Oliver Dougherty

I’ve been with Tor Publishing Group for over five years, and I’m delighted to continue expanding my list with ambitious, imaginative fiction for adult readers. I acquire in fantasy, science fiction, romance that’s otherwise speculative in some way, and horror. I’m especially drawn to secondary world and character-focused stories.

Across genres, I’m obsessed with:

• Richly imagined worlds that explore power structures and intersectional understandings of experience (The Broken Earth Trilogy, A Memory Called Empire, She Who Became the Sun).
• Interpersonal intrigue driving narrative tension. I want to tear through the pages because I need to know how they’ll feel by the last page.
• Clever protagonists, protagonists who think three steps ahead, and political or court intrigue. Give me the layered subtext, give me the cat-and-mouse 4D chess–I want the next The Traitor Baru Cormorant and The Goblin Emperor.
• Protagonists who are middle-aged, older, and elders
• Complex morality and villains as main characters
• Weird sentience. Looking at you, Arrival, Ancillary Justice, and Leech.
• Cross-genre books. I’m a fan of science fantasy and when fantasy dips its toes (or takes a full-body plunge) into atmospheric horror or romance.
• Queernormative worlds, gender subversions, polyamorous relationships of all formations.

Romance and romance-adjacent: I’m drawn to secondary worlds and cross-genre stories. I love an achingly slow burn—I grew up on fanfiction and thrive on the little building moments between characters that make your heart sing.  I’m looking for a range of spice—from a monumental handholding scene that’ll make me cry to high heat or kink. I want polyamorous relationships, queer and trans stories, a queerplatonic love story, BIPOC main characters, body size diversity, and main characters with disabilities in my romance. I’m not acquiring contemporary romance or erotica.

• Fake and contractual relationships
• Killing Eve-style enemies-to-lovers
• Opposites attract in forced proximity (think Kirk and Spock in The Original Series)
• Slow burn, yearning, unresolved tension
• Revenge stories

Horror: I’m looking for marginalized perspectives, especially by authors of color and authors with disabilities. I love creeping dread and atmospheric horror, like What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher and Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. I have a soft spot for secondary world, folklore, and also for fantastical elements, like in Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I love navigating deals and outsmarting rules: think A Quiet Place. I’m always a sucker for an eat-the-rich story.

I’m especially seeking manuscripts in this vein by BIPOC, disabled, neurodivergent, queer, and trans authors.

(they/them)

Submission Guidelines

Oliver Dougherty only accepts agented submissions at this time.