Hana El Niwairi, Rights Manager
Hana El Niwairi is the Rights Manager at CookeMcDermid. She leads the rights team in representing the works of agency authors outside of North America: in Asia, Europe, the UK, and more. Since 2017, Hana and her team have placed agency books into over 50 territories around the globe. These include: #1 New York Times bestselling poet Rupi Kaur's the sun and her flowers and home body; internationally bestselling author Thomas Olde Heuvelt's HEX and Echo; Karen Lord’s 2024 Women’s Prize longlisted The Blue, Beautiful World; 2021 Canada Reads contender Natalie Zena Walschot's Hench; Dr. Britt Wray's Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis; and Alicia Elliott's And Then She Fell, among others. Prior to joining the publishing industry, she worked in the non-profit, arts, and culture sectors with organizations such as the Book and Periodical Council, Culture Days, and Paprika Festival. She is a graduate of Humber College's Arts Administration and Cultural Management program and holds an Honours BA (Specialization in Creative Writing and English Literature with a Major in Psychology) from Western University. Outside of her role at the agency, Hana is also one of the co-founders of BIPOC of Publishing in Canada.
Hana's tastes are eclectic and she reads widely across genres. She has a soft spot for science fiction and fantasy and in recent years has been particularly enjoying romance and thrillers. Across genres, she’s drawn to character-driven stories, featuring morally grey protagonists, ‘difficult’ women, and commercial fiction written by and about marginalized communities. Additionally, in her (somewhat futile) pursuit to learn everything, ever, Hana is an avid reader of non-fiction, particularly politics, social science, media criticism, science, and history. She is keenly interested in non-fiction exploring systemic issues and how they play out in the day-to-day lives of the average person.
Hana is building a small list of clients and is open to queries from authors working the genres listed below.
HANA IS CURRENTLY SEEKING:
Science Fiction & Fantasy (adult and YA)
Romance: works in the vein of Emily Henry's Beach Read or Mia Sosa's The Worst Best Man.
Book Club fiction
Thrillers
Well-researched and accessible non-fiction in various topics including but not limited to: politics, social justice issues, pop culture and media, sciences, and history.
Examples of recent favourites: Elaine Castillo’s How to Read Now, Ethan Cross’s Chatter, Johnny Pitts’s Afropean, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s The Disordered Cosmos
HANA IS CURRENTLY NOT SEEKING:
Literary fiction
Middle Grade, Picture Books and Children’s literature (unless specified above)
Lifestyle
Cookery
Poetry