Julie Barer is still a relatively new kid on the agenting block, having only started her solo agency in 2005 (after six years with Sanford J. Greenburger.) But she managed to transfer her entire list over and is actively looking for short story writers and some non-fiction.
But as she tells MB’s Aileen Gallagher, she has a hard time selling short story collections. “The problem is that they’re primarily what MFA students work on because they’re easier to workshop than a novel. All these MFA students come out of the program with short stories, but unfortunately most readers don’t buy short-story collections. Most publishers are really looking for novels, if they’re looking for fiction at all.”
For non-fiction, her interests include serious religion, history, biography, women’s studies, and memoir (“despite the current controversy,” she jokes.) Essentially, anything she can “learn something from.”