Samuel Hodder

Sam is not giving one-to-ones this year, but is happy to answer your questions at the Sunday 'Ask the Agent' session, from 12 - 1pm.
If you’re interested in submitting to him at Blake Friedmann, he is keen to see a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books. In literary and contemporary fiction, he loves distinctive voices, dark themes, and complex characters (e.g. Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh, Adele by Leila Slimani, Kevin Barry’s Dark Lies the Island), coming-of-age novels, and novels that explore the loss of innocence, desire, deceit, class, or the world of work. Sam is passionate about LGBTQIA+ stories, in all their glorious diversity, and enjoys a pitch-black or offbeat sense of humour. In historical fiction, he is drawn to novels so immersive they can show readers a different way of thinking and being. His favourite historical novels include The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller and The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gower, and all the novels of Mary Renault! He also welcomes speculative fiction, including fantasy, science-fiction, and the supernatural, where he would like to see novels centred on the characters’ psychological journeys, e.g. the ‘Earthsea’ novels by Ursula K Le Guin, and ‘The Southern Reach Trilogy’ by Jeff VanderMeer.