Interactive Interview with an Agent: Jennifer Laughran

I have another interactive interview for you today with Jennifer Laughran of Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Ms. Laughran maintains a wonderfully informative blog, but I didn’t discover it until after I set up this interview, so the questions are the usual fare. As always, details on the interactive part are at the bottom. See you down there!

KV: How did you get into agenting?

JL: I started working at my older sister's bookstore at the age of twelve, and worked at bookstores all over the country for almost twenty years, ending up as a buyer for one of the largest indie bookstores on the west coast. In 2006 I started interning for an agent, and in 2007 I decided that I really wanted to specialize in children's and YA books, which have always been my personal favorites, so I joined the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, which has been a perfect fit for me.

KV: How would you summarize your personal agenting philosophy? What do you expect from an agent-author relationship?

JL: Work hard, have fun, and make terrific books. I really don't think that the agent-client relationship should be as fraught with drama or mystery as some people feel it is. I am a very straightforward person and I value open communication with clients--and that goes both ways.

KV: What client work do you have coming out soon? What drew you to those writers and/or projects?

JL: Gosh, I have a lot of stuff coming out this Fall. So I'll just pick a few:

DRAW THE DARK by Ilsa J. Bick--This is a very creepy horror novel about a kid who draws pictures...and the subjects of them have a tendency to die. Ilsa writes psychological thrillers--some are realistic, some are dystopian, some are paranormal...but they are all weird and complicated and fascinating.

MERMAID'S MIRROR by L.K. Madigan--I took L.K. on based on her first book, FLASH BURNOUT. That was the first book I ever sold, and if you have read it, you'll know that it is a realistic, funny but gritty "boy story." MERMAID is very different--the story of a surfer girl who finds a mermaid. But it is equally voice-driven and wonderful.

SUGAR AND ICE by Kate Messner--Kate just nails the middle school voice--probably because she is a 7th grade teacher. SUGAR is about a small-town ice skating girl who gets scouted by a charismatic Russian coach, plucked from obscurity and thrown into the uber-competitive world of "mean girls on ice." I tend to love "star is born" type stories, "outsider" stories, and funny realistic middle grade too. :-)

KV: What genres do you represent? What genres do you definitely NOT represent?

JL: I rep novels for middle readers and young adults. I am not looking for picture book or nonfiction, and I do not represent books for grownups.

KV: What query pet peeves and/or pitfalls should writers avoid when querying you?

JL: About half the (many) queries I get are for things I don't represent, and/or they don't follow guidelines. These are just automatically deleted--what's the point? For queries that I actually look at though, I'd say, the point you want to get across is "what is this book about and why should I care?" Don't dance around the subject, just tell me what the book is about.

KV: What are you looking for in a manuscript right now?

JL: I am looking for something that I haven't seen a zillion times before, that will make me want to stay up all night reading.

KV: What’s the best way to query you?

JL: Follow the submission guidelines found at andreabrownlit.com. In short:

*E-mail only
*Put "query" somewhere in the subject line
*Paste the query and first ten pages in the body of the e-mail
*No attachments

Thanks again, Ms. Laughran, for these awesome answers. It’s a wonder people mess up those submission guidelines, since they’re pretty standard. All you queriers, take note!

Well, I’m sure everyone knows the drill: Leave your questions in the comments sometime before 5:00 p.m. PDT today, and Ms. Laughran will drop in a few times to answer them. Looking forward to your questions and Ms. Laughran’s responses.

Book Recommendation: BRUISER by Neal Shusterman

I decided to check out BRUISER after reading Kelly’s recommendation, and I’m so glad I did. It was one of the best book decisions I’ve made in a while:)

BRUISER begins as a gentle love story between swimmer Bronte and loner Brewster with all the usual suspects: Bronte’s overprotective brother, Tennyson; Brewster’s quirky younger brother, Cody; Bronte’s in-the-middle-of-their-mid-life-crises parents; Brewster’s alcoholic uncle. But when Bronte discovers Brewster’s gift to absorb physical and emotional pain, the novel takes an unexpected turn. And that’s where the story stays. In un-expectation.

The novel unfolds through the first-person narration of four characters, and yet each of these four voices is distinctive and engaging. Tennyson’s chapters read like something written by an actual teenage boy, which isn’t the easiest point-of-view to pull off (although I would expect Mr. Shusterman, who was once a teenage boy himself, to be able to handle that point-of-view better than, say, me), and Brewster’s chapters, which are written in stunning free verse, provide both the novel’s highest highs and its lowest lows. Moreover, the storyline feels fresh and fully developed, like Mr. Shusterman really took the time to explore the implications of his plot points and the consequences of his characters’ decisions.

BRUISER reads like a contemporary, but the not-normal twist definitely pushes this into the category of genre-bending for me. It’s a fantastic read from start to finish, one that I’ll be recommending for years to come.

Chapter the Second: "Maia Eyemieye and the Ungrateful Dead"

In honor of Halloween, I’m resurrecting Maia and Jackson’s story, which was the subject of my very first blog contest. This week’s story won’t be part of a contest, but I’m hoping it will be a diverting way to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve.

Here’s how it will work: I’ll begin the second chapter of Maia and Jackson’s story at the bottom of this post. Then the first player will continue the story in the comments WHEREVER I LEFT OFF. And the second player will continue where the first player left off, and so on. Sometime around Halloween, I’ll finish off the story.

I only have two rules for our little game: Keep your story comment PG-RATED, and keep it somewhere around 100 WORDS. Oh, and I don’t mind if you play more than once--just make sure you don’t make consecutive story comments.

Here’s the first chapter of Maia and Jackson’s story (don't forget to read the comments of that post), and here’s the last 100 words of that chapter. And here’s the start of the second:

The gaslights cast crazy shadows across the cobblestones, and overhead, a raven cawed. Maia winced as Jackson helped her hobble up Doornail Avenue. Sure, it might have been Purgatory, but did they really have to buy into the whole Halloween motif?

Jackson patted her remaining shoulder. “It’ll be okay. First, we’ll go back to school and get your stuff.”

Maia looked down at her crutch, her moth-eaten backpack, and, of course, the ring. “But I already have all my things.”

“I meant your arm and leg.” He glanced at the ring and shuddered. “Then we’ll have to do something about that amulet.”

Maia hoped his shudder was for the ring and not her missing limbs. “You think Cleveland Codswallop will be back?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

Interview with an Agent: Michelle Brower

Today’s interview features Michelle Brower of Folio Literary Management. When Empty Refrigerator asked to see more interviews with agents who rep women’s fiction, I was so excited, because I already had Ms. Brower’s interview waiting in the queue. Enjoy!

KV: How did you get into agenting?

MB: I actually answered an ad on Craigslist for an internship, and once I was in I was hooked.

KV: How would you summarize your personal agenting philosophy? What do you expect from an agent-author relationship?

MB: My personal agenting philosophy is all about love--if I love the book and have a vision for it, then I’m going to find a way to get it published and make it successful, come hell or high water. But that always means that I really, really have to love something, and if I didn’t that writer would be better served with another agent who was passionate about their work. I love for my authors to be eager to revise, eager to promote, and to feel like they are on a team where we have the same goal in mind.

KV: What client work do you have coming out soon? What drew you to those writers and/or projects?

MB: I have a wonderful book just out now called DUST by Joan Frances Turner--it’s a zombie novel, but it was unlike any zombie novel I had ever read. It had action and gore, but also an incredibly complicated main character and writing that really crackled with energy and style.

There’s also MISS ME WHEN I’M GONE by Philip Stephens, which will be out in January. It’s a dark, literary novel about a washed-up folk singer and a murderess whose paths cross in rural Missouri. It reads like an old-fashioned murder ballad, and that’s something that certainly was beautiful and arresting.

KV: What genres do you represent? What genres do you definitely NOT represent?

MB: I represent a wide range of genres, from literary fiction, to commercial fiction, to certain kinds of non-fiction. My favorite books are those that fall on the literary/commercial border, narrative non-fiction that is subject driven, and things that have a supernatural twist that aren’t limited to the supernatural genre. I have a lot of those right now, though, so I’m currently more hungry for literary fiction, and fiction that might be a good fit for book clubs.

KV: What query pet peeves and/or pitfalls should writers avoid when querying you?

MB: I absolutely hate queries that begin with a rhetorical question. If someone asks, “Have you ever wondered what life would be like if you were an elephant?” and my answer is “No!” I don’t have any reason to read further.

I also hate it when the only descriptions of the story are vague or only about a character’s emotional development. It takes a real story for a novel to work.

KV: What are you looking for in a manuscript right now?

MB: I would love some women’s fiction with a redemptive, heart-warming story and some amazing writing. I’ve been doing a lot of dark books lately, and I need a little sunshine!

KV: What’s the best way to query you?

MB: E-mail is the only way, with the query and first ten pages pasted in the body of the message.

Thanks, Ms. Brower, for these responses. And I’m sure all you adult fic (is that a word? Word says it’s not a word (go figure), but I decree it is) writers just added another agent to your lists!

Happy Thursday, everybody!

Seven Scintillating But Mostly Useless Facts

Fellow bloggers Ishta Mercurio (awesome name, don’t you think? Ishta, you should name one of your characters after yourself:) ) and Carol Riggs gave me these delightful awards a few weeks ago. Thank you so much, ladies!

To claim Carol’s, I have to tell you seven things about myself, so here are seven scintillating but mostly useless facts I hope I haven’t mentioned before:

1. Bob is thiiis close to being finished--like, I-have-the-first-few-chapters-and-almost-the-whole-manuscript-completely-totally done. More about that in the next couple of weeks.

2. I already have a Shiny New Idea that I could start outlining, like, yesterday. Actually, for the first time in my life, I have a few Shiny New Ideas, but I’m pretty set on this one. I think.

3. As scintillating but mostly useless fact number two implies, I’m not very good at coming up with Shiny New Ideas. Some writers have more ideas than they could write in two or three lifetimes. I’m lucky to come up with one roughly every time I need it.

4. My blood type is O-positive (’cause I’m sure y’all were dying to know that).

5. I can say “y’all” because I lived in Texas for, like, a year when I was twelve. (Have I mentioned that before?) The rest of my childhood I spent in Utah. (Pretty sure I’ve mentioned that before. Oops.)

6. My sister is half Guatemalan, but it didn’t occur to me she wasn’t white until I was, like, sixteen.

7. I don’t usually say “like” as often as I’ve said it in this post.

I’d like to pass these awards on to the following six bloggers, all of whom have served as betas for Bob in one way or another:

A.L. Sonnichsen of The Green Bathtub
Bittersweet Fountain of A Bittersweet Fountain
Jenilyn Tolley of Jenilyn M. Tolley
Jess of Must Love Books
Liesl of Writer Ropes and Hopes
Myrna Foster of Night Writer

Amy, Mandy, Jeni, Jess, Liesl, and Myrna, feel free to claim one or both of these. I’m feeling generous today:)

Thanks for reading, everyone!

The Power of Positive Critiquing

RATATOUILLE is one of my favorite Pixar movies. I especially like Anton Ego’s monologue at the end of the film. I won’t quote it verbatim (as Disney seems to have a freak-out anytime anyone borrows even the smallest snippet of their material), but he basically says while critics thrive on negative criticism, the truth is that even the most useless piece of dreck is worth more than the critique that labels it so. That the only time critics risk anything is when they actually like something.

I have critiqued more work this past year, my own and other people’s, than I have in all the other years of my life combined, and I’ve noticed a few things. It's so easy to be negative, to see the worst in your own and other people’s writing and focus on that. Not long ago, I blogged about unconstructive criticism, and I stand by that post. But the truth is, I think we often focus on the negative because we’re afraid to like something. Because, as Mr. Ego points out, we risk more by liking something than by not liking it.

If you don’t like something, all you have to do is say it’s dreck and move along. If, on the other hand, you like something, genuinely enjoy that piece of writing and think the project has some merit, then you’re throwing yourself into the ring with the writer. Every time a rejection or a negative critique comes in, it stings you, too, because you said you liked the project.

But that’s the great thing about jumping into that ring. Suddenly, not all the blows are landing on the writer. You’re in there, too, throwing your own punches, taking a few as well, but giving the writer--the creator--someone else to lean on. Someone to ask, “I’m really not crazy, right? This isn’t just a piece of garbage?” Sometimes we need that validation more than we need anything from the people who’ve read, and liked, our work.

Huh. I meant to take this post in a completely different direction, but these last few paragraphs just kind of spilled out. And you know what? I kind of like them. Guess I’ll let them stay.

Now I’m not saying we should sugar-coat everything. If we genuinely don’t like something, we’d be cheating the writer if we didn’t tell him or her so (but in a nice way, of course). And even when I like a project overall, I still point out the places in which I think it could be improved. What I am saying is that it’s all right to be positive when you really believe in something. That as much as a writer will get out of our suggestions for improvement, he or she may get even more out of the positive things we say.

Interview with an Agent: Rosemary Stimola

To round out Culinary Week, I give you Rosemary Stimola of Stimola Literary Studio, who is the first agent I’ve interviewed to represent cookbooks, I believe. Oh, and did I mention she represents all things kidlit, too? Must have slipped my mind… :)

KV: How did you get into agenting?

RS: This is actually my third professional life in books. I was an academic teaching language and literature, and then a bookseller. An editor friend asked if I had ever considered agenting, noting my backgrounds as good foundations. The rest, as they say, is history.

KV: How would you summarize your personal agenting philosophy? What do you expect from an agent-author relationship?

RS: I don’t know if it is a philosophy, but it is a relationship of mutual respect. Every writer is different, in personality and in process. I try to work with each, giving what they need when they need it.

KV: What client work do you have coming out soon? What drew you to those writers and/or projects?

RS: A lot of work in the tubes right now. Happy to see how stand alone novels have been growing into series. Mike Beil’s middle grade THE RED BLAZER GIRLS is now at four titles; Mary Pearson’s THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX is about to become a trilogy; Amber Kizer’s MERIDIAN is now a four title series; and Lisa Papademetriou’s SIREN’S SONG and David Gill’s BLACK HOLE SUN now have sequels in the making.

Strong voice, good storytelling, and memorable characters may be found in each and every one.

KV: What genres do you represent? What genres do you definitely NOT represent?

RS: I represent pre-school through young adult, fiction and non-fiction. I also do cookbooks, which I find great fun.

I do not represent adult fiction.

KV: What query pet peeves and/or pitfalls should writers avoid when querying you?

RS: Don’t apologize if you are unpublished. Don’t pitch your book as the next Harry Potter or Hunger Games. Don’t tell me you read it to your four-year-old and she loved it.

KV: You only want to see the query letter in a writer’s initial contact, but several respected industry sites have advised writers to include a few sample pages at the bottom of every query, whether the agent asked for them or not. So if a writer goes ahead and adds those pages, do you find that more assertive or obnoxious?

RS: Neither. I don’t read them. If the query interests me, I will ask for a full ms.

KV: What are you looking for in a manuscript right now?

RS: Something fresh. Something that doesn’t feel like I have seen it a hundred times before.

KV: What’s the best way to query you?

RS: E-mail at info@stimolaliterarystudio.com.

Thanks again, Ms. Stimola, for these responses. And queriers, take careful note of those query pet peeves and pitfalls. It’s probably a bad idea to tell any agent your book is the next Hunger Games, but I imagine it’s a doubly bad idea to tell that to the agent who sold the series in the first place.

Thanks for hanging with me through Culinary Week, everybody. Next week, I promise to dish up some writing-related posts (pun intended).

Recipe Recommendation: Lemon Pepper Pasta and Asparagus

So we do eat vegetarian meals occasionally (hard to believe, I know, based on the other recipes I’ve recommended), and I wanted to share one of those with you today. This one is light and summery (hey, it still feels like summer here in Mesquite), and the flavor profile is a surefire winner.

You can find the original recipe in Betty Crocker’s big red cookbook or on their website, but here’s my slightly altered version:

Lemon Pepper Pasta with Asparagus

2 cups uncooked farfalle pasta (if you’re looking for a variety that commonly comes in whole grain, penne would work just as well)
2 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 pound asparagus, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons lemon juice (or as much lemon juice as you can squeeze out of one lemon)
1 15-ounce can white beans, drained and rinsed (or the equivalent amount of prepared dry beans, of course)
Freshly ground black pepper (optional)
Grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Cook and drain the pasta as directed on the package. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Saute the bell pepper, asparagus, lemon peel, salt, and pepper in the oil, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are crisp-tender, about 4 to 6 minutes.

Stir the lemon juice and white beans into the vegetable mixture. Cook until the beans are hot, about 2 minutes. Add the pasta to the skillet and toss everything together. Top with more freshly ground black pepper and/or grated parmesan cheese, if you like.

The original recipe calls for cannellini or navy beans, but we’ve found white beans to be the perfect combination of texture and flavor for this dish. (Actually, I have a sneaking suspicion navy beans are white beans, since I can’t find canned navy beans at our grocery story, but that suspicion is unconfirmed.) Also, we once substituted grated lime peel and lime juice for the lemon peel and lemon juice, but I didn’t like it as much.

Hope you give this one a try sometime. Feel free to wait until next spring, though, as asparagus will be in season then.