Zoe Howard is a literary agent with Howland Literary.

After working with Howland Literary and Lookout Books while earning her BFA in Creative Writing and Certificate in Publishing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, Zoe Howard is now building her own list of adult literary fiction and adult nonfiction. Zoe is also a literary publicist at Pine State Publicity. 

More than anything, Zoe is drawn to writing where language comes first—she would love to see the work of poets-turned-to-prose, lyrical voices, and sentence-level craft that plays (Patti Smith, Ali Smith). She would love to read writing that explores boundaries: deconstructions of the coastal or “convenience store” south & the mountain states of the US, non-traditional narrators, cross-discipline books, and so on. 

In adult fiction, she is seeking voice-driven stories that subvert reader expectations of their subject matter. Zoe is especially interested in unashamed characters; characters at their breaking point; literary fiction with speculative elements, especially those that tend dark and underground (Sharks in the Time of Saviors); joyous girlhood; body horror & transformations of the body; and insular settings (small towns, amusement parks, summer camps, hotels). 

In adult nonfiction, Zoe is looking for narrative nonfiction, memoir, and essay collections that blend personal narratives with research or questions about the larger world. She would love to see more nonfiction that reads like fiction. Her niche interests include material culture, why & how we use objects, celebrities, pop culture, parasocial relationships, and the connections between people and the places they inhabit. 

Send Zoe your off-kilter, heartfelt, lyrical, and literary work.