David Patterson

About the Agent

David Patterson represents a wide variety of narrative and idea-driven nonfiction and literary fiction, with an emphasis on journalists, public figures, scholars, and performers. His clients include Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists, winners of the Polk and Livingston Awards, and contributors and writers on the staff of The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Texas Monthly, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Slate, Salon, The Awl, The Morning News, McSweeney’s, Oxford American, The Believer, and other fine places. David has been involved in publishing since his graduation from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a degree in English, Highest Honors, in 1996. After completing an internship at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, David worked for several years at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, DC, and then worked for over a decade as an editor at PublicAffairs and then Henry Holt and Company. David serves on the board of the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, organized by the journalism program at the University of North Texas, and is an adjunct faculty member at the Goucher College MFA program in creative nonfiction. He is married, with two children, and lives in Brooklyn. His children's interests have informed his own over the last several years, which has led to an increased or renewed interest in soccer (you can call it football, or fútbol, or calcio, if you want), graphic arts, music, and theatre. He grew up in the North Carolina Piedmont with a mother from and deep family roots in Puerto Rico, and his list represents and aspires to represent the most perceptive authors and books about Americana and Latinidad.