ELIAS ALTMAN — agent (joined 2018) — was raised in Vermont, attended Concord Academy, interned at the Huffington Post in 2006, and graduated from the University of Vermont magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in art history and English in 2007. Altman served as a senior editor at Lapham’s Quarterly for seven years, editing anthologized essays by writers like Anne Fadiman, Pico Iyer, Simon Winchester, and Michael Wood. In 2015 he became an agent at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth (now Aevitas Creative Management) and three years later he joined Massie & McQuilkin. Altman has written criticism and personal essays for, among other publications, the Columbia Journalism Review, the Nation, the Georgia Review, and Vogue. As an agent Altman specializes in sharp, moving narratives featuring psychological insight, timeless themes, and strong characters, whether in reported non-fiction, popular history, memoir, or literary fiction. Clients whose books have published recently or are forthcoming include Maggie Doherty (The Equivalents; Knopf), Richard Kreitner (Break It Up; Little, Brown), Alexander Nemerov (Fierce Poise; Penguin Press), Jessica Donati (Eagle Down; PublicAffairs), David Coggins (The Optimist; Scribner), Cassandra Quave (The Plant Hunter; Viking), and Jerad Alexander (Volunteers, Algonquin). Altman also represents journalists, historians, essayists, and scientists like Victor Luckerson, Rosie Gray, Vanessa A. Bee, John Koblin, Prudence Peiffer, Sam Bloch, Noah Kulwin, Yi-Ling Liu, Sarah Esther Maslin, and Katy Walter Anthony.
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