I love these opportunities to sit and compare notes and methods of doing business with other agents. I hope, if you’re able to join us, you find it as entertaining and interesting as I usually do!

And a further quick note about conferences — I love them, and would love to join you at yours. I’m booked from now through the beginning of the year with probably about as much travel as I can handle, but if you’re planning something for next summer (SCBWI LA, perhaps?) or next fall, please think of me.

In other news, a flurry of internet activity for kt literary authors this week. Speaking of Let It Snow, a copy of which Jen wins, Pinot and Prose calls it “THE book to read with the holiday season coming up — it’s light and frothy in the most heartwarming way. A thoroughly enjoyable read.” And mango_firefly praises the “YA Dream Team” of Green, Johnson, and Myracle, writing, “each of these three phenomenally talented writers brings their own special flair for wit and language to the party.”

But that’s not all! For any of my Minnesotan readers, Ellen Booraem will be reading from The Unnameables at Gustavus Adolphus College (open to the public!) and St. Peter Middle School (private — those lucky kids!) in St. Peter, MN on November 13th. I bet it’ll be cold. Why don’t you warm up with Medford and The Goatman?

And there’s more! kt literary client Catherine Cheek has a wonderful short story with the exciting title “She’s Taking Her Tits to the Grave” in John Joseph Adams’ zombie anthology The Living Dead, which was just named to Publishers Weekly‘s Best Books of the Year list!

Who else has good news to share? I declare this a good news day (as may be obvious by my explosion of exclamation marks), and all are welcome to join in!

Are you getting ready to submit your manuscript to agents for consideration? Before you do, join Agent Kate Schafer Testerman of kt literary as she goes over some personal dos and don’ts of the querying process.
Each agent’s guidelines are specific, but we’ll cover general suggestions as well as more detailed helpful hints for your query letter. After a one-hour presentation, there will be a chance for you to read your query aloud (please provide an additional hard copy for Kate to read) for an immediate reaction and suggestions for improvement. We will end with a general question-and-answer period.

The workshop is from 9am to 12noon. For more information and directions, head on over to the NCW website.

Dear Agent (to be personalized),
It’s August 1968 in Westbruk, California and somebody’s trying to murder Dessa Lechmann, the fire phobic, Dear Dessa Dreams advice columnist. A Turkish carpet merchant, a runaway from a harem in Zanzibar, and a hookah smoker from Cairo tell Dessa that a match-lighting man is the villain. Dessa doesn’t believe them. Because in her dreams the match-lighting man is not the culprit. Besides having ordinary dreams about flying backwards, tsunamis, and upside down coyotes, Dessa dreams about past events she couldn’t know about, set in places she’s never been. Her dreams are as vivid as Technicolor movies and true. So if the match lighting man isn’t the culprit, who is?
In 1906, Liesl-Marie conceived a son. Her priest told her he was not only her lover, but also her father. Any child of theirs would be a monster, he said. Now it’s 1968 and the eighty-two year old Liesl-Marie has septicemia and is about to die. Having a match-lighting son (the match-lighting man described by the carpet merchant, harem runaway and hookah smoker) and suspecting that she has grandchildren and great grandchildren, Liesl-Marie starts fires to slay her monster progeny for the good of mankind. Mistakenly, she thinks Dessa is her granddaughter.
Will Dessa be able to fight through her fears, figure out what kind of childhood trauma caused her to be afraid of fire, deduce who the arsonist is, and save herself and others from the high rising flames of Liesl-Marie’s last fire? Of course! And in KILLING THE MONSTERS (FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND) a literary mystery of approximately 64,000 words, she’ll employ ingenious methods to do so.
I worked on KILLING THE MONSTERS (FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND) in the UCLA writing program under the tutelage of Caroline Leavitt, Kris Neri, Jessica Inclan and Leslie Lehr. During the course of my studies I auditioned for and was admitted into three advanced classes. My freelance non-fiction articles have appeared in numerous magazines such as AMERICAN CAREER, PORTHOLE and ACTIVE TIMES. KNIGHT, a professional company, produced two of my plays.
I’ve read that you like mysteries and I’d be delighted to send you all or part of KILLING THE MONSTERS (FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND).
Sincerely,
Diane

OK, first reaction: I can’t follow this. You’ve got two different time periods introduced in your letter where you only need to focus on one — the one in which the bulk of the action of the story occurs. If Dessa is your main character, introducing Liesl-Marie in a similar fashion (the structure for both paragraphs is very similar) makes me feel like she’s on an equal footing with Dessa. In addition, the quirky introducing of the Turkish carpet merchant, the harem runaway, and the hookah smoker from Cairo also feels extraneous — and certainly doesn’t seem to need mentioning twice! You also mention prophetic dreams, and then drop that thread.
Consider if you need the para on Liesl-Marie. Can you focus the query on Dessa, and tell her side of the story, while leaving some of the mystery to be unveiled in the book itself?
Beyond the book description, I might cut out the names of your teachers at UCLA, and just focus on the program itself. Also, “I’ve read that you like mysteries” is too generic. Where did you read it? Was it an interview with the agent? In a book like the Writer’s Market? Can you make mention of any of the agent’s specific clients whose work may be similar in some degree with your novel? Also, offering “all or part” of the novel is overkill. I don’t know any agents who ask for a full after reading a just letter. Try “a selection from”.
Diane, I hope this was helpful. Readers, please add your comments as well. Would you wan to read more if you received this letter? Why or why not? What would you change about it if you were sending it out?
If we get a good discussion going, I’d be open to considering a query review like this on a more regular basis, so if you like to see the inner workings of my mind (oooh! Peep-toe pumps! and a Pony!), chime in!

But it has been only three years since Noel, the tall, trendy, bubbly author from Laguna Beach, has been delivering readers her fiction novels that depict teenagers and their real-life struggles.

I can certainly confirm this — Alyson is, in fact, tall, trendy, AND bubbly. And you should see her shoes!

• Alyson Noel will be speaking TODAY at the Fontana Library in Fontana, CA at 4pm. If you’re in the area, please stop by! More details on her blog.
• Newsweek has a fascinating article on teens reading that you should check out. One of the best parts? “Young-adult fiction (ages 12-18) is enjoying a bona fide boom with sales up more than 25 percent in the past few years, according to a Children’s Book Council sales survey.” The issue of Entertainment Weekly I brought with me on vacay also had a take on this, in an article about teens taking over pop culture.
• An editor I happen to like and respect has a great post up on his blog about submissions, and touches on the issue of The Fear in blogging. What can you write if you’re scared it will come back and bite you? How does that influence your blogging?
• A very funny post from Justine Larbalestier on crazy writers. What are your methods for writing that seem strange to others?

Ok, that’s good for now. I still have even more reading to do, contracts to go over, emails to answer, and books to reshelve.

This is not the Manhattan of Gossip Girl. Suite Scarlett isn’t about buying things or vying for position. I wanted to write about the New York I understood — the one where you make things, and the creative underclasses and the rich mingle, sometimes uneasily, sometimes very fruitfully. Scarlett soon learns the skill of making things up — solutions that have little to do with money, and everything to do with creativity and embracing the implausible and slightly insane. I think this is an especially important principle to introduce to today’s teens, some of whom may be laboring under the misapprehension that things in life are supposed to work in a certain way, that a series of standardized tests will lead to a life of perfect order — a life in which mistakes and risks are things to be feared and avoided.

Also, she’s in Michigan! Or will be, tomorrow. With John and Hank Green. If you live in the Grand Rapids area, feel free to go see her in public, and poke at her (the use of sticks as poking devices is neither implied nor condoned).