Monica MacSwan

I joined Aitken Alexander in 2018, and am now an Associate Agent. I started my career in publishing at Felicity Bryan Associates and Profile Books, and then went on to work in translation rights at United Agents. Since 2020, I’ve worked in the books department at Aitken Alexander.

I am actively building my own list of authors, which includes the poet Belinda Zhawi; CEO of the dating app Feeld, Ana Kirova; and journalists Moya Lothian-McLean, Janey Starling, Anna Cafolla, and Peter Apps, whose book Show Me The Bodies won the 2023 Orwell Prize for Political Writing. In fiction, I represent the novelist Nicola Dinan, whose debut Bellies was shortlisted for the Polari First Book Award and the Diverse Book Awards, longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, as well as Onyi Nwabineli, whose debut Someday, Maybe was a Good Morning America Book Club pick. I also work with the poet and novelist Aea Varfis-van Warmelo, Guardian commentator Lola Okolosie and novelists Phoebe McIntosh, Divya Maniar and Lorenzo Mandelli, who was shortlisted for The White Review Short Story Prize and the Desperate Literature Prize.

In fiction, I’m drawn to tightly-plotted literary novels that have both a clear premise and purpose, and which pay careful attention to style, language and form. Some books which I think do this exceptionally are Milkman by Anna Burns, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, Blindness by José Saramago, Penance by Eliza Clark, Year of the Runaways and The Spoiled Heart by Sunjeev Sahota, Tremor by Teju Cole, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragrasam and Couplets by Maggie Millner. I also admire novels that are funny and use wit to make sense of their frustrations with the world like Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters and The Topeka School by Ben Lerner.

In non-fiction, I like to read books by academics, critics and journalists who want to shift public discourse by putting forward a new framework for their subject of expertise. Good examples are Putin’s People by Catherine Belton, The Spirit Level by Richard G. Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, Revolting Prostitutes by Molly Smith and Juno Mac, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk and The Windrush Betrayal by Amelia Gentleman. I would also love to read a music book by a critic or artist on genre, creativity or social politics, which does something like what Dan Hancox’s Inner City Pressure does for London and grime.

I also enjoy reading non-fiction that mines the uniquely personal to reflect on much larger structures of power, such as Doppelganger by Naomi Klein, In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong, Free by Lea Ypi and Afropean by Johny Pitts. 

Outside of the agency, I have written about books for Bad Form and gal-dem.

Please be in touch with Monica for all enquiries regarding Emma Paterson clients: monica@aitkenalexander.co.uk

Monica also handles speaking engagements for Emma Paterson and Clare Alexander’s clients, including Jung Chang, Rachel Clarke, Shon Faye, Armando Iannucci and Rory Stewart. Please be in touch with her for any enquiries.