Chad Luibl
Janklow & Nesbit Associates
My Manuscript Wish List®
I joined Janklow & Nesbit Associates in 2014, following the completion of an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) at Virginia Commonwealth University, where I was also the coordinator of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.
At J&N I’ve had the pleasure of working with many commercial and literary authors, both fiction and nonfiction. I’m looking for stories that hit that sweet-spot between genre and literary – stories that offer nuanced perspectives and fast, imaginative plots (see Benjamin Percy’s Thrill Me for more on that criteria), and aren’t afraid to bend the rules a bit, and most importantly, stories with a strong emotional core. For nonfiction, I’m mostly interested in narrative memoir, graphic memoirs, and stories from journalists that challenge the status quo and often have a social justice component.
I am not taking on much children’s, middle grade, or young adult, unless it is a graphic novel.
Fun facts about me:
Former: ice-hockey goalie, intern at the National Endowment for the Arts, guitarist in metal bands, teacher of ESL…
Submission Guidelines
Submissions should be emailed to cluibl@janklow.com
With the word “Query” in the subject line, please send your query, a synopsis and the first fifty pages of your manuscript attached as a word document. Please note that due to volume, I will only contact you if I’m interested. Thanks for understanding
Vital Info
Favorite sub-genres:
Magical Realism, Military, Southern Literary, Speculative Fiction, Westerns
I’d like the next…
My favorites include…
Some books I loved, in no particular order and in general:
Fiction…
…The Secret History by Donna Tartt; The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell; The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt; Touch by Alexi Zentner; Embers by Sandor Marai; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz; The Changeling by Victor LaValle, The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman; Ten Little Indians by Sherman Alexie; We the Animals by Justin Torres; Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun; Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell; The Road by Cormac McCarthy; What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell; Lot by Bryan Washington; Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt; The Passage by Justin Cronin; The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides; A Minor Apocalypse by Tadeusz Konwicki; The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut; Where I’m Calling From by Raymond Carver; My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent; The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin; In the Distance by Hernan Diaz; The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones…
Non-fiction…
…H Is For Hawk by Helen MacDonald; Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe; Heavy by Kiese Laymon; The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz; Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer; In Waves by AJ Dungo; Boy on Ice by John Branch; On Writing by Stephen King; Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari; Educated by Tara Westover; The Rise and Fall of Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte…
