Chris Clemans received his BA in English from Duke University, with a minor in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. After internships at The New Republic and The New York Observer, he began his career in publishing at William Morris Endeavor. In 2014, he left WME to help start The Clegg Agency, where he became an agent. He joined Janklow & Nesbit in 2018.

Chris’s authors have become instant New York Times bestsellers and been honored with numerous awards and distinctions, including a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honor, a National Book Award in Fiction longlist selection, a PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel longlist selection, a Chicago Review of Books Award in Fiction, an Andy Warhol Arts Writers Grant, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Barnes & Noble Book of the Year finalist selection, a Barns & Noble Discover selection, a Center for Fiction First Novel Prize longlist selection, a Chicago Writer’s Association Book of the Year Award, a New American Press Fiction Prize, a Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction finalist selection, multiple High Plains Book Awards in Fiction, multiple New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice selections, and multiple Best Books of the Year selections from The New York Times, NPR, Vogue, and Chicago Tribune, and others.

Recent and upcoming titles include Abundance by Jakob Guanzon, The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata, How Can I Help You by Laura Sims, On Vanishing by Lynn Casteel Harper, Life Is Everywhere by Lucy Ives, The Novelist by Jordan Castro, Future Feeling by Joss Lake, Ruthie Fear by Maxim Loskutoff, Every Other Weekend by Zoela Renee Summerfield, Talent by Juliet Lapidos, Everything is Fine by Vince Granata, The Barrowfields by Phillip Lewis, The Standardization of Demoralization Procedures by Jennifer Hofmann, The Visitors by Jessi Jezewska Stevens, Planes by Peter C. Baker, Accidentally Wes Anderson by Wally Koval, How to Walk on Water by Rachel Swearingen, Letter to a Stranger by Colleen Kinder, Slonim Woods 9 by Daniel Barban Levin, Calling Ukraine by Johannes Lichtman, Minor Prophets by Blair Hurley, Game of Edges by Bruce Schoenfeld, Sucker by Daniel Hornsby, The Sea Elephants by Shastri Akella, Tropicália by Harold Rogers, Ways and Means by Daniel Lefferts, Alive Day by Karie Fugett, Words for my Comrades by Dean Van Nguyen, and End of Active Service by Matt Young.

His taste in fiction tends toward the literary, and on the nonfiction side he’s interested in narrative journalism, cultural criticism, and voice-driven memoir and essays.