Lucy Carson

Good research pass. Here's the synthesis: Lucy Carson is currently **closed to queries** via the agency's submission page, so double-check status before sending. When open, she's wanted a query + 5 sample pages via Query Manager, one agent only, no attachments (paste in-body). On taste: she's explicitly said she has "a particular weakness for voice-forward fiction that asks complicated questions about the intersection of tech, media, and modern relationships," reads widely across thrillers, horror, sci-fi, and magical realism, and finds that "the hardest to definitively categorize are the ones that most readily seduce me." She's also said she wants a novel "in which it's clear the author is surprising themselves with what they're discovering about themselves and the world through their characters and isn't obsessed with seeming morally good," and separately asked for bold, risk-taking structural mysteries and a non-horror literary novel set in a cemetery. On dislikes: she's firm that she's "NOT (and never shall be!) looking for any of the following: screenplays, self-help, cookbooks, photography books, poetry, picture books, middle grade or young adult fiction" (she still manages legacy kidlit clients but takes no new ones there), and craft-wise she dislikes manuscripts that introduce too many characters or try too hard to be clever with mixed media and "found documents," since that makes her feel un-welcomed into the story. Her client list (Elizabeth Strout, Ruth Ozeki, Leila Mottley, Rachel Harrison, Daria Lavelle, Alison Espach, Silvia Park, Terry McMillan) skews upmarket/literary with strong voice and occasional horror/genre-bending, and her recent sales include a futurist eco-novel (*The Greenhouse at the End of the World*) and the debut thriller *Names Have Been Changed*, confirming her pull toward elevated, hard-to-categorize premises. On etiquette, she's tweeted pet peeves: don't send a cover letter as a blank-email attachment with zero context, don't query with a list of a dozen available manuscripts (lead with your strongest one), and skip self-deprecating disclaimers about not having researched agents — she wants queries that show personality alongside the pitch.