWL
Literary Assistant
Roma Panganiban @romapancake
7 classics to get to know me (for real this time):The Bell Jar
Franny and Zooey
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Anne of Green Gables (the whole series)
Les Misérables
A Separate Peace
I Capture the Castle twitter.com/uncanny_eli/st…
Obligatory #MSWL tag, but keep in mind these are "classics" as defined by my American education in the white Western canon; I'd love to see novels or narrative nonfiction engaging with similar themes and historical eras, but with a more expansive, inclusive worldview
Literary Assistant
#MSWL: Adult literary fiction inspired by Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess (but anti-imperialist). I have no idea how one would execute that premise, but if you do, send it to me.
Literary Assistant
Heidi N. Moore @moorehn
It is wild to me that authors keep setting things in England when France is *right there* and super haunted in every region twitter.com/swordsjew/stat…Send me your haunted French fantasy novels!! Contemporary, historical...or speculative 👀 #MSWL
Literary Assistant
Literary Assistant
Half-formed #MSWL thought: give me a novel or story collection that addresses the subculture of shitty Asian frat boys (who grow into shitty Asian finance bros) with both well-deserved derision but also a touch of empathy that acknowledges why and how they got to be like that
Literary Assistant
Matt Bell @mdbell79
One of the side benefits of going to a state school is that you’ll probably never be tempted to write a whole insufferable novel about going there. It’s a real drawback of attending an Ivy.Hi send me your campus novels set at mid-tier or otherwise decidedly non-elite institutions, thanks! Would also consider nonfiction taking a critical perspective on the value vs. real cost of prestige academia, for students and for society #MSWL
Literary Assistant
New #MSWL (mine) just dropped: manuscriptwishlist.com/mswl-post/roma… Special bonus feature: find out which musical always makes me cry!
Literary Assistant
Roma Panganiban @romapancake
I have strong feelings about people who blithely sort coming of age novels about young people into YA or adult based on their narrow view of what constitutes "literary" writing, but that's a long-winded thread for another day. TL;DR: adults can have "coming of age" stories, tooAnyway if you're writing a coming of age (coming of self!) story about young protagonists or older protagonists, for young readers or older readers, that challenges traditional ideas of what "coming of age" means, who gets to do it, how, and when...send it to me #MSWL #AmAgenting
Literary Assistant
Literary Assistant
Ben Mauk @benmauk
The publishing house story I want to read (write?) is a soup to nuts account of an NYRB release written like a bank heist -- finding the lost gem, securing the rights from the defunct Soviet publishing house, bringing in the grizzled translator for one last job etcI cannot tag this hard enough #MSWL
Literary Assistant
Just spent way too long engrossed in someone's 543-page dissertation on the purpose and prevalence of "like" across various national dialects of English, so this is now an official #MSWL call to any linguist whose work might interest the general public and not just nerds like me