Natalie Aguirre, blogger at Literary Rambles, has been kind enough to include me for an agent spotlight, and is offering a query critique from me.
For the critique giveaway details and the remainder of the spotlight, see the link included.
4. Is there anything you would be especially excited to seeing in the genres you are interested in?
I’m—to be entirely honest—not an agent who is overly concerned with tropes or categories. The best stories transcend those categories, or break them apart, or bring something so captivating to them that you forget why you hated the trope in the first place.
I, simply, have a heart for remarkably told stories, and writing proportionate to those stories.
In my first round of agenting, certain writers that I signed did have a debut novel that editors found “too similar” to something on the market, or didn’t add anything to a niche “too flooded.” Fine! This is part of the risk, and the puzzle, and the hard work! It so happens that most went on to write novels that sold, and sold brilliantly, and (in one or two cases) debuted on the New York Times bestseller list. All those that sold have also built sustainable, ongoing careers, and this to me is the essential marker of any worthwhile success. To give a specific example: I never thought I’d love a novel about zombies…but signed a former client, now a USA Today bestseller, who wrote the most delicious literary zombie novel, which didn’t go on to publish but helped break her into serious publishing—and, boy, I still hope to this day she’ll have a chance to place it, when people don’t feel tired of zombies.
Novelists who know their craft I will sign and work with, over long periods of time, any day.
