Jane Finigan

I am open to submissions. I don't take on a huge number of new clients but I am always keen to hear from writers with a strong story to tell. The below is quite a convoluted outline of what I'm looking for but, in short: if you are excited about your book and you feel like you have a distinctive voice on the page, then try me...

First and foremost I’m looking for refreshing narratives: books which surprise, delight, move and challenge me. I am drawn to intelligent, fresh prose often laced with a dark wit.

My list is small but mighty and spans fiction and non-fiction. I collaborate closely with my authors and take great care to help bring a manuscript or proposal to its best possible incarnation.

A list of my favourite books (not represented by L&R) looks something like this. In fiction: All My Puny Sorrows, Beloved, Sorrow & Bliss, Catch-22 anything by Elizabeth Strout, Hamnet, Heart Burn, Revolutionary Road, Assembly the Cazalet novels. I have also read every Agatha Christie novel and I would love to find a sleuth as unexpected, devious and addictive as Jane Marple. In non-fiction: The Story of Art Without Men, Do No Harm, Far From the Tree, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, Notes to Self, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Three Women, The Psychopath Test and Stuart A Life Backwards.

My other great loves include The Sopranos and Harold and Maude.

I oversee the Rights and Contracts Department at the agency and work closely with Prema and Lily to ensure that the books we represent develop in as many ways as possible be that through translation and overseas deals, audio or film and TV. I have experience in negotiating brand and paid partnership deals and am always interested in considering new and creative ways to help my authors reach readers.

I joined Sarah and Felicity at the helm of the agency becoming a full partner and co-owner of Lutyens & Rubinstein in 2023. I began my literary career with them too, joining the agency in 2006 as an assistant then Rights Manager and then establishing my own list in 2010 and becoming a partner in 2016. I love the company’s ethos; the collaborative and supportive nature of our agency is reflected in the way we work with our clients who benefit from our collegiate approach.

Between them my authors have won or been nominated for the Man Booker Prize; the Women’s Prize for Fiction; the Costa Prize, the Desmond Elliot; the Guardian First Book Award, the Encore Prize, the Debut, Golden and Historical CWA daggers, the Ondaatje Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Carnegie Medal, the Branford Boase, the André Simon, Fortnum & Masons and OFM Food Writing Awards and been selected for Granta’s Best Young British Novelist as well as Reece Witherspoon, Richard & Judy and Waterstones bookclubs.

I don't use social media, so do not look for me there.

Country

United Kingdom

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