Cynthia Cannell Literary Agency

In DISTURBED IN THEIR NESTS, coming from Blackstone in Nov. 2018, 19 year-old Sudanese refugee Alephonsion Deng is greeted by suburban mom Judy Bernstein at the International Rescue Committee in San Diego. Their memoir recounts the initial collision of their cultures, growing trust, and ultimate friendship in adjusting Alepho to his new country, and reveals two very different ideas about America and its promises.
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With precision and grace, award-winning author Jane Brox traces the evolution of silence in society. Through the specific histories of the Senanque monastery in France and the first silent prison, Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, SILENCE (Houghton Mifflin, 2019) explores the harrowing power of silence and our often fraught relationship with communication and solitude.
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In her debut collection YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), Mary South’s characters use technology to escape their uncontrollable feelings of grief or rage or despair, only to reveal their most flawed and human selves. These 10 stories feature an impressive range of voices, alternatingly provocative, wistful, and calculatingly disaffected in prose that is fiercely intelligent and outlandishly funny.
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Aaron Thier's novel THE WORLD IS A NARROW BRIDGE (Bloomsbury, 2018) is a road novel for our times, and a story of love in an age of catastrophe.
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Encompassing ten short stories, Jeffery Renard Allen's forthcoming collection FAT TIME (Graywolf Press, 2020) is loosely linked around African notions of time and place, along with African views of space, cosmology, and metaphysics. Taken together, these ten stories represent a contemporary master at the top of his craft.
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In Mary South’s forthcoming UNTITLED NOVEL (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), women are turning into common household objects, such as vacuums, microwave ovens, and flatscreen televisions. The novel’s protagonist observes this process as a nurse at a hospice for women of the 1%, where only the rich and the famous can receive adequate care while enduring such a painful and unusual change.
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Mary Rodgers Guettel was Richard Rodgers's daughter, a noted composer, author, and arts doyenne in her own right and the sharpest tongue in show biz. Her posthumous memoir SHY: The Autobiography of Mary Rodgers Guettel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020), written with New York Times co-chief theater critic Jesse Green, is broader than a memoir, more personal than a biography, more true than a novel, yet contains elements of each.
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Elvia Wilks' OVAL (Soft Skull Press, 2019) is a deeply imaginative work of literary fiction that reflects the way Berlin has changed and paints a portrait of this culture-capital today and soon. This memorable debut styles and recreates the city, prompting us to consider an unsettling and yet all-too-plausible future in which imminent change becomes undeniable.
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In HOW TO ARGUE WITH A CAT, from Rodale Books in the US and Penguin Press UK, rhetoric expert Jay Heinrichs has teamed up with illustrator Natalie Sutton to show how cats can teach us the ancient art of persuasion. In this funny and informative book, both young and adult readers will learn how cats apply rhetoric to get whatever they want, and how we can too.
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The House of Boivin, purveyor of sumptuous jewelry, created five ruby and amethyst starfish brooches in the years before WWII which have moved beneath the surface of public awareness ever since, bought and sold in the utmost secrecy. DIVING FOR STARFISH (St. Martins, 2018) is Cherie Burns’s chronicle of these artifacts, the secrets they've held in the 75 years they've adorned the high societies of New York and Paris, and the larger-than-life personalities who feature in their tale.
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Cynthia is far more than a great agent—and she is certainly that (after all, she sold my book). But she is also a darn good editorial thinker, a shaper of ideas, and a wise head in an industry that is ever more challenged. She is a crackerjack advocate for her writers in negotiations, widely read and networked, and the best sounding board I could wish for.
−Keith Bellows, SVP/Editor in Chief, National Geographic Travel Media; Editor in Chief, National Geographic Traveler and author of 100 PLACES THAT CAN CHANGE YOUR CHILD'S LIFE
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Ten years ago I sent Cynthia a crazy idea for my first book, on a subject I knew almost nothing about. She helped me shape the proposal, sold the book to a division of Random House, garnered a slew of foreign advances; and, after that book did well, sold my second book for more money. That should tell you all you need to know about Cynthia’s agenting. Yes, she’s smart, warm and funny, patient and dogged, and blunt when it’s good for you (a rare trait in the flattery-sodden world of publishing). But Cynthia is foremost a business partner—one of the best in the business.
−Jay Heinrichs, journalist, publishing executive and author of THANK YOU FOR ARGUING
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Cynthia Cannell has been my literary agent for over a decade and, from the beginning, I’ve trusted her implicitly. She has always been frank, supportive, and professional; perhaps most essentially, I know she is interested not only in each book, but in my life as a writer. Having her as my agent allows me to fully concentrate on my writing and offers me an immense sense of stability in the volatile world of publishing.
−Jane Brox, author of BRILLIANT: THE EVOLUTION OF ARTIFICIAL LIGHT and CLEARING LAND: LEGACIES OF THE AMERICAN FARM
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I joined Cynthia Cannell’s organization because she was the agent to recognize and sign on the best and most difficult of my student writers. Cynthia is an excellent and generous reader; she responds to questions—the sensible and not so sensible ones. She solves problems and is willing to deal with some unusual material. I think of her with personal affection.
−Lore Segal, award-winning fiction writer and translator, author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist SHAKESPEARE'S KITCHEN: STORIES
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Cynthia Cannell did not find me in a gutter, but the effect was similar. She was confident and steadfast about my work when I was apprehensive and jittery. She coaxed me along patiently, sternly and always, always, kindly. She made it possible for me to write a book and now to write another, and she found a way to make that pay. For that but even more for the work and guidance I am grateful.
−Sam Sifton, Senior Editor, The New York Times and author of THANKSGIVING: HOW TO COOK IT WELL
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Our authors are united by their high level of creativity, integrity and seriousness of purpose. We take pride in the personal attention we provide, and in our depth of knowledge and experience in the publishing industry.

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Our authors are united by their high level of creativity, integrity and seriousness of purpose. We take pride in the personal attention we provide, and in our depth of knowledge and experience in the publishing industry.

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