Charlotte Seymour

Johnson & Alcock Ltd

Submission status
Closed
Submission route
Email
Response time
Aims to reply within 12 weeks
Last checked
18 days ago

About

Charlotte is an agent at Johnson & Alcock, building a list across fiction and non-fiction.

She studied modern languages and began her career as a literary scout at Eccles Fisher Associates, before becoming an agent at Andrew Nurnberg Associates in 2015. She joined Johnson & Alcock in 2022 and also champions a select number of titles in translation each year.

Looking for

  • literary and smart book club fiction
  • outstanding character- and voice-driven crime, thriller and suspense
  • originality, be it in the voice, the concept or setting
  • a big will-they-won't-they love story ( One Day
  • Talking At Night
  • The Paper Palace ), and love stories of all kinds, not just romantic love ( Tomorrow & Tomorrow & Tomorrow )
  • sweeping family stories, and other multigenerational/international/polyphonic novels ( Pachinko
  • The Dutch House
  • Hello, Beautiful
  • homegoing
  • mongrel
  • Girl, Woman, Other )
  • sharply observed contemporary stories that will make her both laugh and cry ( Dandelion Is Dead
  • As Young As This )
  • stories of identity, written with intimacy and tenderness ( Open Water
  • Fault Lines
  • Milk Teeth )
  • historical fiction from a slant ( The Safekeep
  • Briefly, A Delicious Life
  • How Much Of These Hills Is Gold
  • The North Woods
  • The Western Wind
  • May We Feed the King )
  • a beautifully written crime novel or thriller that transcends and subverts our expectations of the genre ( Notes On An Execution )
  • a Highsmithian thriller (think imposters, intruders, cat-and-mouse games…)
  • literary-genre crossover fiction, which could mean a speculative element, or literary horror, for example
  • accessible, engaging writing on a range of subjects including social and cultural history, biography and memoir (especially group biographies and literary memoir where the personal is interwoven with a bigger story or subject), reportage, popular science, nature, the arts, food and cookery

Agency submission guidelines

Submissions are accepted by email only. Physical submissions are not accepted or responded to unless an agent has specifically invited material to be sent that way. Most genres of fiction and non-fiction are considered; plays and film scripts are not accepted. Writers should look at individual agent profiles and choose the agent who seems the best fit. What to send: a short covering letter, including a blurb for the book and some information about the author. Fiction: a synopsis of the novel (no more than two pages) and the opening 50 pages of the manuscript, usually the first three chapters. Non-fiction: a book proposal including an introduction, chapter breakdown and sample material, totalling approximately 50 pages. Formatting: submissions should be in Word Doc (.doc or.docx) format, clear and legible, at least 1.5 line spaced, page-numbered and on A4 paper. Rules: only one agent should be submitted to at a time. Submissions should not be blind-copied. Submissions must be the original work of the author and not generated, co-written or edited using artificial intelligence. Attachments up to 5MB are accepted by the agency's server.

Agency AI policy

Submissions must be the original work of the author and not generated, co-written or edited using artificial intelligence.

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