twitter: @heatherannecarr

Heather Carr, Agent & Contracts Director

If I’m being perfectly honest, I never imagined a career in book publishing. As a kid growing up in the Pacific Northwest, specifically the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, the publishing industry did not exist in my mind as a real field one could work in. I grew up as the youngest of a complex, blended family with ten siblings and step-siblings, and made a name for myself in second grade convincing my classmates that god couldn’t possibly exist (“I mean look at the evidence, it’s just clouds up there!” I argued). I eventually found my way from Catholic school to a tiny public arts school where I was immersed in visual and performing arts (think Fame but suburban and nerdier). I focused on film photography and dance, drawn to the rigor of the latter and the sheer magic of the former.  

Novelty, a scholarship, and a music conservatory brought me to a small liberal arts college in Appleton, Wisconsin where I majored in English and continued to study classical piano. Studying English felt a little like cheating—reading is interdisciplinary by nature. It was that same appetite for doing a little of everything and moving from a core of curiosity that made a career as an agent so intriguing, once I discovered it existed. After working as an assistant at Trident Media Group for two and a half years I joined The Friedrich Agency in March of 2018.  

I have wide-ranging tastes and seek to represent writers who are also driven by curiosity and discovery, whether through formal inventiveness in fiction, like in Kiese Laymon’s LONG DIVISION, or through rigorous investigative journalism like in Patrick Radden Keefe’s SAY NOTHING. I’m often drawn to poets who have turned their hand to prose—I’ll always be interested in a writer whose dexterity with language allows them to articulate an emotion or sensibility that I’ve not previously been able to describe. Growing up in the land of glittery freezing fog and moss-draped forests, I love a moody atmosphere and setting-as-character. I was a firm believer in magic as a child so I don’t shy away from the fantastical in literary and upmarket fiction. I particularly enjoy when genre elements are used to explore the places where language fails us.  

My goal is to build a list that reflects a full range of perspectives from here in the U.S. and around the globe. Most of what I learned of my own history and that of this country comes from a life of reading, and I’m always humbled to read writers who have been historically sidelined. When I stop to reflect, I’m deeply honored that writers trust me with their work and that I get to have this job. I’m passionate about working towards a brighter and more inclusive publishing industry so that all who want to can see themselves thriving in this business. 

Five non-agency books I loved: DETRANSITION, BABY; PIRANESI; IDAHO; FRESHWATER; STRANGERS TO OURSELVES 

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Q&A

1. If you could name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?

I’m not a big re-reader but I’ve now read I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith at three different times in my life. The funny thing is, I don't think I could even provide a plot summary if I wanted to. Which has led me to recommend this book to all sorts of people for the wrong reasons—I tell them it'll cheer them up, and they call me to say they were in tears. Or I mean to give them something wistful and they tell me it's charming. I think that's its beauty—it can transform to be whatever the reader needs it to be. At its core it's a coming of age story about a woman growing into herself and realizing how lonely that can be, but how beautiful, too. Early in the book, the narrator, Cassandra, is sitting in the castle’s kitchen sink, looking out the window into the golden evening, and it's that feeling I chase as a reader: the world unfolding before me, and the glorious anticipation of something new to encounter on the page. 

2. What books are on your nightstand?

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang, The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield 

3. Last book that made you cry?

I’m an easy crier—give me a moving commercial, a talented musician, or don’t you start crying—so the bar is low. I last cried reading Alyssa Songsiridej’s Little Rabbit. She gets the gut-punch of a complicated friendship so right (among other things!).

4. What are you NOT looking for?

• Memoir 

• Business books 

• Self-help or prescriptive nonfiction 

• Books for young readers 

• Cookbooks 

• Poetry 

• Military fiction or nonfiction 

• Gift books