A Midsummer Daydream-come-true

Some exciting news, new Citron Review, and more...

How does one begin typing the sentence you’ve been desperately wanting to type? Do you do it in all caps, shouting from the rooftops? Or do you try to be more understated, pretend like it’s all just no big deal? Do you—

I signed with an agent!!

Ooh, that felt good.

This all happened about a month ago, which was followed by a lot of screechy phone calls/texts to family and friends.

Those conversations tended to have some follow-up questions in common, so I’ve put together this handy FAQ:

Who is it?

Mark Gottlieb, from Trident Media Group.

Does this mean you have a book deal?

Sadly, no.

Wait, what? How does this all work?

For traditional fiction publishing typically you write your book in full, and then begin the process of querying agents. Usually you send query letter that gives a high level summary of your book, your bio, and your future readers. If agents like your query they request to read the manuscript. If they like the manuscript, that’s when they offer to represent you. Then it’s the agent’s job to pitch your book to editors at various publishers and try to secure you a book deal.

Is this a quick, validating process or a slow, agonizing, demoralizing one?

The latter.

So, even though this isn’t the end goal, we are going to celebrate this?

Yes! We definitely are. This is a really important first step. It means that I am finally able to move on to the next step—querying and pitching to publishers. And this time when I am pitching, I have someone in my corner with me—my agent.

Also, I now get to say really fun things I’ve been wanting to say like “I have to respond to an email from my agent," and “that’s a good question, I’ll check in with my agent and see what he thinks,” or “I just have to get a few things to my agent but then I can definitely hang out.”

What happens next? When can I read your book?

Like I said, next step is pitching to editors and publishers. Even if a book deal happened very fast, I don’t think my book would actually be physically published for at least another year or two. So we must all continue to have patience. I promise to deliver updates as soon as possible when I have more to share. Keep your fingers crossed for all of us: me, my agent, and my book!

Summer Citron Review is out

If you’re looking for some quick snacky reads for summer, might I recommend the summer issue of The Citron Review.

Here’s a sample from my editor’s letter.

The unknowability of another, however they are related to you, is one of life’s biggest mysteries. The promise of reading has always, for me, been the possibility of understanding another person’s mind—what’s really going on in there, beneath the surface. This month’s pieces all, in their own ways, are probing this eternal mystery as well. 

Summer Reading Recommendations

I’ve been having some trouble sorting out exactly what I want to be reading right now, but then I happily fell into two “beach read” type books that were well written and funny and clearly just what I needed.

First up: How to Walk Away by Katherine Center

This book gets a ton of respect from me because it’s lighthearted and fun and funny and all the things you want from a rom-com but it also starts with an enormous tragedy—our heroine gets paralyzed from the waist down after a small plane accident on the night of her engagement. Center didn’t shy away from how awful this is, and all the depressing, unfunny parts of recovery. She didn’t fall into the very tempting trap of letting her character have a miraculous recovery so that the romance could come to the forefront (as you might expect in, you know, a romance). It’s a really hard thing to pull off in a book. So if you like your beach reads to feel like they have a little more depth to them, this is a great pick.

My second summer pick is The Husbands, by Holly Gramazio

This is one of those books where I don’t want to ruin the premise by telling you about it. I like to imagine the author was swiping on a dating app, imagining the future she could have with any one of the men she was looking at, and then this book was born. Can I leave it at that? This book is funny and really well observed with an absurdist element that sets the whole thing up really nicely.