Ismita Hussain
Great Dog Literary
My Manuscript Wish List®
I am seeking literary fiction, upmarket and book club fiction, select non-fiction, YA, and short story collections. Some of my favorite authors are Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Oscar Wilde, and Tom Perrotta. I am especially drawn to fiction with a Southern setting, gritty realist writing, and any fiction that explore health or disability. Ultimately though, I’m a sucker for writing with a great sense of humor.
A Little More About What I’m Looking For:
In Adult Fiction:
Literary Fiction, Upmarket, New Adult, Short Story Collections.
Specifically: Fiction that features food service/restaurant culture. Satire, and humorous fiction. Southern settings, Italian settings, gritty and realist writing, dark humor. I am open to novels that fit these categories but have some genre-fiction elements.
The most important elements that grab my attention are style and literary quality writing.
In Adult Non-Fiction:
History, Pop Culture, Humor, Travel, Cookbooks, Sports.
Specifically: Cookbooks that explore a niche ingredient/theme and cookbooks that tell a story. Quirky and visually stunning coffee table books.
The most important elements that grab Ismita’s attention are expertise and a surprising/niche topic.
In Young Adult:
Contemporary, Rom-Com, Commercial, Novel-in-verse.
Specifically: A heist book.
The most important elements that grab Ismita’s attention are themes/situations that are true to the teen experience today and commercial quality.
Fun facts about me:
I am a Georgia native and graduate of Emory University, where I studied Human Health and Italian. During college, I also worked for various Atlanta area hospitals in departments ranging from neonatal to geriatric care. In my Desi household, I grew up speaking Bangla, Hindi, and Urdu.
Submission Guidelines
I accept submissions from adult and YA authors through the QueryMe portal only. I do not accept submissions via email.
Please fill out the submission form as completely as possible so that I can fully consider your query. If I am interested in reading further, I will be in touch in 4-6 weeks. Due to the volume I submissions, if you have not heard from me in 6 weeks please consider it a pass.
Great Dog Literary is a small agency and we talk among ourselves all the time. If I feel your manuscript is a better fit for another agent at Great Dog Literary, I will pass it along. Please do not send the same query to multiple agents at Great Dog Literary.
To submit, click here.
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Vital Info
Favorite sub-genres:
Adult, Book Club, Contemporary YA, Disability, Health, Narrative Nonfiction, Southern Fiction, Southern Gothic, Southern Literary, book club fiction, crossover
I’d like the next…
Little Children
The Goldfinch
The Corrections
Salt Fat Acid Heat
White Noise
My favorites include…
God’s Little Acre, Erskine Caldwell
Outer Dark, Cormac McCarthy
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor
Push, Sapphire
