Meet Our Agents
Jack Fogg and Ben Dunn have over 50 years of combined experience in publishing, working their way up from editorial assistants to publishers and managing directors of their own lists at major publishing houses. They have worked with many bestselling authors who have won and been shortlisted for literary awards across fiction and non-fiction. They formed their own agency in 2021, having worked together for nearly two decades.
Ben Dunn
I am happy to consider submissions in the following areas:
Fiction: Reading group, women’s fiction, speculative fiction.
Non-fiction: Memoir, narrative-led non-fiction, nature writing, media tie-in (TV, Radio, Social Media, Podcast), pop-science, and big ideas.
I am a literary agent with 30 years’ publishing experience.
Over the last few years, I have built up a select list of authors, working with them in the UK, internationally and, where relevant, for film and TV. I also work with a number of talent agencies, helping artists prepare and sell their book projects.
Prior to setting up DunnFogg, I spent 25 years as a publisher working at HarperCollins, 4th Estate, Hodder, and latterly as managing director at Bonnier Books, and publishing director at Century/Arrow, during 6 years at Penguin Random House.
I have worked with many high-profile authors, winning the British Book Awards, Book of The Year, and being nominated for Imprint of the Year twice.
For fiction, I enjoy original, well-drawn characters, unusual plots and writing that extends the margins of what is traditionally expected within a genre. I am drawn to unique voices, and often novels written with subtle humour, not ‘funny’ novels per se, but writing that stands out as different and unexpected. I love The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian Miller, In The Distance by Hernan Diaz as well as The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden alongside the incredible writing of Emily St. John Mandel, Taffy Brodesser-Akner and Donna Tartt. But I’m also drawn to powerful main characters like those of Naoise Dolan, Oyinkin Braithwaite, and Ottessa Moshfegh.
I made my start in publishing in the late ’90s, just as it was embracing popular culture as a genre, and the wider audience that came with it. This led me into a career of following and anticipating trends, and I have continued that course into my time as an agent. Aside from our profile-led non-fiction, much of our work can be encapsulated within the mantra that the idea is king. We look for work that is the perfect synergy of writing by an expert voice, married to a new and exciting idea that more often than not provides some form of ‘utility’ to the reader. Two of my most recent books that echo this mantra are Jessica Davies’ incredible call-to-arms about online female health, No One Wants To See Your D*ck, and Kate Bryan and David Shrigley’s How to Art, a book that demystifies the traditionally rarified world of art.
Jack Fogg
I am happy to consider submissions in the following areas:
Fiction: speculative fiction, historical fiction, upmarket crime and thriller.
Non-fiction: Memoir, narrative-led non-fiction, nature, food, sport, psychology, business, craft and design, social sciences, investigative journalism.
I started my publishing career at Bloomsbury in 2004, and went on to work at 4th Estate, Hodder, Penguin Random House and Harper Fiction and Harper Non-Fiction over a seventeen-year career as an editor and publisher.
In 2018 I was nominated as editor of the year at the British Book Awards and in 2019 I set up the multiple award-winning Mudlark imprint at HarperCollins, which concentrates on quality non-fiction of all varieties.
In fiction, I’m drawn to books which combine compelling storytelling, engaging characters and strong plotting. I particularly love novels of ambition and scope, which are full of big-hearted characters and aren’t afraid to entertain. Some of my favourites include The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, the Slow Horses series by Mick Herron, Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon, the Shardlake series by CJ Sansom, and the Jackson Brodie novels by Kate Atkinson.
When I worked at Penguin Random House, I commissioned and published the Wool trilogy by Hugh Howey and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and I would love to find books that could sit alongside these. Stories with a speculative edge, which introduce an element of the unknown into real-world settings, or throw forward into imaginable versions of our future.
In non-fiction, my tastes are broad, and I read widely in the areas of memoir, current affairs, politics, biography, sport, history, psychology, pop science, food and nature writing.
I’m especially drawn to great narrative non-fiction which has a deep focus and then expands outwards to explain a whole culture or subculture – books such as Dark Money by Jane Meyer or Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. I also love memoir or biography which simultaneously brings to life a time, place and personality, and favourites include The Return by Hisham Matar, Super-Infinite by Katherine Rundell and Open by Andre Agassi. And I’m a sucker for a great piece of immersive journalism, of any variety and on any topic, where the writer really embeds themselves in the story they’re reporting. Bill Buford’s brilliant books on Italian and French cuisine are particular favourites.
As a publisher and agent, I’ve worked on books by investigative journalists, chefs, war veterans and reporters, carpenters, composers, comedians, heart surgeons, rock stars, car designers, neuroscientists, submariners, shoemakers and street artists, and the great lesson I took from my time working with them is that any subject, person, field, niche or subculture can be made interesting by powerful storytelling, passion and knowledge. I’m always on the lookout for people who want to marry their love and expertise of a subject with great writing.