Grace Gay

St. Martin's Press

My Manuscript Wish List®

My Manuscript Wish List® Items

I am an Assistant Editor at St. Martin’s Press building a list in commercial and upmarket fiction. Since starting at SMP in 2022, I’ve acquired romcoms, a memoir, young adult romantasy, and historical nonfiction! A few themes I am always interested in are family dynamics, addiction, and sibling relationships.

Originally from Arizona, I am a sucker for any books set in the Southwest. While at Northwestern University, I studied Creative Writing and International Studies and wrote a book column for a student-led arts and culture magazine. My time working on a thesis in poetry and researching modern depictions of female suicidality gave me an appreciation for nonfiction books that tackle complex topics in an accessible way. After I finish a book, I want to feel bittersweet: heartbroken but filled with hard-earned hope for the world or characters.

In fiction, I love:

  • Upmarket family dramas with issue-driven hooks, especially if they lean literary and deal with women’s issues (Celeste Ng, Zadie Smith)
  • Speculative fiction that turns genre tropes on their heads, speaks to our current moment, includes horror elements, or imagines radical futures (the next Ministry of Time or Parable of the Sower)
  • Dark and modern retellings of old tropes and narratives like How to be Eaten by Maria Adelmann and The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

I am not interested in any books where a cop is the main character. Currently, I am not looking for young adult or romance.

In nonfiction, I love:

  • Pop culture and science books that investigate the oddities of the world in a way that makes learning fun, like Butts by Heather Radke, Land by Simon Winchester, and Raw Dog by Jamie Loftus
  • Nerdy explorations of niche culture like Everything I Need I Get From You by Kaitlyn Tiffany
  • Historical nonfiction that examines the legacies of colonialism and ways we misunderstand the past, like How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr or The Invention of Yesterday by Tamim Ansary

A few hyperspecific books I want to read:

  • A mother-daughter saga of migration into the U.S. that features indigenous history, crossing the Darien Gap, and queerness
  • Messy historical marriage stories, particularly centered on painters or other artists
  • Dark, twisty books about people living in a desperate world (ours, or another!) trying to make good decisions

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be emailed to grace.gay@stmartins.com

At this time, I am only accepting agented submissions.

Flirty Dancing by Jennifer Moffatt, The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour