Alec Shane

Writers House Literary Agency

My Manuscript Wish List®

Alec Shane majored in English at Brown University, a degree he put to immediate use by moving to Los Angeles after graduation to become a professional stunt man. Realizing that he prefers books to breakaway glass, he moved to New York City in 2008 to pursue a career in publishing. Alec quickly found a home at Writers House Literary Agency and is now aggressively building his own list.

On the nonfiction side, Alec would love to see humor, biography, history (particularly military history), true crime, “guy” reads, and all things sports. In fiction, Alec is looking for mystery, thrillers (though he’s experiencing terrorist fatigue at the moment), suspense, horror, historical fiction, literary fiction, and middle grade and young adult fiction.

He doesn’t want Romance, straight sci-fi, high fantasy, picture books, self-help, women’s fiction, food, or travel memoir.

Fun facts about me:

I’m a huge Patriots fan and moonlight as a wannabe sportswriter for the SBNation blog patspulpit.com. It has been incredibly therapeutic, but has done little to quell my mania.
I’m a huge dog guy – and by that I mean I love dogs, and I especially love huge dogs. St. Bernards, Newfoundlands, Mastiffs… if your manuscript has a big, oafish, slobbering dog in it, I’m yours. Little dogs that yip and can fit inside of a purse…not so much.
I’m about 60% sure I saw a ghost once. I’m not sure, and there are certainly other explanations for what happened that night on the beach…but I don’t know. If an author can convince me one way or another as to the existence of ghosts, I’m all ears.
I’m staunchly anti-Hollywood remake of any kind. If it was a movie I loved as a kid, I refuse to see a new version of it as an adult. It needs to stop.
Nobody understands how terrifying Zelda from the Pet Sematary movie is and it drives me nuts.
I hate cheese. This might be the one facet of who I am that I’m most ashamed of.
I also hate wine. I’ve had cheap wine, expensive wine, domestic wine, foreign wine. I’ve swirled it and sniffed it and chewed it and everything else you do with it. Not for me. I feel no shame in this whatsoever.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be emailed to ashane@writershouse.com

I accept e-mail and snail-mail queries (although email is preferable), and will usually respond within 5-8 weeks. Please send the first 10 pages of your manuscript, along with your query letter, to

as****@wr**********.com

with “Query for Alec Shane: TITLE” as your subject heading – no attachments please! If sending via regular mail, please include a SASE with proper postage.