Wales Literary is interested in works of narrative nonfiction (creative nonfiction or literary journalism), especially if the work espouses a progressive cultural or political point of view, projects a new voice, or, simply shares an important, compelling story. Wales Literary also supports writers of quality fiction. Fiction or nonfiction, the agency is looking for talented storytellers—with a special interest in writers from the Northwest, Alaska, the West Coast, and what have become known as the Pacific Rim countries.

Founded in 1990, Wales Literary (formerly Levant & Wales) currently represents more than 60 clients and several independent presses. Agency titles have appeared on the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and other national bestseller lists. Agency titles have received excellent reviews and national media attention. The Agency is represented in international rights markets by the list of foreign agencies listed in the rights section of this Website; the Agency subcontracts with individual TV and film agents for television and film representation.

Agency clients have won PEN Awards, American Book Awards, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Literary Award, Lambda Literary Awards, Pushcart Prizes, the Anisfeld-Wolf Book Award, Pacific Northwest Book Awards, Washington State Book Awards, Western States Art Awards, the AWP award, the Polk award, the Harvard Goldsmith Award, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Congress, Pulitzer Prize Finalist, and a Julia Child Literary Food Writing Award. Clients have been recognized with NEA Fellowships, Rockefeller Grants, Guggenheim Awards, Lannan Awards, and numerous other awards, fellowships, and grants.

Elizabeth Wales, owner, travels at least four times a year “back home” to New York, where she started in publishing at Oxford University Press in 1980. She has also worked at the Strand Bookstore and in trade sales and marketing at Viking Penguin. She is a graduate of Smith College, and did graduate work in Literature at Columbia University. She is a member of both the Association of Author’s Representatives, Inc. (AAR) and the Pacific Northwest Writers Association.

Neal Swain, assistant agent, graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in History. She handles foreign rights and supervises the agency’s internship program.

Meg Lemke has joined Teachers College Press at Columbia University as an acquisitions editor. Formerly an agent at Wales, she has also worked as an editor at Seven Stories Press in New York; an assistant editor in Houghton Mifflin’s Adult Trade Division in Boston; and as a bookseller at the University Bookstore in Seattle.

Josie Di Bernardo, former agent, graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in English from the University of Washington. She now works with Epicenter Press in sales and marketing.

Adrienne Reed, consulting agent for special projects and translation sales, with the agency since 1995. She is a graduate of the University of Washington, with a BA in English and Germanics, and formerly worked in marketing for Seattle Arts & Lectures. She speaks German and French.

Dan Levant, Agency co-founder, has retired.

Classic Hikes of the World by Peter Potterfield

Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent by Lyanda Lynn Haupt