How I got my agent…

Marilynne & I getting ready for our zoom call!

When I was querying, I loved searching for “how I got my agent” posts. It was a reminder that there was an “other side” in this seemingly endless process, and that this other side was reachable in a myriad of ways. Authors’ paths to publication (or paths to getting an agent) were less like road maps and more like beacons of hope. 

I first began querying END OF AUGUST in spring of 2018. I was lucky enough to have a mentor and friend walk me through the process and help me craft my query letter. It turns out selling yourself and your work is... not fun? It was tremendously helpful to have a friend and reader identify the merits of the work and help highlight those qualities in the letter. 

I sent out 50 queries between February of 2018 and February of 2019 and received 6 full requests. Rejections never get less painful, but the joy of a full request provides a temporary amnesia that keeps you going.

Rejections on full requests are particularly painful. If you are anything like me, no amount of realism can douse the optimism. Every full request felt like the beginning of the thing I’d been waiting for, and every rejection felt like a painful reality check.

I began to sense a theme in these rejections—most referred to the novel as quiet, specifically too quiet to work as a debut. It lacked the emotional urgency they looked for in young adult. They prefer novels with more twists and turns. Critique is difficult, especially when it’s about something you’ve poured your heart into. And as nice as it was to hear that the writing was strong, or that they enjoyed the character development, their reasons for saying no took up more room in my headspace. 

I continued to query after the first year, but with much less intention and consistency. If I read a book with a similar tone or pacing as mine, I might send a single query letter out to the author’s agent. Or, if I was feeling particularly driven, I’d send 2 or 3 in a random spurt. But, if I’m being honest, the “query trenches” as they are often called seemed less and less appealing. 

And of course, like most aspiring writers, I had a full time job and was tired. My nights were spent reading and grading the words of others, and I found myself too drained to focus on any sort of writing career. I was teaching four classes, and I remembered a grad school professor who had looked out at our MFA cohort and told us that most of us wouldn’t become writers. That some of us would end up as doctors or teachers or any other profession but the one that we were paying money to study. She had seen plenty of students come and go, and as jarring as her words were, I was 2 years post-grad proving her right. 

I tried to have grace for myself: it’s okay that this didn’t work out. It’s okay if you want to watch reality TV after grading 20 papers. The MFA experience was good for you and worth it, even if the dream didn’t come true. 

*insert montage of a cross country move, a change in career,

and a sudden realization that I had something (a manuscript) worth fighting for* 

My round 2 of querying began January of 2022. In 2020, I did a huge career 180 from higher education to retail, in part inspired by an intention of carving out space to write. I wanted a job that I didn’t have to take home with me. Through the big life transitions I continued to tinker with END OF AUGUST, keeping those first-round-of-querying critiques in mind. I couldn’t necessarily change that the novel was “quiet”, but I could work on exposing and exploring the emotional stakes of my protagonist. 

As I began to send queries out (again), a weird fear set in. The truth is I don’t have thick skin. My sister once told me I have no skin. She’s not wrong, sometimes I feel like I’m just exposed organs. And while the first round of queries forced me to confront the fear of rejection, I was terrified of trying again.

But then my sister (an infinite source of wisdom) said something to me that I’ll pass along to you. She said, “You writing a novel is the accomplishment. That’s what you should be proud of. Everything else is a bonus.”  While I’d like to say my mindset shifted instantly, it didn’t. Instead, this became a mantra I constantly had to remind myself of. The highs of full requests—those weren’t the accomplishment. The lows of rejections—those didn’t take away from the accomplishment. This encouragement gave me solid ground to stand on in a process that often feels like a roller coaster. 

I queried my now agent at the end of March. Querying in 2022 was much slower than 2018, and I learned to have realistic expectations on response times. I followed up in July and received a full request in August. I appreciated her transparency—she let me know that due to client obligations she was notoriously slow at full responses, but that she was curious to read more. I sent her the manuscript on August 15th, allowed myself the familiar thrill of hope, and moved on with my day.

Fun fact: my email notifications on my phone were turned off for the entire querying journey. It wasn’t an intentional choice; I truly didn’t know how to turn them on. So on August 18th at 3:57 pm, when I received an email with the subject line OFFER OF REPRESENTATION, I had absolutely no idea. No ding. No notice. No nothing. I was closing down the store, updating a supportive coworker about a new agent who had requested the full manuscript, all the while an email I’d been waiting four years to receive was waiting for me. 

When I say I had no clue how to approach this next part of the querying journey, I’m not exaggerating. I googled & read blog posts on “the call”, most providing me with a list of questions to sift through. We agreed to zoom the next morning, and I was terrified. 

When I met with Ali Herring, my now agent, I didn’t know what I would be looking for. I knew that I wanted someone kind (seems obvious, but important nonetheless), someone who understood my vision for the novel, and someone who could guide me through the publication process, allowing me to ask questions along the way. 

Ali was truly a ray of sunshine on the call. I could tell how much she loved END OF AUGUST, how much she loved my protagonist Aurora, and how excited she would be to submit this novel to editors. When it came to edits, her vision was for addition instead of subtraction. She thought the ending needed more, and that there was room for small expansions throughout. As a writer, this was a dream to hear. I’d rather give more than less. 

She was so passionate about the work and I left that call certain that she was the one. But, doing my due diligence, I notified other agents who had my full as well as the agents who I’d yet to hear back from. I gave them a two week deadline. In those two weeks I received two additional full requests. Two agents who had my manuscript didn’t respond. And one responded with the kindest rejection I’d received to date.

The decision to choose Ali was easy, and not just because I didn’t have any additional offers. Most of my “big” life decisions have been rooted in the absence of anxiety or nervousness. I’m always on the lookout for an inexplicable peace. I left the phone call knowing that she was someone I could trust, and someone who would be the perfect advocate and cheerleader for my work. 

And now, almost 5 years after I started querying, my first novel is out on submission. It feels a bit surreal, but even in a season of life that feels like a major high, I keep my self rooted in my sister’s words: the novel was the accomplishment. Everything else, well, that’s just a bonus. 

In defense of “quiet” stories

When I was young, I was known for telling long, winding tales, always with very little plot or point. My sisters, my first editors, were harsh, but honest. They would remind me, a few minutes into my story with no foreseeable end, that the story needed a reason to be told. “Is it funny? Is it sad? Why are you telling me this?” My twenty-minute monologues over morning cereal were edited down. I needed to think about what I was going to say, and why I was going to say it.

There is an expectation on the part of readers (rightfully so) that a story has a point. Something needs to happen. My first writing professor, Paul Buchanan, would ask the class some version of the following: Why today? Why are we meeting this character at this moment?

Sometimes, the why is big. Car accident. Death. Asteroid headed for Earth. Volunteering in place of your sister for a fight to the death. A story’s why can feel as obvious as a neon sign: THIS CHARACTER’S LIFE IS CHANGING IN THIS MOMENT.

But sometimes, the why is small. Or, as I like to think of it, quiet. The moments that shape us as humans, and the moments that shape characters, can sneak up on you. One day, you might find yourself walking down the same road you walked the day before, and the day before that, but today, there’s a tree in it. You have to take a different route. Maybe it’s a pivot, or a sidestep, but regardless, things look different today than they did before.

 The moment might only exist inside that individual. Maybe the tree, if we continue the metaphor, is on a road that only that person walks. No one else has to side-step or turn around. But for that person, things don’t look the same.

I love the life that exists in those quiet moments. The moments that make us pause and look up. Plenty of people are shaped in the quiet moments. The change is subtle, but it’s there.

I write this as someone whose story has been called quiet--too quiet to work as a debut novel. Too quiet for the agent waiting for twists and turns that never came. Too quiet for today’s market. When I sat down to revise with those comments in mind, I thought about what it would look like to turn up the volume. If my novel is too quiet, how can I make it louder?

The answer: I couldn’t. Because for Aurora, my protagonist, her life is shaped by moments that only she can hear. Her small town doesn’t have an asteroid headed straight for it. But she has a mom who chooses to put herself first, above all else. A mom who disappoints her in ways big and small. A mom whose shortcomings become noticeable in the quiet moments just as much as the loud.

And she has a Gran. A Gran whose love for Aurora isn’t loud. It’s as quiet as a wink. As slow as an afternoon drive. As gentle as a squeeze of the hand.

Yes, life’s moments can be big. Moments can be earth shattering. But quiet moments can feel big, and the whole earth might not shatter, but your world might look different today than it did before. I write quiet novels because I don’t think our why—why today, why this moment, why this girl—has to be loud. It just has to be there.