How I got my agent

It really comes down to luck, timing, and persistence.

That’s it, those are the secret ingredients. You can stop reading right now if you want!

If you want to know the map of my journey, the steps that brought me here, I’ll share them. But it’s not prescriptive. There is no “do what I did, and you’ll get an agent.” There is no secret ingredient, no silver bullet.

I didn’t quit. I tried some different things when the going got tough and I FELT like quitting. I got lucky and struck some good timing.

There is no “you can, too”.

In 2018 I didn’t really know who I was as a writer yet. I had written and queried a YA fantasy (that was so much like ATLA that I should be arrested and got nothing but form rejections). Then I wrote an adult fantasy retelling of Beauty and the Beast (my second ever book) and somehow got into PitchWars (a discontinued mentorship program). Which was incredible luck! I got four requests in the showcase, which caused me to burst into tears because I had never gotten a full request before. But those didn’t pan out, and I had only one request in the query trenches (which ended in a brief and brutal one line rejection). The manuscript went nowhere.

That’s not how I got my agent.

But I sure did meet some of the best people I’ve ever known in my life, many of whom are a part of The Writing Folks. Having that community of writers around me who were doing the things I was trying to do and were there in the trenches with me? That gave me the strength to keep going.

Then I wrote a YA contemporary fantasy.

I did everything “right”. It was hot, based on what I was seeing agents and editors ask for. It was ticking everyone’s boxes! It got dozens of likes in DVPit and SFFPit and all the pitch contests. I had twenty six full requests! Surely this was the one!

That book didn’t get me an agent.

I took some time and did some self publishing things under a pen name. Those books didn’t get me agents either, but I had fun with them and I learned a LOT. Having fun with what I was doing also gave me the strength to keep going.

Then I wrote ALL THINGS DEAD AND DYING in a fever dream six week period where I was also packing up my family of six for a move to a new community. I threw that first draft into PitchWars again, because why not?

I got three full manuscript requests.

And I got in.

Once again, PitchWars gave me incredible community and the best mentor I could have asked for in Jessica Lewis (go buy her books. You will NOT regret it.) We worked on that book and tossed it into the showcase, where it did pretty well with seven requests.

None of those panned out!

I queried. For something like eight months. The trenches were dead, and it was a horrible place to be. Nobody I knew was getting requests. The only people I saw getting agented during that time were other incredible writers in that 2021 PitchWars class. And they deserved the world!

I just wished the world was also mine.

I was feeling bummed. Emily Varga from my first PitchWars class sent me a link – “This anthology is looking for stories, and it seems like it would be right up your alley!”

It was a call for Prairie Witch. I had only ever written one other short story, and never really sent it out anywhere. But when I looked at the call, a story idea came to me instantly.

I wrote it in a three day haze, most of which was spent doing research as I had never written a historical fantasy and I wanted to do the subject matter justice.

And what I ended up with? I am so proud of it.

I ended up landing a spot in the anthology. I was going to be a published author!

From that moment, I was addicted to short story writing. I looked for anthology calls and hammered out short stories specifically for those calls. It was something I hadn’t done much before, because I’d been so focused on novels. But it forced me to think about the essential aspects of stories. It forced me to be prudent with my word choices. It stretched me and grew my craft in ways that nothing else could have.

It kept me writing when I was ready to give up.

In July, I sent ALL THINGS DEAD AND DYING to the Times/Chicken House publishing contest. (It’s an amazing opportunity. You should try it!). I was throwing all the spaghetti at all the walls, trying to get something, anything, to stick.

And in October, I got a call that I was shortlisted for the final prize of publication.

You bet your booty I tweeted about it!

And that’s when I got an email from the editor of Prairie Witch, Stacey Kondla. She saw my tweet. She said “obviously I know you can write”, as she was the person who saw the potential in my story in Prairie Witch. She said “let’s meet up and talk about the possibility of representation.”

We met up. She proved she could keep a cool head under pressure when a wasp flew up her pants and stung her right before we met! We had a lovely meeting, wherein I ate a sandwich as big as my head in a very messy and unprofessional manner. I mentioned that I would wait to find out the outcome of the Times/Chicken House contest before I could make any kind of decision. She asked me to send my full manuscript, and we promised to keep in touch.

I flew to London for the Times/Chicken House announcement. It was a trip of a lifetime! I had the most fun, hanging out with my friend Alice Chao (another writer you should not miss!). She took me to her publishing events (a fancy winter ball with Hodderscape). And before I could take her to my event…

Stacey emailed, offering representation, regardless of the outcome at Chicken House.

(I was so glad Alice was there to scream with me!)

I went into the Chicken House announcement calm, because I knew no matter what, I had an agent now. I didn’t win Chicken House, but I am excited to be working with Stacey, editing ALL THINGS DEAD AND DYING and getting ready to go on sub.

Not a lot of things in my life happen in nice, normal ways. Sometimes it’s hard for me to know if it’s me making things strange, or if strange things are just predisposed to happen to me. It’s probably because when I’m unable to open a door, I gird my loins and crawl in through a window.

In the end, the only course of action I can suggest is to not quit. And I recognize that’s completely unreasonable. I know how hard it is to get rejection after rejection. To feel like nothing you’ll ever write will be good enough. Because this isn’t a reasonable industry.

Luck, and timing.

So here’s to you. Wishing you the best of luck and timing that a writer could possibly hope for. May all your dreams come true! And in the meantime, if you have to quit, I support you. If you want to rest, I support that too. And if you want to crawl in through a window, gimme a shout. I’ll help you find one.