Nicola Chang
- Submission status
- Open
- Submission route
- Response time
- Assume no reply = no after 16 weeks
- Last checked
- 14 days ago
About
Nicola joined David Higham Associates in 2020 and represents prize-winning writers of literary and general fiction, non-fiction and poets.
Her authors include Sara Ahmed, Raymond Antrobus, J. M. Coetzee, Jacqueline Crooks, Emma Glass, Gabriel Krauze, Saba Sams and Kae Tempest. Nicola is a recipient of the London Book Fair’s Trailblazer Award and a Bookseller Rising Star. Nicola responds first and foremost to original voices that challenge the idea of what a literary novel, and sentence, can do, as well as propulsive character-driven novels with intricate plots, unforgettable set pieces and dazzling dialogue. Nicola is drawn to experiments in form that defy easy definition, vernacular-inflected realism, the tragicomic, the weird and ethereal, seeking emotional complexity and transformative storytelling. In non-fiction Nicola is interested in narrative-driven, persuasive perspectives, a unique fearless voice and the interplay between the personal and the political, particularly from early-career scholars, critics and writers thinking deeply and universally about society through subjects such as the arts, food, family, language, creativity, sport, the body, work, travel and music, and if these works can be delivered provocatively and humorously, all the better.
Genres
Looking for
- brilliant literary fiction and narrative non-fiction
- a taut literary thriller
- a novel that carefully chronicles the domestic and its attendant dynamics
- stories that take place across time, captivating in their sustained exploration of character and setting
- a visionary voice
- novels of ideas that move
- moody, mysterious books hewn from an innate obsession with form and language
- writing whose content demands a relationship with or challenge to form
- a writer who can write mothers and daughters
- narrative-driven, persuasive non-fiction with a unique, fearless voice and the interplay between the personal and the political
- early career scholars, researchers, journalists and critics thinking deeply and urgently about what it means to be alive now
- literary memoir and the uncanny space between fiction and non-fiction
- a writer who can write both books about food and cookbooks
- poetry, considered selectively, from poets published in journals or magazines or listed for prizes
- published or established authors looking for a new approach, strategy or direction
Agency submission guidelines
Assume no response = no after 8-16 weeks depending on the agent.
Links
Clients include
- Ore Agbaje-Williams
- Sara Ahmed
- Rosanna Amaka
- Raymond Antrobus
- Symeon Brown
- Stephen Buoro
- Vanessa Chan
- J. M. Coetzee
- Jacqueline Crooks
- Tsitsi Dangarembga
- Nikita Gill
- Will Harris
- Gabriel Krauze
- Anna Metcalfe
- Kae Tempest
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Andrew Gordon
Andrew joined David Higham Associates in 2007 and is a director of the company and head of the Books department. Before becoming an agent he worked on the publishing side for fifteen years, in publicity at Hodder & Stoughton and as an editor and publisher at Little, Brown and Simon & Schuster. His list is primarily non-fiction and includes leading historians, journalists and commentators. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Cundill History Prize.
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Elise Dillsworth
Elise became a literary agent in 2012, having previously been a commissioning editor at Virago Press. She co-founded the Diversity in Publishing Network in 2004, which received the New Venture Award from Women in Publishing in 2005. Her authors have won or been nominated for awards including the Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the Caine Prize, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the Forward Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction.
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Esme Bright
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Isobel Boston
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Jemima Forrester
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Jessica Woollard
Jessica has been a literary agent for thirty years, beginning her career at Toby Eady Associates, where she worked first for Alexandra Pringle and went on to become a Director before leaving ten years later for The Marsh Agency. She joined David Higham in January 2016 on returning from Mumbai, where she had been working as an agent remotely for five years. She was the agent for H is for Hawk, and represents academics, activists, artists, scientists and journalists. Authors she works with have won or been shortlisted for major prizes including the Booker, the Baillie Gifford, the Costa, the Guardian First Book Award, the National Book Award, Waterstones Book of the Year, the Wainwright and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year.
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Lizzy Kremer
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Maddalena Cavaciuti
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Martha Perotto-Wills
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Molly Ker Hawn
Molly joined David Higham as a director of the company in 2025, after fourteen years running the United Kingdom arm of the Bent Agency. Her primary focus is books for children and young adults, and she has worked in publishing for most of the last thirty years. She sells directly to publishers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and Australia, and about half her clients are American or Canadian. Her authors' books have been New York Times, Sunday Times and international bestsellers, and have won or been shortlisted for the Michael L. Printz Award, the William C. Morris Debut Award, the Barnes & Noble Children's Book Award, the Costa Book Award, the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the Carnegie Medal. She served for three years on the governing committee of the Association of Authors' Agents.
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Orli Vogt-Vincent
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Sara Langham
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Stephanie Glencross
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