Harriet Garner LeFavour

Harriet (Hattie) is looking for nonfiction including reported narratives, history, biography, essays, criticism, and select topical memoir. She is also looking for sharp, style-focused literary fiction.*

*Please note that as of September 2024 her list comprises almost exclusively nonfiction. She is still willing to considering literary fiction if it’s a good fit, but she is not the right editor for commercial or upmarket fiction.

In NONFICTION, she is looking for books that marry the cultural and the political; first-person reported narratives; histories with a contemporary hook, told through the lens of a question, idea, or movement; social and oral histories; investigative journalism; and narratives or essays that engage with food and agriculture, class systems, supply chains and hidden systems, labor and political movements, the American South and Appalachia, music writing (pop or otherwise), subcultures, addiction, public policy, consumerism, the environment, film/TV, and human vice. She is always interested in considering works by academics looking to write for a trade audience.

She is not looking for books with a prescriptive bent including wellness, business, and self-help; illustrated books; guidebooks; gift books; wide-eyed books about celebrity; pre-18th century history books; nature memoir; or sports books.

Her dream nonfiction books are Homeland by Richard Beck, The Freaks Came Out to Write by Tricia Romano, The American Way of Eating by Tracie McMillan, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama by Nathan Thrall, No Visible Bruises by Rachel Louise Snyder, The Year the Clock Broke by John Ganz, Mr. B by Jennifer Homans, Against Everything by Mark Greif, Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, Cue the Sun! by Emily Nussbaum, Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong, The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee, The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr, Tacky by Rax King, Labor of Love by Moira Weigel, Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan, and all writers reminiscent of Barbara Ehrenreich, Pauline Kael, Mary Karr, or Rick Perlstein.

In FICTION, she is looking for style-forward literary fiction that prioritizes precision and richness on a line level. She likes ambitious, maximalist fiction that poses ethical or moral questions to the reader and is at once challenging but not punishing, serious but not self-serious. She would be excited to read fiction set in the American South or Appalachia or that engages with class systems and labor, domesticity and suburbia, political movements, and the arts. She is always interested in considering works by poets and playwrights looking to write for a trade audience.

In fiction, she is not looking for genre fiction including romance, fantasy, romantasy, thrillers, and mysteries; historical fiction (pre-1950); joylessness; “rich people fiction”; prescriptive or moralizing stories; or body horror.

Her dream fiction books are Biography of X by Catherine Lacey, The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner, Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett, Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, State of Grace by Joy Williams, Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, The Topeka School by Ben Lerner, Double Blind by Edward St. Aubyn, You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman, Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados, Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt, Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen, and all writers reminiscent of Philip Roth, Gary Shteyngart, Julian Barnes, or Nell Zink.

Submission Guidelines

AGENTED SUBMISSIONS ONLY

Please note that I only acquires in the adult space and cannot accept submissions for genre fiction, poetry, YA or children’s, business books, self-help, or wellness. As of 9/1/2024, I will primarily acquire nonfiction.