Zoe-aline howard, agent

Zoe-Aline Howard joined Howland Literary while earning her BFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Certificate at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She has had the privilege to work across publishing in multiple capacities, including an internship at Lookout Books, and her current role as a literary publicist at Pine State Publicity. She represents adult literary fiction and adult nonfiction.

She wants books that da upmarket fiction and adult nonfiction, Zoe is interested in writing that centers place (and especially how place informs an author’s or character’s perspective); and voice. Her recent deals (including Morgan Day's The Oldest Bitch Alive, Lauren Haddad's Fireweed, Sara Maurer's A Good Animal, & Maria Pinto's Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless) are representative of that intersection.

She wants books that dare.

Regardless of genre, I’d love to see more:

Region-specific writing from outside of NYC/LA: I’m looking for settings that disengage our assumptions, and can house characters we’ve rarely heard from. I am partial to rural stories well-told. I’d love to see flyover states, cities that are “cities” in name only, and international landing strips currently underrepresented on American bookshelves.
Books that embrace material culture: looking at what we engage with, how we engage with it, and why, from nature writing, to histories of an object, to fresh takes on sustainability or maximalism.
First books of prose by poets with published collections: in publicity, I’ve worked with poets like Ashley M. Jones (Lullaby for the Grieving), Keetje Kuipers (Lonely Women Make Good Lovers), and more.
Writing that explores religion(s) through practice(s), broadly: topics from America’s religious theme parks, to critical engagements with how we use sacred texts (NOT what those texts say), to unincorporated spiritual communities like Cassadega Spiritualist Camp will catch my eye.
Next-generation writing from Gen-Z and Millennial voices.

In adult fiction, I’d love to see:

Off-center stories plagued with guilt, remorse, and forgiveness (like Emily Ruskovich’s Idaho, Claire Oshetsky’s Poor Deer, or Quiara Alegría Hudes’s The White Hot)
Novels that challenge who a narrator can be (like Morgan Day's The Oldest Bitch Alive, Lorrie Moore’s I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home)
Literary fiction with book club potential, books where the language is the reading experience, but a plot twist lands us (like Sara Maurer's A Good Animal, Nina de Gramont's The Christie Affair, Ann Patchett's The Dutch House).
Queer stories that tear open a realistic & unspoken experience (like Chloe Caldwell's Women, Navid Sinaki's Medusa of the Roses).
Characters with a physicality, be that tender or violent (when violence serves a purpose, as in Rita Bullwinkel’s Headshot, or like Andrea Abreau’s Dogs of Summer)

In adult nonfiction, I’d love to see:

Biographies, buried histories, reportage, or journalism
Personal writing that uses disparate subjects as a container for a single theme (like foraging in Maria Pinto’s Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless, laughter in Nuar Alsadir’s Animal Joy, empathy in Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams)
Disruptive and pioneering advocacy from underrepresented regions (Jen Jackson Quintano’s forthcoming book on the Pro-Voice Project out of North Idaho, Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This)
Cultural identities of place (like Jeremy Atherton Lin’s Gay Bar or Hanif Abdurraqib’s There’s Always This Year)