Harriet Garner LeFavour

Harriet (Hattie) is a senior editor of nonfiction at Bloomsbury Publishing. She is looking for reported narratives, cultural and political histories, biographies, essays, and criticism. She also acquires memoir and is building Bloomsbury’s cookbook list. She does not currently acquire fiction.

In NONFICTION, she is looking for sharp 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; dynamic memoirs; social and oral histories; investigative journalism; and narratives or essays that engage with food and agriculture, social class, supply chains and economic systems, labor and political movements, design and architecture, the Middle East, the American South and Appalachia, music writing (pop or otherwise), subcultures, addiction, public policy, consumerism, the environment, film and TV, and human vice. She often works with academics, journalists, and professionals 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; most pre-18th century history books; or ruminative nature writing.

Her ideal nonfiction books are How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr, Girl on Girl by Sophie Gilbert, Mr. B by Jennifer Homans, Cue the Sun! by Emily Nussbaum, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama by Nathan Thrall, Murderland by Caroline Fraser, The Gods of New York by Jonathan Mahler, Chip War by Chris Miller, Black Flags by Joby Warrick, The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr, The End of the Myth by Greg Grandin, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here by Jonathan Blitzer, Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker, No Visible Bruises by Rachel Louise Snyder, The Freaks Came Out to Write by Tricia Romano, Homeland by Richard Beck, The Editor by Sara B. Franklin, High on the Hog by Jessica B. Harris, The Year the Clock Broke by John Ganz, Fear City by Kim Phillips-Fein, Against Everything by Mark Greif, Soldiers and Kings by Jason de Leon, Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, Evicted by Matthew Desmond, The American Way of Eating by Tracie McMillan, The Design of Childhood by Alexandra Lange, Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan, and all writers reminiscent of Barbara Ehrenreich, Pauline Kael, Susan Orlean, or Susan Faludi.

In COOKBOOKS, she is looking for functional, stylistically ambitious, unpretentious books brought together by a strong sense of place, culture, identity, or aesthetics. She loves books with entertaining angles, restaurant cookbooks, baking books, and Southern food, and she’s interested in niche regional tastes (Appalachian, New Orleanian, Floridian, etc.). She’s very interested in drinks books, and she loves concept-based cookbooks that focus on a specific meal, need, or occasion.

She is not looking for highly commercial books or media tie-ins, and she rarely works with influencers who don’t also cook professionally in another capacity. She is not typically the editor for memoir-as-cookbook, nor books that explicitly center dieting and wellness. Books built around dietary restrictions (gluten-free, vegetarian) are the exception.

Her ideal cookbooks are Snacking Bakes by Yossy Arefi, Something from Nothing by Alison Roman, Made in Taiwan by Clarissa Wei, Via Carota by Jody Williams and Rita Sodi, 100 Cookies by Sarah Kieffer, Salad Freak by Jess Damuck, I Dream of Dinner by Ali Slagle, An Invitation to Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan, Dessert Person by Claire Saffitz, More is More by Molly Baz, Old World Italian by Mimi Thorston, Soups, Salads, Sandwiches by Matty Matheson, Tenderheart by Hetty Liu McKinnon, A Good Bake by Melissa Weller, The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis, Indian-ish by Priya Krishna, The Craft of the Cocktail by Dale DeGroff, The Bar Book by Jeffrey Morgenthaler, Punch by David Wondrich, and Dishoom by Shamil and Kavi Thakrar.

In MEMOIR, she is looking for voyeuristic stories of unique lifestyles and experiences that feel revelatory, heady, or improbable. She prefers sharpness, humor, and observation over prescription and sentimentality. She likes memoirs that overflow with stories and use a specific perspective as commentary on class, gender, or a larger political or cultural moment. She would love to publish memoirs by authors from the American South and Appalachia, media workers and musicians, and those who have had unorthodox or unrepresented jobs/lives. She is comfortable working with celebrities (with the exception of mainstream film/TV stars and influencers), public figures, and requisite secondary writers, but not at the expense of candor, self-reflection, and sound social/intellectual analysis.

She is not looking for graphic memoir; nature/animal memoir; politicians’ I-might-run-for-president-and-want-to-have-published-a-memoir memoir; most experimental memoir; memoir-in-essays; vanity memoir.

Her ideal memoirs are Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart, Trash by Simon Paré-Poupart, Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr, Patrimony by Philip Roth, The Possessed by Elif Batuman, Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood, Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan, Borrowed Finery by Paula Fox, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller, Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti, Doppelganger by Naomi Klein, Joyride by Susan Orlean, I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally, Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel, A Hymn to Life by Gisele Pelicot, When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter, The Uncool by Cameron Crowe, Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, Bossypants by Tina Fey, Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young by Zayd Ayers-Dohrn.

*Note that Hattie does not currently acquire fiction.

In FICTION, she would theoretically be 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 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 Stations by Louise Kennedy, Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen, The Topeka School by Ben Lerner, Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte, Biography of X by Catherine Lacey, The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner, Audition by Katie Kitamura, The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald, The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, State of Grace by Joy Williams, Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett, Double Blind by Edward St. Aubyn, You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman, The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt, Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart, and all writers reminiscent of Philip Roth, Jonathan Franzen, 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 YA, children’s, business, self-help, or wellness books. As of 9/1/2024, I exclusively acquire nonfiction.