Emma Parry

People category
Agents

Emma Parry
Role
Senior Literary Agent

I’m looking for strong stories and exhilarating ideas - whether in reportage, memoir, narrative non fiction, science, religion, nature writing or fiction. I love writers who extend empathy, resist all manner of tyrannies, and entertain. I want pages which whip by and spark wide conversation.

Recent bestsellers include ONE WAY BACK by Christine Blasey Ford, REST IS RESISTANCE by Tricia Hersey, THE IMMORTALITY KEY by Brian Muraresku, LEXINGTON by Kim Wickens and THE GLASS BOX by J M Straczynski.
 
I have helped launch the career of many prize winning and bestselling authors, including Rutger Bregman, Tara Isabella Burton, Bernadine Evaristo, Rebecca Godfrey, Tricia Hersey, Hannah Fry, Claire Keegan, Hari Kunzru, and Andrew Smith. 
 
I’ve also represented the work of great established talents including Harlan Ellison, Germaine Greer; Alan Hollinghurst, David Kennedy, Marian Keyes, Paul McCartney, Maggie O’Farrell, the late VS Naipaul, and Kamila Shamsie.
 
I’ve worked with winners of the Shiva Naipaul Prize for Travel Writing, the National Book Critics Circle, the Man Booker, the Pulitzer and the Nobel.

Born in England, I've lived in New York half my life. After Cambridge, I joined the graduate program of Ogilvy & Mather before being rescued from advertising by the British literary agent Gillon Aitken. When I was 25, Gillon sent me to New York to oversee the publication of BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY and Germaine Greer’s THE WHOLE WOMAN while training at FSG. I fell in love with the city and its publishing scene; met my husband and stayed.
 
In 2003, I co-founded a new agency, Fletcher & Parry. Out of a little Carriage House off Union Square we built a thriving list and business to the point an uncommon opportunity presented itself to sell.
 
After a gardening leave, which I enjoyed with my family in the house we built in the Hudson Valley, I joined Janklow & Nesbit in 2013, where I have been happily representing pioneering thinkers and compelling storytellers since.

Selected authors

  • Emma Brockes
  • Turtle Bunbury
  • Tara Isabella Burton
  • Rangan Chatterjee
  • Glory Edim
  • The Estate of Harlan Ellison
  • Christine Blasey Ford
  • Evan Friss
  • Sam Garonzik
  • Bradley Garrett
  • Bethann Hardison
  • Tricia Hersey/The Nap Ministry
  • Meg Howrey
  • Gaelynn Lea
  • Giorgia Lupi
  • Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis
  • Peter McGough
  • Rosie Meleady
  • Brian C. Muraresku
  • Kareem Rosser
  • Nayantara Roy
  • Tom Shone
  • Samantha Silva
  • Andrew Smith
  • Nell Stevens
  • J. Michael Straczysnski
  • Nina Tandon
  • Julius Taranto
  • Upworthy/Good Inc.
  • Tyler Wetherall
  • Kim Wickens