An Agent's Inbox #23

Dear Wonderful Agent Willing to Participate in this Contest:

My middle grade novel A Sketch in Time will be published in May 2012 in Catalan by the Barcelona publisher Cruïlla. I am eager to secure representation so that I may also publish in the U.S., and I am hopeful the novel will appeal to you. Set in contemporary Barcelona and in the Catalan countryside of the 1930s, it blends historical fiction and time-travel adventure.

Micah hates Barcelona. He hates that he has to go to school in a foreign language--who’s ever even heard of Catalan?--and he hates how nearly everything is different here. He can’t fathom why his parents dragged him and his seven-year-old twin brother and sister on this so-called adventure of a year abroad. But the difficulties of adjusting are nothing compared to the adventure that begins when his sister finds an old pen that draws windows into the past, and Micah and his siblings tumble into 1938. Suddenly in the middle of the Spanish Civil War, they face hunger, violence, loss and the tragic bitterness of their great grandmother.

I wrote A Sketch in Time while living in Barcelona, and it is grounded both in my experiences as an American in that city and as a member of a large Catalan family with many stories of the Civil War. When not on sabbatical abroad, I am an Associate Professor of English at Bucknell University, where I teach young adult fiction and Victorian literature. I have published an academic monograph, Excavating Victorians (SUNY 2008), and several articles, many of which address themes of time in literature. I am also a member of SCBWI.

The manuscript is complete at 54,000 words. I would be happy to provide some or all of it for your consideration. While A Sketch in Time can stand on its own, I have also written the first few chapters of a sequel, which I hope to finish in the next few months. I look forward to hearing from you.

Best Wishes,
V.Z.


A SKETCH IN TIME

One: Celia’s Picture

“Hide this!” Celia tosses something onto my bed and scurries away.

“Where’s the pen? Ce-li-a!” Jamie punctuates each syllable with a shove. “It’s not yours!”

“I found it!”

I pull my door closed to dampen the sounds of the scuffle and look down at an old fashioned pen and small bottle of ink. Where did she get these? I tuck my book under my arm and pick up the bottle. Crusty black ink flakes away from the lid and drifts onto my bedspread like black snow.

When I grasp the pen, its sharp tip stabs into my thumb. I shift my grip to the carved metal handle that encircles the smooth wood of the pen. It settles into my hand, heavy and balanced, poised for the page.

“Micah!” My mom wants me to brush my teeth, but if I hurry, I can try out the pen.

“One sec!”

I set the pen and ink bottle on my window sill and open my book to the blank back cover. The stopper comes out of the bottle with a gentle pop. I dip the pen and then study the drop of black ink quivering on the nib. It looks alive. When I press the pen to the page, the ink spreads into a circle, sinking into the imperceptible layers of the paper.