Manuscript Wish List

Manuscript Wish List

Manuscript Wish List (often referred by its hashtag, #MSWL) is a grassroots movement and specialized database that serves as a bridge between writers and the industry’s “gatekeepers.” It is essentially a public, ongoing brainstorm where literary agents and editors list the specific stories, tropes, and voices they are most desperate to find in their inboxes.

The goal of MSWL is to make the querying process more transparent and targeted. Rather than writers “querying into the void” based on broad genre labels, MSWL allows them to find agents whose personal tastes align with specific elements of their manuscript—like a “grumpy/sunshine” dynamic, a specific historical setting, or a magic system based on lost dialects.