Agents

Agent leaves lawyering, discovers that agenting doors are not easily opened, perseveres, discovers gold. For agent Theresa Park, it wasn’t love at first site with one of her major clients, but it’s the stuff of legends. Never let it be said that we are not suckers for a heartwarming story. Heck, we cry during the coffee commercials at Christmas (as this is a secret, please do not share this with people). The first novel Park sold was The Notebook, by four-hankie bestseller Nicholas Sparks, and the way in which the author and agent found each other is the kind of […]

Agent Amy Rennert defines her taste as character-based literary fiction. This is a catch-phrase we actually get, thanks to her helpful examples (and, also, meeting Rennert at a conference). All she had to do was say “Anne Tyler”, and we got it. Why can’t everything in life be this easy? Also, for those of you who still like to debate the Agents Must Be New York Based/Agents Can Work Anywhere issue, here is a topic for thirty-second discussion (with time for rebuttal): Rennert’s home base is in the headlands of Marin, Calif., but her clients are sprinkled far and wide—from

Today’s conundrum: what makes an agency a “boutique” versus an ordinary agency? And, if you’re not a boutique, does that spell disaster? Or, if everyone’s a boutique agency, except those agencies that aren’t, is there an even hotter buzzword to describe a small, selective, hands-on agency? Just curious. Of course, this has nothing to do with the topic at hand. In this case, boutique means an agency filled with agents looking for just about every type of project out there. David Gernert, Erin Hosier, Tracy Howell, Karen Rudnicki, and Matt Williams represent a wide range of fiction and non-fiction. So

Yesterday, we spent time catching up on favorite blogs. Of course, catching up involves a lot of cruising from site to site, following interesting links. Then following more links. And then wandering lost in the wilderness for a few days. Yes, this means that we didn’t so much catch-up as misplace our purpose somewhere around Blog 3. Now, some would be ashamed and embarrassed to admit they fall a month or two behind on reading. Around here, we consider that to be pretty darn good. In fact, if we were able to keep up with everything, that would mean something

If we weren’t so lazy (and the chances of that changing are pretty much nil to none), we’d compile a dictionary of literary descriptions. Or a thesaurus. Or both. Wait, the husband is all excited about folksonomies — maybe that would be the right approach. We may actually have to pay attention the next time he rants and raves. So, Wendy Sherman, publishing alumnus (? — it strikes us that the older we get, the worse our Latin) and recently joined by Tracy Brown, has this agency. She likes brilliant use of language; he likes journalists who go deep into

We can’t resist agent interviews. Seriously, you post a link, we’re gonna follow it. We like MediaBistro’s Pitching series because it feels a little less cookie cutter than most interviews. That’s not to say we don’t sometimes wonder how a writer is supposed to differentiate between some agencies — at the risk of our career, we have to wonder if there’s a literary agency template. Malaga Baldi gives us hope. She knows what she likes (see link below), she knows her weaknesses, and she knows what she doesn’t like. Of course, you shouldn’t be exhaling smoke onto your query letters

Never let it be said that we bore easily — we’ve spent years being fascinated by the labels applied to writing. It’s now hard for us to believe that “narrative non-fiction” was once considered a wacky term. Adam Chromy (also known as Artists and Artisans…which, yes, makes us wonder what he considers the distinction) is probably feeling a bit proud of himself right now. He gave us pause as we considered a new-to-us phrase. But enough about our problems. Chromy likes smart stuff, good writing, platform, commercial fiction with literary aspirations, and, probably, good beer. We’re just guessing on that

We’ve probably mentioned (once or twice) that we’re not much for the non-fiction side of writing. Our first reaction when faced with a crisis of facts is “make it up.” Who’s to say for sure that humans can’t adapt to temperatures on Saturn? It’s not like we’ve tried, and until we have proof of failure, it’s okay to go forth with the possibility of success. Hmm, that was an odd digression. What we really wanted to say is that if you’re doing the non-fiction thing and/or you’re looking into the ghostwriting business, Madeleine Morel may be the agent for you.

What with one thing and the other (mostly the other), we have about fifteen tabs open in Firefox, each representing something we meant to post on over the past week or so. If we were to stop and dwell on how pathetic this makes us, well, we’d never get around to posting anything. Our goal, today, is to make a concerted effort to close about half these tabs. For those who are unfamiliar with this tactic, our sudden desire to clean up our virtual desktop is a classic sign of avoidance. Also, we were thinking of rebooting the laptop sometime

We’re intrigued by the mixed focus at Sarah Lazin Books — narrative non-fiction and womens’ fiction? Sure, it makes sense in a way, but in another way? Well, that’s diversity for you. Besides, we’re focusing all of our energy on the fact that there are only ten stories in the world. Surely there must be more, or is this like the seven basic plots? Really need more coffee. Sarah Lazin and Paula Balzer like a wide range of non-fiction, all with strong platforms. Balzer also …represents an equal amount of fiction, and Lazin notes that she is “very good at