Jay Mandel

Jay Mandel is the worldwide head of books at WME and has been a literary agent there since 2001. He began his career at The Writers Shop (nee the Virginia Barber Literary Agency) in 1994.

Jay represents a wide range of both fiction and nonfiction – from international literary work to suspense thrillers, investigative journalism, political theory, history, popular science, business, technology writing, memoir, and sports content. Among the clients he represents are New York Times Magazine staff writer Sam Anderson, journalist and historian Lesley MM Blume, documentarian Ken Burns, historian Alexis Coe, essayist and novelist Sloane Crosley, mathematician/writer Jordan Ellenberg, Atlantic contributor David Frum, syndicated columnist and co-founder of The Dispatch Jonah Goldberg, the twice Booker shortlisted Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid, the author of the international bestseller I Am Pilgrim Terry Hayes, activist, writer and podcaster Amanda Knox, novelist and historian Brad Meltzer, science writer Mary Roach, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Along with a query letter, for fiction, please include the first three chapters of your manuscript, and for nonfiction, please include your proposal. Please have Word files of your material ready upon request.