New Literary Agent Listing: Molly McQuade
firstwriter.com – Thursday November 7, 2019
Film / TV agent at the Carolyn Jenks Agency. On the lookout for any story with cinematic potential, an undeniable story engine, or something that has to be seen to be believed.
New Literary Agent Listing: Becca Crandall
firstwriter.com – Tuesday November 5, 2019
Becca represents fiction and nonfiction across most genres, but has a special place in her heart for Middle Grade and YA stories with beautiful prose and compelling characters.
New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Monday November 4, 2019
Publishes: Fiction; Poetry;
Areas include: Short Stories;
Markets: Adult;
Preferred styles: Experimental; Literary
Strives to pair bold, experimental poetry and fiction with innovative design to create a magazine that is both relevant and thought-provoking. Submit one story up to 3,000 words, or up to five poems up to ten pages total.
Agents Do Drop You
By G. Miki Hayden
Instructor at Writer's Digest University online and private writing coach
firstwriter.com – Monday November 4, 2019
When they stop communicating with you, you know you’re toast.
So should you negotiate without an agent?
Writers are often eager to have time-limited contracts with their agents—as well they might be (you want to get out when you’re ready to go)—but some agents have time-limited contracts for their own protection. One popular authors’ representative gives a contract for a six-month period and says if he can’t sell your book within that time, you’re free to go.
New Literary Agent Listing: Lina Langlee
firstwriter.com – Sunday November 3, 2019
Looking for books across genres: commercial fiction with a great hook, literary fiction, speculative or conceptual books that turn the genre on the head while remaining very readable, crime fiction with a difference, and any genre of Young Adult fiction or Middle Grade. She has a special interest in Scottish writing and anything with a Scandinavian angle.
Thought poetry was dead? The 'Instapoets' raking it in online would beg to differ
theage.com.au – Saturday November 2, 2019
Paterson, Poe, Plath – would they have resisted plugging their work on Instagram? Meet the Millennials sending their pop verse viral – and generating sales that prove poetry’s demise has been exaggerated.
Standing on a Persian carpet before a crowd in Bankstown in Sydney’s west, swaying to the rhythm of her own words, Canadian performance poet Rupi Kaur recited Broken English. It’s a poem about the shame she once felt over her Sikh mother’s inability to speak the language. The 300 mainly immigrant Australian women at this, the Bankstown Poetry Slam, were mesmerised. Borrowing from the 1950s beatnik poetry tradition, the audience snapped their fingers in appreciation, then hollered and cheered as Kaur’s performance came to a close. “You can go on forever,” someone from the floor proclaimed, transfixed as much by the cadence of Kaur’s voice as by her verse.
It was May 2017, and the then 25-year-old Canadian dubbed the “queen of the Instapoets” and the “Oprah of her generation” was in town as a keynote speaker at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. Accompanying her on the visit was her publisher Kirsty Melville, whose American company is credited with a global revival of interest in poetry through the publication of books by young women like Kaur, now 27, who have both a way with words and a big social media presence. In Kaur’s case that means 3.8 million Instagram followers, who feast on a feed that alternates between selfies and sparse but digestible poetry.
Tyler Hayes Guest Post–"Rescued From the Trunk"
locusmag.com – Thursday October 31, 2019
The week before I got an offer on my debut novel, I made the decision to give up on it.
The Imaginary Corpse was a labor of love: a noir-flavored fantasy cobbled together from childhood memories, my experiences in therapy, and a million literary and ludological ancestors. Writing it felt right in a way that no other manuscript had before. I built this world in a matter of hours, the outline in a matter of days. Rarely did I have to stop and think during the drafting process (editing, of course, was another story). It’s the book of my heart. Writing it required years of working on myself, finding my real voice under all the received wisdom about writing, and trying very, very hard not to be afraid.
I also couldn’t seem to sell it for the longest time.
Out of all the books I’ve written, the queries and pitches for The Imaginary Corpse were by far the best-received, but all that means is that I finally got partial manuscript requests. I also got partial manuscript rejections, and all of them said essentially the same thing as the rejections of my initial query packet, just in more detail: This is good. But I, a literary agent, have no idea where I’d sell it.
BookLife Launches Paid Review Service for Self-Pubbed Books
publishersweekly.com – Wednesday October 30, 2019
BookLife, Publishers Weekly's website and monthly supplement dedicated to self-publishing, has launched BookLife Reviews, a paid reviews service open exclusively to self-published authors.
BookLife Reviews will be written by Publishers Weekly reviewers, but remain distinct from Publishers Weekly reviews. The service is designed to help self-published authors reach readers by providing them with credible and reliable assessments of their work from reviewers with expertise in their genres and styles.
UEA to mark 50 years of creative writing MA with international programme
thebookseller.com – Wednesday October 30, 2019
The University of East Anglia is marking 50 years of its pioneering creative writing MA with a programme of events including a new international chair of creative writing position occupied in turn by five prominent writers from around the world.
Founded by Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson in 1970, the course was the first of its kind in the UK and counted Ian McEwan as its debut student. UEA will now mark the anniversary with a national and international programme of events, activities and initiatives to run across the 2020/2021 academic year.
New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Tuesday October 29, 2019
Publishes: Fiction;
Areas include: Fantasy; Short Stories;
Markets: Adult;
Preferred styles: Experimental
Publishes fantasy, magical realism, and experimental fiction, between 500 and 5,000 words.
Get the free newsletter | Submit a news item or article | Get Writers' News for your website
