Miriam Altshuler is a literary agent with DeFiore and Company. She began her career at Russell & Volkening, where she worked for twelve years with such writers as Anne Tyler, Eudora Welty, Joseph Campbell, Nadine Gordimer, and Bernard Malamud. In 1994 she established her own agency, which she ran for twenty-one years until she joined DeFiore and Company in early 2016.
Miriam specializes in adult literary and commercial fiction, narrative nonfiction, and books for children.
First and foremost, she responds to voice and stories that are character-driven. She searches for books that draw her in and give her a new perspective on a world she doesnÕt know, or make her think more deeply about a world she does know. Miriam seeks books with a heart and writers with wonderful storytelling abilities.
In fiction, she is most interested in family sagas, historical novels, and stories that offer a new twist or retelling of some kind. She does not work with adult romance, sci fi, or fantasy.
In nonfiction, she loves memoir, narrative nonfiction, and self-help (as long as it is not too prescriptive). She particularly responds to books that have an important cultural, social, or psychological focus.
For childrenÕs books, she focuses primarily on YA and middle grade, and her tastes vary broadly in those areas. It always comes back to the voice and the heart of a story for her.