What I’m Looking For

On the non-fiction side, I’m looking for outward-focused memoirs, essay collections, history, journalism, cultural criticism, and left-wing political writing. I look for books that engage with radical thought, anti-capitalist and anti-imperial movements, understudied queer history, art and pop culture, music criticism, environmental studies, science and technology, and mental health, among other topics. With memoirs, I prefer projects that move beyond immediate personal experience and look towards broader social and political concerns, blending personal narrative with cultural criticism and deep research. 

For fiction, I look for character and voice driven literary or upmarket work that offers new perspectives on contemporary issues, while telling rich, original stories. I love a deep character study, a messy social novel, or a book incorporating grounded genre elements such as surrealism, horror, sci-fi, and queer erotica/romance, while unsettling or completing eschewing familiar tropes. Emotionally charged novels are absolutely welcome, as are novels exploring subversive territories through unreliable, off-kilter, or abject narrators. In terms of writing, I appreciate an array of prose stylings, from lucid, thoughtful, and carefully observed, to off-beat, hilarious, unnerving, and absurd. And in terms of narrative, I’m very fond of books told from multiple narrators and perspectives, and am a big fan of formal experimentation that draws the reader into the novel’s unique world. Of course, fiction is such an expansive form, and I’m always open to being surprised!

Some writers I love: Jordy Rosenberg, Han Kang, Carl Phillips, Jamaica Kincaid, Rachel Aviv, Solmaz Sharif, Jinwoo Chong. Elif Batuman, Fady Joudah, Tommy Orange, Fernanda Melchor, Hilton Als, Ling Ma, Arundhati Roy, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Esmé Weijun Wang, Isabella Hammad, Danez Smith, Olivia Laing, Cathy Park Hong, Rachel Cusk, Jamil Jan Kochai, Morgan Parker, and Mary Ruefle.

To see a selection of the books I love, check out my page on Bookshop.org!

How To Query Me

To query me, please use my QueryManager Form. I look forward to reading your work!