What Trellis Agents Are Looking For Right Now

Finding an agent can be an overwhelming process, and sending your manuscript to a stranger can feel particularly vulnerable. Knowing what literary agents are looking for—and which agent will be most receptive to your novel—will help you stay calm when it finally comes to submitting. It’s crucial to research different agencies to make sure you’re submitting to agents you feel will represent you best.

Luckily, at The Novelry, we’ve done a lot of that research for you! We partner with leading literary agencies we trust to look after our writers, and Trellis Literary Management is a fantastic example of a top-class agency representing exciting new fiction and non-fiction across the board.

In this blog, Trellis agents provide us with their latest, up-to-the-minute manuscript wishlists so you can see exactly what they are looking for in their submissions inbox right now. Maybe you’ll find your future novel in one of their lists; read closely, and think about getting your manuscript in the best possible shape it can be.

At The Novelry, we maintain trusted relationships with literary agencies because the standard of our writers’ manuscripts is consistently high. Our team of in-house editors have years of experience at Big Five publishing houses to ensure your work is at its best before submitting directly to the best agents for you—which could be one of the agents at Trellis.

Trellis Literary Management is a full-service agency founded in 2021 by agents Michelle Brower, Stephanie Delman and Allison Hunter, with interests ranging from literary to commercial to genre-bending fiction, from narrative to memoir, pop culture non-fiction and beyond. Based in New York, Trellis represents authors including Kirstin Chen, Georgia Clark, and our very own writing coaches Tara Conklin, Anissa Gray and Heather Webb.

Find out what their agents are looking for right here.

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Michelle Brower

Manuscript wishlist:

• Book club fiction, i.e. a commercial idea with a literary execution—think Celeste Ng, Kirstin Chen, Angie Kim
• Literary fiction, particularly family sagas, tight contemporary stories, story collections. Anything not too formally experimental.
• High-concept novels with elements of genre, such as The Midnight Library, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Portrait of a Thief
• Elevated suspense, like Tana French and Gillian Flynn
• Literary narrative non-fiction, particularly books that take a very personal story and look at a wider topic/culture/theme
• Very select literary YA or coming of age

Does not want:

• Prescriptive non-fiction
• High fantasy/hard sci-fi
• Children’s books/YA/New Adult
• Romance/romcoms

Stephanie Delman

Manuscript wishlist:

• Sharp literary suspense/thrillers with something new to say about the state of our world, like Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite and The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris (my client!)
• High-concept/speculative novels that dip a toe into magic but remain grounded in our world, often driven by a ‘what if?’; like The Husbands by Holly Gramazio (‘what if your attic produced an infinite supply of husbands?’), The Ministry of Time by Kailane Bradley (‘what if time travel was real, but regulated by the government?’), The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab (‘what if you could live forever, but you’re forgotten by everyone you meet?’)
• Spiky, funny, smart romps with insight into personhood/womanhood/motherhood, like Ghosts by Dolly Alderton, Sandwich by Catherine Newman and Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
• Rich, immersive historical fiction driven by exceptional characters and atmosphere, à la Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead and The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee
• Ghost stories, folklore, and literary horror; think Carmen Maria Machado, Angela Carter, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Coming-of-age novels for adult readers with a layer of genre, like Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
• Ambitious international fiction that spans the political and the personal, like A Burning by Megha Majumdar and The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan
• Non-fiction that uses the external to interrogate the internal; memoirs threaded with true crime (The Fact of a Body by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich), personal narratives that tell the story of a singular place or time (Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur, In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado)

Does not want:

• Military thrillers/police procedurals/traditional or masculine crime fiction
• Non-fiction, with the exception of superb hybrid memoir
• High fantasy/hard sci-fi
• Children’s books/YA/New Adult
• Anything dystopian/bleakly post-apocalyptic or featuring a Covid-like virus
• Books where a baby or young child is endangered

Allison Hunter

Manuscript wishlist:

• Romcoms and general romance (I’d love to find a big epic love story) (Emily Henry, Annabel Monaghan, Carley Fortune, Colleen Hoover)
• Anything that can be called a beach read, especially books actually set at the beach (Elin Hilderbrand, Jennifer Weiner, Sandwich, The Paper Palace)
• Family stories (Pineapple Street, The Nest, The Most Fun We Ever Had; Ask Again, Yes)
• Books about female friendship (Firefly Lane, We Are Not Like Them, Text Me When You Get Home)
• Campus novels (Prep, I Have Some Questions For You)
• Secrets! (Liane Moriarty, Celeste Ng)
• Domestic suspense, but nothing terribly dark (Lucy Foley, Ruth Ware)
• Cozy crime (The Maid)
• Lightly speculative fiction (Rebecca Serle)
• Twentieth-century historical fiction (Taylor Jenkins Reid)
• Pop culture
• Narrative non-fiction that isn’t memoir

Does not want:

• Dark thrillers
• Fantasy (although I am dipping a cautious toe into grounded romantasy!)
• Sci-fi
• Historical fiction prior to the twentieth century
• Anything involving mythology
• Magical realism
• Speculative beyond lightly
• Witches
• YA/children’s
• Memoir

Dana Murphy

Manuscript wishlist:

• Object histories and big idea non-fiction that use a small lens to tell a rich story: Salt or Cod by Mark Kurlansky, Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake, Debt by David Graeber
• Big hearted romcoms that read like the best kind of fan fiction: anything by Emily Henry or Casey McQuiston
• Pop culture deep dives, especially ones that reckon with ‘low’ and ‘unworthy’ material in a smart, serious way: Amanda Montell’s Cultish, Kaitlyn Tiffany’s Everything I Need I Get From You, anything by Shea Serrano
• Literary novels that play with form without sacrificing accessibility: Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Emily St. John Mandel’s The Glass Hotel
• Thoughtful reckonings that unveil alternative routes into thinking about modern culture: A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib, How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
• Twisty, self-aware elevated mysteries/horror with genre-bending edge: Kate Racculia’s Bellweather Rhapsody, Grady Hendrix’s The Final Girl Support Group
• Novels that celebrate found families and friendships as their own glorious love stories: Morgan Rogers’s Honey Girl, Zan Romanoff’s Grace and the Fever

Does not want:

• Traditional memoir
• Hard genre: SFF/romance/historical
• Traditional thrillers/police procedurals/crime fiction/domestic suspense
• Prescriptive non-fiction
• Middle grade or picture books
• Trauma stories where the trauma is the central plot
• Darkness for darkness’s sake
• Self-seriousness or nihilist worldviews

Allison Malecha

Manuscript wishlist:

• Messy family stories that have a strong sense of place, and that make you think as much as they make you feel; think Jesmyn Ward, Louise Erdrich, Miriam Toews, or even Catherine Newman (family can mean found family). I also love older characters who feel really fully realized on the page
• Literary fiction that plays with and interrogates language and/or translation, in a still character-driven way, like Daisy Johnson’s Everything Under or Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies
• Historical fiction with a strong sense of atmosphere. I would love something gothic that’s set somewhere unexpected.
• Nature writing that’s lyrical but story-driven in its approach, and that’s attuned to our acute state of crisis, across fiction and non-fiction both; think Charlotte McConaghy’s novels, or in non-fiction, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass. I would particularly love to find more underrepresented voices in this space.
• Hybrid memoir that has strong writing and opens out into historical or social portrait, incorporates nature or science or psychology, or touches in another way on larger social or political themes, from the more literary end of the spectrum (like Natasha Trethewey’s unforgettable Memorial Drive) to the lighter, slightly more prescriptive side (like James Nestor’s Breath)
• Character-driven narrative non-fiction, history, and journalism that speaks to larger current issues but isn’t tied into specific headlines, like Rachel Louise Snyder’s No Visible Bruises and the work of Ibram X. Kendi and Masha Gessen

Does not want:

• Science fiction and fantasy, horror, or crime fiction (though if elements of any of these genres bleed into a more upmarket or literary treatment for a general audience, I’m in!)
• Romcoms
• Straightforward biography/memoir
• Children’s/YA

Danya Kukafka

Manuscript wishlist:

• Crime fiction with a literary bent: My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner, The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani, Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng; Tana French, Megan Abbott
• Lightly speculative fiction: The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker, The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin, Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
• Hefty, expansive literary fiction: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, Trust Exercise by Susan Choi, Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
• Experimental or genre-bending work: Department of Speculation by Jenny Offill, Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
• Dark coming-of-age: Marlena by Julie Buntin, History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund
• Fun and sophisticated upmarket fiction: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer, Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey
• True crime: The Third Rainbow Girl by Emma Copley Eisenberg, The Fact of a Body by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, Savage Appetites by Rachel Monroe

Does not want:

• WWII historical fiction
• High fantasy
• Romance
• Children’s

Maria Stovall

Manuscript wishlist:

• Socially conscious narrative non-fiction at the intersection of the humanities and the social sciences, like Fight Like Hell by Kim Kelly, White Flights by Jess Row, Wordslut by Amanda Montell
• Science writing, like Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake, The Disordered Cosmos by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, The Joy of Sweat by Sarah Everts
• Pop culture and subculture deep dives, like Everything I Need I Get From You by Kaitlyn Tiffany, Basketball and Other Things by Shea Serrano
• Object histories, like Worn by Sofi Thanhauser
• Difficult or unlikable POC characters, especially with mental illness and/or neurodivergence, like Post-Traumatic by Chantal V. Johnson, Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee
• Formally playful but accessible fiction, like Trust by Hernan Diaz, Biography of X by Catherine Lacey; Benjamín Labatut
• Inventive non-Eurocentric family stories, like The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell, Bestiary by K-Ming Chang
• Beautifully crafted weird fiction, like Helen Oyeyemi, Julia Armfield, Jacqueline Harpman, Esther Yi
• Heady, darkly funny first-person novels, like Milkman by Anna Burns

Does not want:

• Prescriptive non-fiction
• Memoir
• Slavery/lynching/civil rights/police violence fiction
• Infertility themes
• Romance
• Bubbly, feel-good fiction
• Covid/pandemics
• Hard SFF/anything with extensive world-building
• Traditional thrillers/police procedurals/crime fiction/domestic suspense
• Childrens/YA/New Adult

Nat Edwards

Manuscript wishlist:

Fiction:

• Literary and upmarket fiction generally
• Anything queer
• Speculative fiction that’s fairly grounded in reality, including climate fiction
• Literary thrillers
• Historical fiction from underrepresented authors/hidden histories
• Anything involving scams/girlbosses flying too close to the sun
• Funny millennial fiction in the vein of Monica Heisey and Dolly Alderton
• Complex friendship stories, à la Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
• Novels exploring subcultures readers might not otherwise have knowledge of or access to
• Short story collections with unifying themes

Non-fiction:

• Hybrid memoir, in the vein of H is for Hawk and In the Darkroom
• Issue-driven narrative non-fiction, preferably with a personal connection to the material
• Cultural histories exploring film, music, art, literature and sports
• Investigative journalism about history and current events, à la Patrick Radden Keefe and Robert Kolker
• Projects exploring the intersection of faith and queerness

Does not want:

• Slasher/overly violent horror (social horror, where the violence is deliberate and not gratuitous, is okay though)
• Sci-fi/high fantasy
• Commercial romance (unless it’s queer)
• Commercial thrillers/procedurals
• Cozy mysteries
• Children’s
• Post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction
• Stories centered on terminal illness
• Prescriptive/how-tos
• Celebrity memoir
• Cookbooks
• Business/finance
• Religion/spirituality
• Coffee-table books/photography

Amy Bishop-Wycisk

Manuscript wishlist:

• Mystery, thrillers and suspense from BIPOC/underrepresented authors featuring characters of color, like The Bandit Queens or The Verifiers
• Upmarket or book club fiction: Portrait of a Thief or The Fortunes of Jaded Women
• Historical fiction by authors of color and/or set in an unexpected time or place; recent favorites were Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea; The Divorcées
• Low/grounded fantasy or character-driven sci-fi, like The Ministry of Time, Watermoon, Book of Night, Ocean’s Godori
• Lighthearted, ‘cozy’ book club fiction, like Amazing Grace Adams‍
• Female-driven historical narrative non-fiction, like Liza Mundy or Sonia Purnell
• Pop science or psychology
• Cultural criticism with a feminist bent‍
• Select YA across genres

Does not want:

• Picture books
• Middle grade
• Police procedurals/hard-boiled crime fiction/legal or political thrillers
• High fantasy/hard sci-fi
• Memoir
• Dystopian/post-apocalyptic fiction
• Romance

Elizabeth Pratt

Manuscript wishlist:

• Character-driven literary fiction focused on the inner workings of complex relationships, like Conversations with Friends; Detransition, Baby or Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (think: anything messy and emotional, where the emotional journey drives the narrative)
• Sprawling family sagas or chronicles of a life, with a historical bent, like The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, The Queen of the Night, Little Gods, A Grain of Wheat or Deep River
• Fiction strongly grounded in place, where place is a character, like The Turner House, Pew, Brown Girls, or even Funny Story
• Fiction that dissects and attempts to understand grief, either directly or indirectly (loss of self, loss of a home, etc.), like Transcendent Kingdom
• Mythological or folklore retellings, like Circe or A Thousand Ships
• Novels that play with form or have unreliable narrators, like The Lost Daughter or Trust Exercise
• Literary suspense/thrillers like The Secret History, Idaho or Bel Canto
• Historical fiction that is gorgeously written, sheds light on something new, and (again) is character-driven, like We Need New Names or The Marriage Portrait
• Contemporary fiction with young female characters, and that is a bit weird and wacky, like Margo’s Got Money Troubles, The First Bad Man or Cult Classic
• Genre-bending fiction that uses elements of genre to make a point about the primary narrative and themes of the book (think Margaret Atwood)
• Story collections with elements of any of the above
• Debuts in any of the above categories! Anything from voices that have gone unheard!
• Anything from poets-turned-novelists!

Does not want:

• Prescriptive non-fiction
• Memoir/biography
• Traditional thrillers
• Crime fiction
• Military/police procedurals
• Horror
• Epistolary novels
• High fantasy
• Children’s/middle grade/YA
• Books set during WWII
• Books about/with AI
• Books about/featuring the pandemic
• Series
• Anything centered on terminal illness (especially cancer)
• Anything where animals or children are hurt

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