Nadia El-Fassi
@chronicles_of_n
Editor
SFF Commissioning Editor @orbitbooks . Fantasy and rom-com author. Powerlifter. MA in Poetry. Muslim. Bi 🏳️‍🌈. She/they. Views my own. 🇲🇦/ 🇦🇺
74 MSWL

For sci-fi horror, I love it all. Creepy sentient alien spaceships, Event Horizon vibes, The Luminous Dead, The Last Astronaut,The Thing, The Descent, Underwater - give it to me…

Nadia El-Fassi
@chronicles_of_n
Editor
SFF Commissioning Editor @orbitbooks . Fantasy and rom-com author. Powerlifter. MA in Poetry. Muslim. Bi 🏳️‍🌈. She/they. Views my own. 🇲🇦/ 🇦🇺
74 MSWL

When it comes to near future, I want to see books that remind me of Arrival: first contact through a new lens. I also LOVED Ascension, and anything with that sci-fi thriller feel, with the caveat that if you would comp it to Black Mirror, it’s not for me.

Nadia El-Fassi
@chronicles_of_n
Editor
SFF Commissioning Editor @orbitbooks . Fantasy and rom-com author. Powerlifter. MA in Poetry. Muslim. Bi 🏳️‍🌈. She/they. Views my own. 🇲🇦/ 🇦🇺
74 MSWL

I’d give my soul to find something that made me feel like I felt reading The Fifth Season for the first time, or This is How you Lose the Time War. Gideon the Ninth is god tier to me.

Nadia El-Fassi
@chronicles_of_n
Editor
SFF Commissioning Editor @orbitbooks . Fantasy and rom-com author. Powerlifter. MA in Poetry. Muslim. Bi 🏳️‍🌈. She/they. Views my own. 🇲🇦/ 🇦🇺
74 MSWL

For sci-fi give me space opera, political intrigue, terraforming, alien species and first contact. I loved A Memory Called Empire, Some Desperate Glory, Murderbot, Becky Chambers (Psalm for the Wild Built is the perfect solarpunk sf)…

Nadia El-Fassi
@chronicles_of_n
Editor
SFF Commissioning Editor @orbitbooks . Fantasy and rom-com author. Powerlifter. MA in Poetry. Muslim. Bi 🏳️‍🌈. She/they. Views my own. 🇲🇦/ 🇦🇺
74 MSWL

I love seeing djinn on the page, Muslim characters as heroes. I love settings that feel like feudal Japan, or that have that Blue Eyed Samurai vibe. And anything that feels like epic fantasy x horror. And DRAGONS, always dragons.

Nadia El-Fassi
@chronicles_of_n
Editor
SFF Commissioning Editor @orbitbooks . Fantasy and rom-com author. Powerlifter. MA in Poetry. Muslim. Bi 🏳️‍🌈. She/they. Views my own. 🇲🇦/ 🇦🇺
74 MSWL

I would love to see novels that explore Jewish mysticism - I'm hoping that Swordcatcher and the new Leigh Bardugo will bring about more Jewish epic fantasy!

Nadia El-Fassi
@chronicles_of_n
Editor
SFF Commissioning Editor @orbitbooks . Fantasy and rom-com author. Powerlifter. MA in Poetry. Muslim. Bi 🏳️‍🌈. She/they. Views my own. 🇲🇦/ 🇦🇺
74 MSWL

I have a major soft spot (and this goes for both fantasy and sf) for nuns, monks, convents, religious orders, clerics and leviathan gods. I’m also a sucker for anything Arthurian, Middle Eastern & North African, anti-colonial…

Nadia El-Fassi
@chronicles_of_n
Editor
SFF Commissioning Editor @orbitbooks . Fantasy and rom-com author. Powerlifter. MA in Poetry. Muslim. Bi 🏳️‍🌈. She/they. Views my own. 🇲🇦/ 🇦🇺
74 MSWL

I love all the classic quest tropes, intricate magic systems, assassins, courtesans, courtly intrigue (special mention to my all time fave The Goblin Emperor for mastering bureaucratic fantasy)…

Nadia El-Fassi
@chronicles_of_n
Editor
SFF Commissioning Editor @orbitbooks . Fantasy and rom-com author. Powerlifter. MA in Poetry. Muslim. Bi 🏳️‍🌈. She/they. Views my own. 🇲🇦/ 🇦🇺
74 MSWL

More recently The City of Brass and The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, Bone Shard Daughter, Priory of the Orange Tree, The Will of the Many, anything by Melissa Caruso, The Lost War, The Thief and anything that has a D&D vibe…

Nadia El-Fassi
@chronicles_of_n
Editor
SFF Commissioning Editor @orbitbooks . Fantasy and rom-com author. Powerlifter. MA in Poetry. Muslim. Bi 🏳️‍🌈. She/they. Views my own. 🇲🇦/ 🇦🇺
74 MSWL

I’m a HUGE Robin Hobb fan, so anything reminiscent of the Realm of the Elderlings, count me in. I love classics like Lies of Locke Lamora, Trudi Canavan, Kushiel’s Dart (yes this is erotic epic fantasy), Red Sister…

Nadia El-Fassi
@chronicles_of_n
Editor
SFF Commissioning Editor @orbitbooks . Fantasy and rom-com author. Powerlifter. MA in Poetry. Muslim. Bi 🏳️‍🌈. She/they. Views my own. 🇲🇦/ 🇦🇺
74 MSWL

Something I’m keen to see more of in my submissions inbox this year is epic fantasy and sci-fi, MSWL thread, 1/?

Katherine Harrison
@KidlitKat
Editor
senior editor of ya, middle grade, & picture books (@knopfbfyr), appreciator of scientific oddities, & aspiring drummer // she/they 🌹
43 MSWL
1 Tips

OK here's a free idea from my personal wishlist: a middle grade or YA graphic novel about drama and infighting in a school choir. Doesn't that sound delicious?

Brought to you by someone who got kicked out of sixth grade choir for having an "attitude problem"

#MSWL

Ciara Smith
@ciarasmithwrite
Literary Agent
AuDHD, disabled, and LGBTQIA+. She/her/they/them. Writing screenplays and editing books. Literary Agent Apprentice @ Corvisiero Literary Agency

Been watching Reacher, wouldn't mind seeing more queries in my inbox with military personnel. #mswl

Brandy Vallance
@BrandyVallance
Literary Agent
Literary agent with Barbara Bova Literary Agency & Award-Winning Author. Open to queries 1/1/24 http://barbarabovaliteraryagency.com

We'd love to see a fun YA adventure with unique & memorable characters. Send us your query if that's your book! brandyvallance.com / sara-kornienko.com / barbarabovaliteraryagency.com #amquerying #mswl #amwriting #WritingCommmunity

Hillary Fazzari
@HillaryFazzari
Literary Agent
Agent @Bradford_Agents |🗡️📜🏰 Rep’d by @HerringAli

#MSWL I'd love a non-Western✨ vampire ✨book.

MG, YA, & Adult all welcome.

For MG: likely adventure/fantasy based w/magic and/or non-Western mythology.

For the rest: fantasy set in a non-Western world w/sharp stakes & a romance.

Could be 1st or 2nd world fantasy.

Hillary Fazzari
@HillaryFazzari
Literary Agent
Agent @Bradford_Agents |🗡️📜🏰 Rep’d by @HerringAli

#MSWL In YA (& MG), more "study/adventures abroad" books featuring teens in non-American locations, especially if the locations are non-Western and the stories star really robust casts of BIPOC characters.
Think ONE TRUE LOVES, I'M NOT HERE TO MAKE FRIENDS, & LOVEBOAT, TAIPEI.

Hillary Fazzari
@HillaryFazzari
Literary Agent
Agent @Bradford_Agents |🗡️📜🏰 Rep’d by @HerringAli

#MSWL Basically any rom-com or romantasy (adult, new adult, or YA) that can give me CRAZY RICH ASIANS vibes.

And I'm also looking for YA in *any* category that can do the same.

Hillary Fazzari
@HillaryFazzari
Literary Agent
Agent @Bradford_Agents |🗡️📜🏰 Rep’d by @HerringAli

#MSWL I'd also love a YA story about high school tennis players. Give me fun, give me rivalry -- bonus points if it can also pull off TWEET CUTE vibes!

Hillary Fazzari
@HillaryFazzari
Literary Agent
Agent @Bradford_Agents |🗡️📜🏰 Rep’d by @HerringAli

#MSWL : sports romances! Especially queer and/or BIPOC.
I was hugely into sports as a kid and am specifically looking for super fun rom-coms in this area that'll give you all the feels! (No preference on which sports are featured!) Adult, New Adult, and YA welcome.