Agents & Editors Recommend

A dependable source of professional and creative advice, this regular series features anecdotes, insights, tips, recommended reading and viewing for writers, and more from leading agents and editors.

Tynan Kogane of New Directions

7.8.20

The persistent image of the isolated writer—the cable-knit-sweater-wearing genius who takes a deep breath and aims a thundering blast of prose directly at the cosmos—isn’t a very useful one, especially not for the writer trying to work out the business of publishing his or her work, and driven to reading the advice of a cranky editor on a website. It takes the combined efforts of a generous group of people to nurture and circulate the literary talents of a writer, and I’d like to speak about this group:

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Lilly Dancyger of Barrelhouse Books

7.1.20

I don’t know where I’d be without my writers group. We’ve been meeting every week—to critique each other’s work, give advice and pep talks, and troubleshoot this fickle industry—for almost three years now. We’ve helped each other through manuscript revisions, agent searches, submission blues, prepublication anxiety, and the publicity whirlwind.

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Tabia Yapp of BEOTIS

6.24.20

When is the right time to build out your team and seek representation (literary agent, speaking agent, talent manager, publicist, assistant, lawyer, etc.)?

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Ian Bonaparte of Janklow and Nesbit

6.17.20

Go ahead, judge that book by its cover. And judge it by its back cover, too. Today I want to talk sizzle, or, more properly, “copy.” Much depends on the text that surrounds the book through each step of the publishing process, from the query the agent reads, the pitch the editor will read, to the jacket copy on the back of the slab. 

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Carey Salerno of Alice James Books

6.11.20

In anything I read, I’m primarily seeking what I’ve come to refer to as the “heartstring”—a compelling connection, the “why” of a work. 

The heartstring urges me to bond with the writing and the writer, and to feel the urgency of the story the writer is eager to tell. It is the impetus for our meeting. It is what the writer hopes to communicate, translate, instill within me. It’s the perennial root of the matter. It is the way in which a subject has spellbound the writer and refused to relent. It is the way in which the subject asserts the necessity of its voice. 

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Michael Wiegers of Copper Canyon Press

6.3.20

As I consider these awful times, I’ve wandered into the trap of asking, “What’s the purpose of poetry?” Unfortunately, it’s a too-familiar question: What can words on a page or screen possibly offer against crises of such scale? Bookstores are currently closed because of the pandemic, things are looking grim for publishers. Teachers and students are adrift without a classroom to gather them into community. Readings are depersonalized by the homogenizing screen. There has to be a better way. What might poetry offer that might help us all?

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Rayhané Sanders of Massie and McQuilkin

5.27.20

People are always asking me what kind of novel I’m looking for. My fiction tastes vary—I’ve fallen in love with everything from historical wartime novels to satirical portraits of contemporary life to dystopian imaginings of a world far beyond our own. Scenes depicting everything from a child’s birthday party in suburban Las Vegas, to a tense boardroom meeting at a Portland software start-up, to an underground Christian mass in North Korea have taken my breath away. What matters to me is VOICE.

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Peter Steinberg of Foundry

5.20.20

As an agent, I make a point of reading all the unsolicited submissions. Dozens come in every week but it’s one of the ways I make a living because invariably, a couple times a year, I find something great that goes on to get published. It’s also an important part of my job because I like the idea that even without any connections, a writer can land an agent. Giving all unsolicited work a legitimate shot feels fair, regardless of who the writer knows.

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Emily Forland of Brandt and Hochmann

5.13.20

I have a new pastime: Squidball. Invented during quarantine, it’s a game of indoor catch with my son’s rubber squid. Sometimes a squid works better than what you thought you wanted. Who needs a ball?

When I first moved to New York, I took figure drawing at the Art Students League. I struggled, but at times I’d make a leap of progress between classes, as if part of me was working at it while I bounced around the other parts of life. Maybe in quarantine we’re all doing that, whatever we do. 

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Adam McGee of Boston Review

5.6.20

In response to the question, “What are you looking for?” every editor has at some point told an aspirant, “Surprise me!” We’re not trying to be dismissive—it’s just a harder question than people realize. Aesthetic choices are notoriously hard to quantify, and often editors are under competing demands (to appease their bosses, to give readers a new experience), such that articulating something as abstract as what you would wish to see can be paralyzing.

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