BARBARA JONES

A white woman in her fifties with blue-green eyes, reddish-brown hair, chin-length hair and bangs.

Barbara Jones is a literary agent with Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency, a leading, independent New York literary agency representing a distinguished list of bestselling and award-winning authors. Jones represents writers of fiction and nonfiction, from highly literary works to more commercial fare, with an emphasis across all forms on voices from previously underrepresented communities and on durable talents and stories.

Previously, she spent several decades as an editor, first in magazines (HARPER’s, VOGUE, REAL SIMPLE) and then in books (as editorial director at Hyperion Books and as an executive editor at Henry Holt). Barbara edited celebrated novels such as TRUST EXERCISE by Susan Choi, which won the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction, and Paul Auster’s Booker-Prize shortlisted novel 4 3 2 1. She published NEW YORK TIMES bestsellers such as Julie Lythcott-Haims’s HOW TO RAISE AN ADULT and Luvvie Ajayi’s I'M JUDGING YOU. Other notable titles include ARCADIA and DELICATE EDIBLE BIRDS, by Lauren Groff, GOODBYE, VITAMIN by Rachel Khong, MY LIFE by Coretta Scott King, MY MONTICELLO by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, NUMBER ONE CHINESE RESTAURANT by Lillian Li, and books by Janice Hadlow, Sebastian Faulks, Jacqueline Novogratz, Christa Parravani and Carl Safina. She has also led writing workshops for 30 years, at Yale University, New York University, Queens University of Charlotte, and elsewhere.

WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR

High quality debut novels and works of narrative nonfiction by writers with several books in them.

SAMPLE TITLES OR AUTHORS

CONFIDENCE and BUGSY & OTHER STORIES, by Rafael Frumkin

THE SWANS OF HARLEM: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and Their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History, by Karen Valby

HOW TO GET ALONG WITHOUT ME, Stories by Kate Axelrod

I WILL DO BETTER: A Grieving Father and his Plucky Little Girl, a memoir by Charles Bock

Other clients include the fiction writers Mohammed Naseehu Ali, Elizabeth Ferris, Russell Hogg, Danielle Lazarin, Isaac Olivers, and the MacArthur Genius Award winner Byllye Avery.

Specializes In

FICTION: Literary Fiction, Commercial Fiction

NONFICTION: Cultural/Social Issues, Investigative Journalism, Memoir, Nature/Ecology, Narrative, Women's Concerns