Jim McCarthy

Dystel, Goderich & Bourret

My Manuscript Wish List®

I’m always looking for fresh voices–whether that means authors from underrepresented communities, new takes on old tropes, something that hasn’t been seen before, or all of the above. I love a great humorous novel, but I’m also not afraid of anything dark and in particular will tumble hard for any book that can make me laugh or cry. While my list has a lot of YA and a lot of fantasy, and I’m always looking in those spaces, but I’m especially eager to find more middle grade and adult fiction at present.

 

I’d love to find sagas of family or friendship, queer stories of any kind, a super twisty thriller, and historical fiction about times and places that haven’t already been extensively covered.

 

I’m probably not your go-to for political or medical thrillers or police procedurals or stories involving time travel (with very rare exceptions).

Fun facts about me:

I’m a giant theater geek, so if there are any other nerds out there that these names mean anything to, these are the current playwrights whose work is, for me, unmissable: Lynn Nottage, Annie Baker, Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Amy Herzog, Stephen Karam, Suzan-Lori Parks, Samuel Hunter. If you can compare anything you do to anything they’ve done? Please send my way.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions should be emailed to jmccarthy@dystel.com

Please query me at https://querymanager.com/query/JimMcCarthy

 

Guidelines & Details