MSWL: Manuscript Wishlist
————
As a queer woman of color, I am specifically interested in queer and BIPOC fiction. Across all areas of interest, I crave emotionally immersive, voice-y, character-driven projects that make “small stakes” seem big.
General MSWL for 2025
Dark, gritty, fun romps in ROMANCE, HORROR, and DOMESTIC SUSPENSE especially; both Young Adult and Adult. I want to have a good time with bitchy, irredeemable characters who do what they want when they want and have to suffer the consequences. If they have never cared about doing the right, responsible, legal thing they’re already halfway to my heart. I want extroverts with personality and chaotic social lives, please I’m bored and dying. Bonus points if it’s characters in their 20s-30s that feel like they’re living in the 2020s.
With Domestic Suspense, Psychological Thrillers, and Thrillers of that nature: Suburban houses occupied by unhappily married straight couples aren’t the only options for settings and character scenarios! Cities exist! So do apartment buildings and single people with myriad friends/friend groups outside of nosy housewives and the PTA! And really, I would love to read about women whose lives don’t revolve around men in any way.
I want to have fun! I am always a sucker for dark, meaty twists and turns (hello, Lisa Jewell!) but I’d love to see different narrative tones a la the 1999 classic Jawbreaker and Scream (which is a Horror, I know but still applicable and also what I rep!). Doom, gloom, and dread are fantastic ways to doll out a mystery or suspense but not the only way and I am dying to see more narrative variety in the genre.
HORROR that doesn’t take itself too seriously and feels like the narrators are just as unreliable as the potential kill count. I’m bored by single family homes and ancient estates, so let’s change the location and demographic of the characters, please.
ROMANCE with heat and bite—the rom-coms are getting corny and lacking the “com” to begin with.
SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY that pivots away from the rigamarole of royal politics, machinations, knighthood/guards, etc. etc. I want to have some hectic times with the serfdom, please, I beg.
HORROR
I’M DYING FOR YOU TO SCARE ME!
Horror is my first love and nearest and dearest to my heart, so I have to highlight my desperation for more of it, so y’all know how serious I am!
First there was Chucky, then Freddy Kreuger, on to Urban Legend and Jeepers Creepers. These movies were the staples of my childhood, on repeat whenever I could manage. I loved being scared, loved the dramatic hysterics from campy killers/monsters, and the reckless decisions characters would make for the ones they loved. When it’s funny, when it’s horny, when it’s so dark you feel you can’t ever clean the stain out - I love every facet of horror.
Except for whatever the fuck Clockwork Orange is (idc if it’s not a horror, it definitely horrified me!)
I am in desperate need (seriously really begging here, folks) for whatever horror you got. For SLASHERS a la Scream, XXX, and the Fear St movies; bloody, gory sprees where the high body count amplifies the love — and hate — between friends and lovers. Terrifying, invincible SUPERNATURAL FOES conjured from nightmares, grief, fears. GOTHIC hauntings, cursed locales, and folk tales outside of the West. Narratives that play with horror tropes and archetypes in experimental ways. Creeping slow builds and pulpy twists and turns. Seductive yet monstrous lovers (human or not). Found footage that plays with narrative structure would be so fun - note: I might’ve had my fill on MC film makers/podcasters/actors revisiting in-book old movies, I just think there are other ways to approach meta-horror! And, boy, do I crave a meta-horror with something interesting to say.
I want to have fun. I want to be scared. I want to learn new things about how we keep each other close and what makes us devolve so badly murder becomes the only answer (fictionally ofc). I want to see queer Black characters where their main plot isn’t confronting or interacting with Whiteness (I do want real worlds with real lived realities).
What I’m not looking for: traditional haunted house or suburban couple problems (people live in cities, yk!), dark academia, sentient AI, women who are “crazy” or villainess because men.
Adult novels like:
Cuckoo - Gretchen Felker-Martin
Burn The Negative - Josh Winning
The Eyes Are the Best Part - Monika Kim
My Heart is A Chainsaw - Stephen Graham Jones
Jackal - Erin E. Adams
Brainwyrms - Alison Rumfitt
YA novels like:
Hell Followed with Us - Andrew Jacob White
There’s No Way I’d Die First - Lisa Springer
Extasia - Claire Legrand
Rules for Vanishing - Alice Kate Marshall
Clown in A Cornfield - Adam Cesare
Fave Horror film/shows
Swarm
Archive 81
From
Marianne (French)
Talk to Me
Heretic
The Substance
The Village
Cuckoo
Abigail
Mr. Crockett
Young Adult Fiction
(11/01/2024: section to be updated)
Give me the girls with skinned knees and boys with soft hearts and queer kids who couldn't be good if they tried. All the gray morality and friendships they would kill to keep. For real though, if it’s not queer it’s probably not for me.
Contemporary
I only want it if characters and world can be placed within the last 5-10 years. I’m tired of suburbs and bigoted small towns, and want to be dropped right into diverse, inclusive cities.
I like them gritty and angsty to fun and rompy! Not into academically driven, goody-two-shoes characters.
Romance, slice-of-life, to high-concept (easily pitched) and fast paced.
Plots centered around solely overcoming racial/homophobic injustice, trauma, and pain are not really for me.
Think:
HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS AND UNFAIRLY CUTE; I KISSED SHARA WHEELER; YOU SHOULD SEE ME IN A CROWN; WHEN YOU WERE EVERYTHING; FELIX EVER AFTER
Thriller/Mystery
Missing/dead best friends? Secrets too tangled to keep? Single White Female situation but make it competitive cheerleaders? That’s my jam.
Think: I’M THE GIRL; THEY’LL NEVER CATCH US; MONDAY’S NOT COMING; POINTE; TINY PRETTY THINGS; PEOPLE LIKE US
Adult Fiction
Domestic Suspense
Don’t make me read another novel about a suburban white couple whose infertility drives one or both to psychosis.
Think: WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING; THE KILL CLUB; THE GIRL BEFORE (Rena Olsen); SHARP OBJECTS
Please note: I do NOT represent crime procedurals, crime thrillers or military fiction, nor am I interested in stories of that nature.
Romance
Contemporary. Historical. Genre-bending - I want it all ways!
Contemporary: I want current, fresh voices that can be dated between 2015-now.
I have a soft-spot for rom-coms, but also love a good suspenseful romance! In general, I lean away from completely light and fluffy.
No alpha males.
Think: SAVVY SHELDON FEELS GOOD AS HELL; ACT YOUR AGE EVE BROWN; ONE LAST STOP
Sci-Fi/Fantasy & Speculative
Leaning toward standalone and duologies set in more grounded worlds or second-worlds not based on Western societies.
The less moral-save-the-world-with-personal-sacrifice and more intimate and selfish the stakes, the better.
Really craving less swords and fire-light and more modern/technologically advanced worlds.
Think: BLACK WATER SISTER; THE UNBROKEN; GIDEON THE NINTH;
UPMARKET WOMEN’S FICTION/UPMARKET FICTION
Solely interested in BIPOC and queer stories that highlight the lives of millennial queer folks of color within the modern world. This can be exhibited in contemporary, speculative, or other genres. While interested in generational family stories, not interested in historical novels taking place largely before 2010.
Think shows like: Michaela Coel’s HBO series I MAY DESTROY YOU as the tonally vibrant genre-bending, voicey project I’m looking for.
Showtime’s WORK IN PROGRESS which centers co-creator Abby McEnany’s fictionalized self as a 46 year old self-identified fat, queer dyke which balances the levity of mental illness with comedic punch.
Let’s have fun, and get dark, get personal, while also showcasing BIPOC and queer lives outside of singular arcs of pain and suffering. I want the after coming out, the messy, hilarious, poignant moments that make up the little pieces of our lives. I want BIPOC lives within BIPOC communities in stories that don’t center navigating whiteness.
Probably Not For Me
A non-comprehensive list
I DO NOT like Taylor Swift.
Holiday-themed/centered romances
Dragons
Magic schools
Interracial relationship cures racism
American War/veteran stories (I am literally the daughter of a Vietnamese refugee)
Non-genre (like mysteries, horror) stories set in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, early-2000s.
Conventional hero journeys.
Dystopian/Post-apocalyptic worlds, ESPECIALLY if it’s about overthrowing an authoritative power.
An “ordinary/normal” MC discovers they’re magical/mythical creature.
Traditional vampires, werewolves, mythical/paranormal creatures. Something entirely new & inventive like Blade was? LOVE!
I literally hate political thrillers, please never send them to me. Ever.
If it’s set during/about COVID 19, it is an AUTOMATIC PASS.