Maggie Sadler
Howland Literary Agency
My Manuscript Wish List®
I primarily seek adult literary fiction and upmarket fiction with distinct character voices, lyrical prose, and propulsive plots. I love books that quietly yet unapologetically challenge and deconstruct genre, craft, or structural conventions—books that take risks. I appreciate a careful, restrained hand with magical elements, one that gently asks the reader to reconsider the boundary between the real and the fantastical. Above all, I crave raw, authentically human writing and wildly innovative concepts that have me whispering, “I needed this manuscript yesterday.”
I would love to see the following in my query box, but I’m always open to being surprised:
Adult Fiction
- Accessible literary fiction with a propulsive hook, expertly crafted tension, and gently stylish prose that turns timeless themes on their axes.
- Upmarket fiction that explores insightful and nuanced socio-cultural commentary with a high-concept hook, authentically human characters, and distinct emotional resonance.
- Historical fiction that foregrounds marginalized perspectives and under-explored locales.
- Work that revels in genre play—if the project is best described as “X meets Y with strains of Z,” consider my interest piqued.
- Across fiction genres, I am also on the hunt for narratives in translation.
Narrative Nonfiction
- Topics: travel, health and wellness, ecology and nature, cultural criticism
- I welcome nonfiction projects that combine expertise with passion and a fresh, compelling perspective to tell previously untold stories with timely urgency.
- A lifelong student, I ultimately crave the opportunity to step away from a nonfiction narrative with new knowledge and insights.
In both fiction and nonfiction, I keenly welcome work from debut Indigenous and First Nations, BIPOC, and queer storytellers.
Anti-MSWL
- High, epic fantasy
- Science fiction of any kind
- Highly commercial fiction: contemporary romance, thrillers, mysteries, beach reads
- Post-apocalyptic or dystopian narratives
- The Young Man’s Odyssey™
- Books about wars throughout the twentieth century (please, no more narratives set during WWI, WWII, or the Vietnam War; I’m begging you)
- Any work for young adult audiences and younger—I am exclusively focusing on work for adult readers at this time
Fun facts about me:
Professionally irrelevant but potentially charming tidbits:
- I have called four different countries home, with each location being, coincidentally, coastal: USA, Scotland, The Gambia, and Newfoundland.
- I confess to being a serial hobbyist—watercolor painting, mounted archery, and fly fishing are a few of my recent quests.
- I am of the very firm opinion that the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy is Elizabeth Swann’s story, and I will die on that hill.
- My horse Cooper is much more interesting than I am. His antics include but are not limited to drinking a tipple of brandy from a cup, wearing a variety of absurd hats, and scheming various clever methods to steal my snacks.
Submission Guidelines
Please find submission guidelines at: https://querytracker.net/query/2495.
I do NOT accept queries via email unless otherwise discussed.
Vital Info
Favorite sub-genres:
Accessible Literary Fiction, BIPOC, Cross-genre, Essay collections, Experimental, Fairytale Retellings, Feminist Horror, Folklore, Gothic, High Concept, Historical Fiction, LGBTQ+, Literary Crossover, Magical Realism, Marginalized Voices, Multicultural, Narrative Nonfiction, Nature Writing, Neurodiversity, New Adult, Retellings, Speculative, Travel, Underrepresented Voices, Upmarket Fiction, alternate history, books in translation, character-focused stories, dark academia, diverse voices, groundbreaking structures, literary, non-Western historical fiction, non-western settings, weird fiction
I’d like the next…
- Innovative and evocative folklore/fairy tale retellings that sour or devour the conventions of its source text—particular interest is afforded to non-Western tales and settings.
- Unusual, somewhat unhinged concepts in the vein of Daryl Gregory’s Revelator—let’s get weird.
- Treacherous, unreliable narrators.
- Quirk-ridden liminal spaces such as islands and rural areas. I am also particularly interested in settings that seem to exist outside of time and space, like the labyrinth in Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi.
- Notes of grounded, lush, and atmospheric magical realism, wherein the potential for the fantastic flits at the edge of our vision, in the style of Karen Russell, Julia Fine, Kirsty Logan, or Hayao Miyazaki.
- Intelligently, painstakingly crafted love letters to the Gothic—atmospheric, simmering with uncanniness and dreadfulness—set anywhere but the Deep South.
- A novel that introduces readers to a unique area of study or handicraft.
- An intelligent, well-researched take on the Golden Age of Piracy that foregrounds an unputdownable hook and jagged-edged character arcs—think John Silver in Black Sails.
- Strange women doing strange, sometimes terrible things à la The Lamb by Lucy Rose, Open Wide by Jessica Gross, and The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh.
- Complex, tangly, and fraught relationships. Romantic, platonic, familial, brief encounters—anything that forces us deeply consider what it means to connect with other humans.
My favorites include…
Fiction
- Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
- The Lamb by Lucy Rose
- Revelator by Daryl Gregory
- The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- Anything by Karen Russell
Films
- The Princess Bride
- The Lord of the Rings trilogy
- The Goonies
- Willow
- Howl’s Moving Castle
- The Boy and the Heron
Television Shows
- Black Sails
- Battlestar Galactica (2004)
- Stranger Things
- Avatar: The Last Airbender
