Matt McGowan

Matt is looking for emotionally, intellectually, and formally adventurous work of all kinds and is particularly interested in writers who believe nonfiction can be as artful as fiction. Queries for essays, literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, pop culture, journalism, politics, history, memoir, biography, black humor/satire, cultural studies, science, and sports are all welcome. Among Matt’s clients are Eula Biss, Stephanie Burt, John D’Agata, Brian Evenson, Brandon Harris, John Haskell, Paul Lisicky, Emily Maloney, Meghan O’Gieblyn, Lia Purpura, Heather Radke, David Shields, Sarah Viren, and Rob Walker. Matt was featured in Poets & Writers‘ “Twenty-One Agents You Should Know” and his clients have won or been shortlisted for multiple PEN America Awards, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, the O. Henry Award, the Graywolf Literary Nonfiction Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Rona Jaffe Award, the Edgar Award, the Orion Book award, the Triangle Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and have received NEA, Whiting, Guggenheim, and Lannan Foundation grants. They publish in major magazines from The New Yorker and Harpers to the New York Times Magazine, and have appeared on The Colbert Report, Conan O’Brien, Bookworm, NPR, as well as covers of the New York Times Book Review and on New York Times bestseller lists.