Queries: Round Two
Spent this beautiful Saturday morning prepping three snail mail queries and wrapping sold books (farewell, Karsten Harries' The Meaning of Modern Art, we've had some good times together) to take to the post office while watching The Wire tempered by Amazon Prime episodes of Clarissa Explains it All (it's too much otherwise, man. It's too much).
These are my first snail mail queries which I was hoping to get out closer to the last batch, but part of last week was spent on a trip to Chicago to see a section of More Like a Siren, Less Like a Bell performed to a sold-out house at Chicago's Strawdog Theatre (put on by the amazing Pre-Posthumanists). I'm hoping to have audio to put on the site very soon. Then over the long holiday weekend, my wife, Jessa and I played host to our good friend and Monkeybicycle travel-essay contributor, Dakota Sexton. We took a mini-vacation, acting as tourists in our own town, showing Dakota around, as she brainstormed for her piece on Memphis, and generally being much more active than we normally would in 105 degree, 90 percent humidity weather (rides, haunted houses, and fifty-cent freak show exhibits ("A beautiful woman's head with the body of a hideous snake! What horrific accident could have made this beautiful woman so hideous?") at the Agri-Fair, drinks and small stage acts at the gallery street-fest downtown, karaoke, sushi, margaritas, and a brief reprieve to an over-air-conditioned theater for The World's End).
So, choices for my first snail mail queries were based on essentially one criteria: they had to be sent to the biggest and best. While I understand I'm likely over-reaching by trying to score John Green's agent, I'd rather be able to say, "At least I tried," rather than under-sell myself. Plus, I enjoy the close, personal attention each of these agencies provides its clients and see some marketable similarities between some of their publications and More Like a Siren. So when I post about receiving the rejections for these, feel free to say "I told you so." It's okay. I'll be alright as long as I have my free-streaming Melissa Joan Hart.
Here's what I sent and to whom:
Sterling Lord Literistic (Douglas Stewart): Query letter, first full chapter (34 pages), and SASE
Writers House (Jodi Reamer): Query letter, first 14 pages (section break in first chapter), and SASE
McCormick and Williams (Amy Williams): Just the query letter and SASE