Rach Crawford
Wolf Literary
My Manuscript Wish List®
I am currently looking for literary and upmarket fiction, speculative fiction, and horror, as well as nonfiction by journalists.
In nonfiction I am drawn above all else to lyrical writing and rigorous thinking, and I’m interested in climate change, nature, feminism, queer theory, geopolitics, migration, pop culture, tech, and in works that might be defined as cultural anthropology—books that help us understand the world we live in now.
In fiction, as well as work that engages with the above topics, I have a particular soft spot for social horror, literary and upmarket fiction that flirts with genre, working class characters, and intimate novels that burrow deep into the brain of one captivating weirdo.
Wishlist items (current as of March 2026):
- Literary novels about shame, desire, religion and belief, mothering/not mothering, female friendship.
- Horror! Folk horror, social horror (horror that illuminates a particular topic or issue), feminist horror, BIPOC horror, domestic horror etc. Please send me your horror!
- High concept mystery/suspense (e.g. My Murder, The 22 Murders of Madison May).
- Feminist speculative fiction (e.g. The School for Good Mothers, The Water Cure, The Natural Way of Things).
- Speculative fiction that is influenced or informed by, or concerned in some way, with religion, spirituality, or cults (e.g. Alif The Unseen; Midnight Mass; The Girls). I’m particularly interested in how belief informs our everyday lives and shapes our understanding of the world. (And yes, this applies to horror, too!)
- Per the above, I’m interested in religion in fiction very broadly – especially in stories that come from outside judeo-christian traditions.
- I’m newly interested in sprawling intergenerational stories, especially where they intersect with other wishlist items. Books like Buckeye, Pachinko, Crossroads etc.
- Books that are about nature in some broad way: North Woods, Hamnet, Annihilation, H is For Hawk, etc. etc.
- I’d love to see more submissions from writers from South-East Asian and Pacific Island diasporas.
- I love when a serious book is seriously funny.
AUSTRALIA/AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND: A few things that I’m especially keen to see from this region:
- Literary fiction
- Stylishly written domestic suspense
- High-concept crime/suspense/thrillers
- Voicey, female-driven, millenial crime/suspense/thrillers
- First Nations writing, especially literary and speculative fiction.
- I have a strong track representing industry-leading journalists. If this is you and you’d like to discuss book ideas, please get in touch!
I’m not looking for:
- I’m not looking for nonfiction work on religion and spirituality – no how-tos, why-tos, or books that aim to convert the reader to a particular path.
- Going against the industry trend here – I don’t mind a romance subplot, but I am not the right fit for “straight” romance or romantasy.
- I am a better fit for stories that unfurl on an intimate, “micro” scale, rather than big, systems novels with lots of complex worldbuilding on the page and casts of thousands.
- I don’t rep any work for children, including YA.
Fun facts about me:
- I’m Australian, and moved back here after ten amazing years living and working in New York. Alongside my American-focused list I also rep ANZ writers.
- I am a very keen birder.
- Rach, not Rachel!
Submission Guidelines
Please send your query letter and the first twenty pages of your manuscript (for fiction) or your proposal (for nonfiction) via querymanager. (Note I no longer accept email queries.)
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Vital Info
Favorite sub-genres:
AAPI Fantasy, AAPI Horror, Adult Horror, African Fantasy, Asian Diaspora, Asian Fantasy, Asian Horror, BIPOC, BIPOC Fantasy, BIPOC Horror, BIPOC Mystery, Character-Driven Horror, Cli-Fi, Climate Fiction, Cross-genre, Domestic Fiction, Domestic Suspense, Domestic Suspense/Thriller, East Asian Literature, Essays, Expat/Exile Literature, Experimental, Fabulism, Fantasy, Fantasy Grounded in Reality, Feminism, Feminist Horror, Folklore, Gothic, Gothic Fantasy, Gothic Horror, Grounded fantasy, Hauntings, High Concept, High-Concept Literary Commercial Fiction, Horror Comedy, Immigrant Voices, Indigenous Futurism, LGBTQ+, LGBTQ+ Fantasy, Latinx Fantasy, Latinx Horror, Literary Crossover, Literary Fantasy, Literary Fiction, Literary Horror, Literary Noir, Literary Thriller, Magic Realism, Muslim, Nature Writing, New Weird, Occult Horror, Paranormal Horror, Psychological Horror, Psychological Suspense, Psychological Thrillers, South East Asian Literature, Speculative Fiction, Supernatural Elements, Suspense, afrofuturism, award-winners!, bad at feelings, body horror, book club fiction, books in translation, eco-fiction, horror, light Sci-Fi, light fantasy, literary, literary suspense, queer, queer horror, weird fiction
I’d like the next…
THE EYES ARE THE BEST PART
LONE WOMEN
THE ONLY GOOD INDIANS
NORTH WOODS
NOTES ON AN EXECUTION
THE 22 MURDERS OF MADISON MAY
MARGO’S GOT MONEY TROUBLES
Lisa Jewell
Benjamin Stevenson
My favorites include…
Books: Mariana EnrÃquez’s OUR SHARE OF NIGHT; Kayla Rae Whitaker’s THE ANIMATORS; Victor LaValle’s THE DEVIL IN SILVER and LONE WOMEN; Samanta Schweblin’s FEVER DREAM; N.K. Jemisin’s BROKEN EARTH TRILOGY; Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s FRIDAY BLACK; Claire Vaye Watkins’ GOLD FAME CITRUS; Tamsyn Muir’s GIDEON THE NINTH; Daniel Mason’s NORTH WOODS; Maggie O’Farrell’s HAMNET.
TV: The Boys; Fallout; Midnight Mass; The Night Manager.
Movies: Raw; Titane; Revenge; Longlegs;Â Dream Scenario (okay, Nicholas Cage’s entire oeuvre). Everything by Benson and Moorhead, but especially The Endless.
Games: The Last of Us; Firewatch; Untitled Goose Game.
