Cassie Mannes Murray is a literary agent at Howland Literary and a working publicist who gravitates toward language-obsessed, structurally daring fiction and nonfiction — the kind of work that dissolves genre walls and rewards readers who pay attention to sentences.
In brief
Cassie Mannes Murray prizes lyricism and structural risk above almost everything else — if your prose doesn't do something interesting at the sentence level, this is not the right match.
The wishlist skews heavily literary: think quiet dread, speculative undercurrents, and narrators who are unsettling rather than likable — Oyeyemi, Schweblin, and Moshfegh are the north stars.
Cassie also runs a literary publicity company, which means they think about marketability and platform from day one — writers who understand their audience will stand out.
Adult nonfiction is a serious priority, not an afterthought: innovative essay collections, speculative memoir, and Southern narratives all receive dedicated attention.
The query form was confirmed closed as of June 2026 — writers should monitor for reopening before submitting anything.
Lately
Cassie's wishlist emphasizes that the most inspiring submissions blur genre lines, foreground lyricism, and demonstrate genuine attention to how sentences are built — not just what they say.
What Cassie is looking for
Cassie is drawn to literary fiction with a quiet speculative current underneath — not full genre fantasy, but stories where reality bends just enough to unsettle. Atmospheric writing in which setting, language, and pacing work together to build dread or wonder is a top priority. Work that feels rooted in a specific, strange place is especially welcome.
Structure itself should feel like a choice, not a default. Cassie wants novels where form carries meaning — fractured timelines, unusual points of view, or architecture that surprises. This is distinct from merely fragmented work; the innovation should serve the story.
Poets who migrate to longer prose or verse-novel forms are a specific draw. Cassie is equally interested in novellas-in-verse, and welcomes writers whose primary training is in poetry.
Queer stories that challenge or reinvent what coming-of-age even means — not just identity-journey narratives but work that uses queerness to reshape the genre's conventions entirely.
Novels centering women who are alone but not lonely, whose inner lives are rich with fantasy and desire, and who keep secrets from the reader as much as from other characters. The Moshfegh school: detached, darkly funny, often morally ambiguous.
Cassie wants the full extremity: female characters who are genuinely, unredeemably transgressive, and prose in which the senses — taste, touch, smell — do heavy narrative work. This is not edginess for its own sake; the darkness should feel purposeful and controlled.
Stories that use sport as a lens to examine — and complicate — conventional ideas of masculinity. Cassie is not looking for straightforward sports narratives but for books that twist the frame.
Stories drawing on cultural folklore or fairy-tale traditions from underrepresented communities — but without the world-building apparatus of fantasy. The magic or myth should feel embedded in lived experience, not in constructed systems.
Novels in which a small number of characters are compressed into a tight physical or social space — a weekend, a house, an island — generating tension from proximity rather than plot.
Cassie welcomes fiction in which large systemic concerns — climate, race, history — are present as context and pressure rather than as overt subject matter. The story is human and specific; the big idea gives it weight.
Work that is genuinely strange and resists easy genre labeling. If a writer's most honest pitch is 'I don't know what shelf this belongs on,' Cassie is often the right reader for it.
Essay collections that blend personal experience with rigorous research, and that use structure as an expressive tool. Cassie is particularly interested in essays by poets or writers with a lyric sensibility — not just fragmented work but nonfiction with genuine formal ambition.
Memoir that experiments with what memoir can be — blurring the line between memory and invention, or using lyric fragmentation to approach the unspeakable. Not just nonlinear, but formally adventurous in ways that justify the form.
Nonfiction rooted in Southern experience, culture, and landscape — across all subgenres. Cassie is based in rural North Carolina and has genuine personal investment in this territory.
Nonfiction exploring what happens after the standard coming-of-age moment: young womanhood, early adulthood, the messy years that don't fit neat developmental categories.
Narrative history that finds strange, overlooked angles rather than retelling familiar stories, and personal essays that use pop culture as a mirror for examining the self.
Cassie considers graphic nonfiction only when the writer is also the illustrator — this is a firm gate, not a preference. Collaborative projects where a separate illustrator is involved are not a fit.
Cassie is open to translations, though this is listed without elaboration — writers in this space should have a clear pitch for why this work in English, now.
Not the right fit
On Cassie's list
Taste fingerprint
How to query Cassie
Confirm the form is open before preparing your submission — it was confirmed closed as of June 2026 and there is no announced reopening window.
Lead your query letter with what the work does formally and linguistically, not just what it is about. Cassie's primary filter is voice and structure; a generic plot summary will not land.
If you are a poet writing prose or nonfiction, say so explicitly and early — Cassie treats this background as a meaningful credential, not just a fun fact.
If your work touches on Southern place and culture, name that setting prominently; Cassie has a personal and professional investment in Southern narratives.
Because Cassie thinks like a publicist as well as an agent, a brief, clear sense of your target reader — not a marketing plan, just an honest sentence about who this is for — will signal that you've thought beyond the manuscript.
Avoid describing your work as genre-straddling without being specific. Cassie embraces hybridity, but the query must show what the book actually does, not just that it defies categorization.
For graphic nonfiction, confirm upfront that you are the sole illustrator — submissions where a separate artist is involved are outside scope.
Name the specific formal or structural choice that makes your book unusual. Cassie is drawn to work where structure is a decision, not a default.