Howard Yoon

Advisor

Howard Yoon is a literary agent at the RossYoon Agency based in Washington, DC. He has worked in the publishing industry as an agent, writer, ghostwriter and editor for the last 19 years and speaks regularly on writing and publishing. He also teaches narrative nonfiction at Georgetown University for the Masters of Journalism program. In previous lives, he was a house DJ, a food columnist for NPR.org’s Kitchen Window series, and a collaborator on several book projects. He lives in Washington, DC, with his dog Bailey, just half a block from Ben’s Chili Bowl.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Sitting on the couch on a cold day reading a good book, a fire in the fireplace, with my dog curled up next to me. There’s a chicken roasting in the oven and in the background I can hear my son laughing.

Who are your favorite heroes/heroines of fiction?

Jay Gatsby

Who would you have liked to be?

Zinedine Zidane in the 1998 World Cup. Johnny Greenwood on the OK Computer Tour. Han Solo.

Living or dead, who would you invite to your ideal dinner party?

Not sure if I’d want to have dinner with the dead. They’d spend the whole evening asking questions like, “So how does a lightbulb work again?” Or “What is an email?” But if I had to, Mark Twain and Winston Churchill would be at the top of my dead list. My living guest list is too long to name, but I would seat Kanye at a table with Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, and Ian McEwan, Frank Gehry with Jon Stewart, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Philip Roth by himself, near the kitchen.