I am actively looking for writers in the non-fiction, ‘lifestyle’ bracket. I am interested in writing on health (particularly work on under-researched aspects of female health, such as Sarah E. Hill’s How The Pill Changes Everything and Emily Nagoski’s Come As You Are),  accessible and fresh approaches to gender, relationships and sex (Shon Faye’s Love in Exile, Annie Lord’s Notes on Heartbreak), ‘stealth-help’ work which interweaves self-help and memoir; philosophy, business, productivity, and pop culture. I am open to submissions in the cookery and illustrated/gift bracket too.

I also have a particular love for writing on 20th (and 21st) century history and politics. I  am looking for work that explores history and the present in fresh, current ways: be that through a particular concept (such as Agnes Arnold-Forster’s recent history of nostalgia); through biography and memoir (Jonathan Rosen’s The Best Minds, Philippe Sands’s East West Street and Fintan O’Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves are fantastic and innovative); oral histories; feminist approaches (Eve by Cat Bohannon and The Story of Art without Men by Katy Hessel); or something else entirely. I am also fascinated by work grappling with the aftermaths and legacies of history and conflict: Tania Branigan’s Red Memory and Dan Stone’s The Holocaust: An Unfinished History are brilliant examples.

In fiction, I am drawn to works of literary and literary-commercial crossover fiction. I love stories with engrossing plots, immersive dialogue, lifelike relationships, and an energetic voice, but which also challenge – I finished Green Dot by Madeleine Gray and Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis in single sittings, for example, yet both made me question my own understanding of human behaviour and decision-making.

I love fiction that is deeply rooted in a particular moment in time, with a setting that is a product of its history. I am deeply interested in deconstructions of gender, class, and identity, and the intersection of the personal and the political on the page – Michael Magee’s Close To Home, Oisín McKenna’s Evenings and Weekends, Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo, and Joshua Cohen’s Moving Kings are recent favourites. As with my non-fiction taste, I am interested in third-generation legacies in fiction, too – I thought Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep was masterful in this regard.

Finally, I have a soft spot for a campus novel!