Catherine Cho is the founder of Paper Literary and a published author-agent who hunts for transatlantic reading-group fiction and select YA — stories so transportive that readers immediately want to press them into someone else's hands.
In brief
Catherine founded Paper Literary in 2021 after senior roles at Folio (New York) and Curtis Brown (London) — her transatlantic network and in-house editorial style are among the agency's defining advantages.
Her stated wishlist skews heavily literary and upmarket, with a clear bias toward debut writers; her comps cluster around NYT-bestselling, prize-adjacent titles, signalling genuine commercial ambition alongside literary taste.
She is herself a published author — her memoir *Inferno* was a Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year finalist and an NYT Book Review Editors' Choice — which means she reads submissions with a writer's eye and is unusually attuned to voice.
Her taste map spans a wide tonal range: multi-generational family sagas, speculative/fantastical premises, dark-but-funny voice-driven fiction, and love stories all sit comfortably on the same list, suggesting she prioritises emotional resonance over genre category.
Despite listing non-fiction categories in some directories, her agency page and wishlist language centre squarely on fiction; writers with non-fiction projects should verify current appetite before submitting.
Lately
She has described herself as actively building her list with an emphasis on debut writers, and frames the experience of being transported by a book as the quality she is most chasing in submissions — the feeling that makes a reader immediately want to pass the book on to someone else.
What Catherine is looking for
This is her core list. She wants novels with the emotional heft and word-of-mouth magnetism of book-club favourites — stories readers finish and immediately need to share. Character-driven family sagas, multi-generational narratives, and richly observed relationship stories are particular sweet spots. Think intimate in focus, expansive in scope.
Voice is a dealbreaker for her — she pursues narrators that feel wholly original and impossible to imitate. Whether the prose is spare or lush, the voice must feel lived-in and inevitable. She gravitates toward books that use an unforgettable perspective to illuminate something true about the world.
She is drawn to literary novels that also carry a strong conceptual premise — books where the 'what if' or the structural conceit gives readers a reason to pick it up, but the writing and characters are what make them stay. The hook should feel organic, not gimmicky.
She actively wants speculative premises — magical realism, time travel, dystopian settings, the fantastical woven through the literary. The concept should feel bold and original, but the emotional core must be just as strong as in any of her character-driven picks. Themes of ghosts, time, and houses-as-characters appear repeatedly in her stated interests.
She has a soft spot for books that find warmth, wit, or absurdity in difficult subject matter — not comic relief that undercuts the story, but a genuine tonal balance where humour deepens rather than deflects the emotional stakes.
She wants love stories with genuine literary ambition — not category romance, but novels in which love (romantic or otherwise) is the engine driving a larger, more expansive story. The emotional payoff should feel earned over the length of the book.
She is interested in suspense when it is anchored in psychology and character rather than plot mechanics — the kind of thriller where the tension comes from who these people are and what they are capable of, not just what happens next.
She takes select YA, with the strongest signal pointing toward fantasy and crossover projects. Her appetite here is narrower than in adult fiction — the bar is high and the project needs to feel distinctive rather than derivative of existing popular series.
Not the right fit
On Catherine's list
Taste fingerprint
How to query Catherine
Send directly to the Paper Literary submissions address — put your full name and manuscript title in the subject line, exactly as the guidelines specify.
Attach a one-page synopsis and the first three chapters (target approximately 10,000 words) as a single document; do not paste them in the body of the email.
You will receive an automated acknowledgement upon submission — treat that as confirmation your work has been received; do not follow up unless you have a full manuscript request or offer of representation from another agent.
If another agent offers representation or requests your full manuscript, email immediately with 'Full MS request' or 'Offer of Representation' in the subject line — she has explicitly asked for this.
Simultaneous submissions are actively encouraged; she does not expect exclusivity, so query widely in parallel.
Lead your query letter with the emotional core and the central relationship or concept — her comps reveal that what moves her most is a story with both a strong hook and deep human stakes, so make sure both are present in your opening paragraph.
If you are a debut writer, say so clearly and early — she has made developing new talent a stated priority, and debuts are not a liability here, they are a selling point.
Mirror her tonal range when positioning your book: if your novel is dark but funny, or literary but high-concept, name that duality explicitly — she has shown appetite for books that hold more than one register at once.
Themes she has flagged as personal fascinations include ghosts, multi-generational family secrets, magic, time travel, expat communities, and houses as settings with emotional weight — if any of these are present in your manuscript, make that visible in the query.