Submitting to Howland Literary

*Please send submissions to: submissions@howlandliterary.com

*Please submit a query letter addressed to the agent you would like to work with on your book(s). We all have different tastes and we will share with one another if we feel like your book is a better fit for another agent at Howland.

*Please write to a specific agent. We do not read queries that aren't addressed to anyone.

*Send the initial twenty pages of the manuscript for fiction, or attach the proposal / initial twenty pages for nonfiction. If you have to go a little under or over on twenty pages to find a good resting place, that's totally fine.

*We do not have a preference on sending pages as an attachment or pasting into the body of an email, however body of an email is easier for us to read. We would encourage you to choose fonts that are easy to read (Times New Roman, Garamond, etc). If your pages involve specific structural things that would be messed up in copy and paste, do attach. 

*Try to remember that a query letter is a business document. Although we love a charming voice in that initial letter,  we hope it doesn't take over what you're trying to say about your work.

*Note: if you do not receive an automated reply from the submissions email, we did not receive your query or it went to spam. Please resend and add the agent's name in the subject line.

You can find our submission requests and wishlists under "About Us" 

We also often post on our individual Twitters: Carrie's Twitter, Cassie's Twitter, and Victoria's Twitter.

You can find more information about each of us on Poets & Writers, QueryTracker, MSWL, and Duotrope as well.

We are always looking for voice-driven books, and because we each have a background in writing, we love beautiful sentences. We are also especially looking for manuscripts with own voices, marginalized voices, and people who honor the stories that come from their lives, ancestry, culture, and history.

Initial Queries:

We try to respond to initial queries within a few weeks. We make a point to read the entire query, including letter and first twenty pages. We do our best to respond to every single query that comes through our inbox, however we do not respond to queries which do not adhere to our guidelines, particularly genre.

A grammar error or misspelling will never dissuade us from reading a query. We know that emails are pored over, like books, and yet we still miss things in the copyedit.

Please understand that a pass on an initial query does not mean the book is bad or will never sell, but instead, we may not be able to best represent that manuscript, and think another agent would be better suited.  We do our very best to offer personal feedback when we can. 

Full Manuscripts:

If we have requested a full manuscript, ideally we would love to get back to you within six weeks, but it has taken up to four months. We read an entire manuscript if we request it and give detailed feedback either way. 

Please give us a nudge if you have gotten other offers, haven't received a response from us in several months, or have news to share about your manuscript (pieces of the book have been published, the manuscript is a finalist for a book prize, you've been on a podcast, etc). We love good news!