Posts from — June 2009

When embarking on the long, winding road to publishing success, it’s easy to feel intimidated. So most writers seek the help of a literary agent, someone who can be a guide, a cheerleader, and most of all, a champion.

Enter Zoe Fishman, literary agent and foreign rights director at Lowenstein-Yost Associates in New York. Zoe is everything you’d want your dream agent to be: smart, savvy (she’s got oodles of publishing, editing, and agenting experience), and best of all, she fights for her clients…in a nice way, of course.

 WordHustler sat down with Zoe to get the real deal on agenting, publishing, and the “next big thing” in the YA book world [hint: it’s not vampires but does involve the afterlife].

So sink your teeth into this juicy interview, and then get your work ready for some immortal success!

WordHustler: Zoe, how did you get your start in the publishing industry?

Zoe Fishman: I majored in English at Boston University, and then I took the 6-week magazine publishing course at NYU. My first job was the assistant to the Audio Publisher at Random House. I then moved to editorial assistant at what was Dell, which eventually became Bantam Dell. Then I wrote for a few websites. That was fun.

WH: Are you a writer?

ZF: I am a writer. I eventually came back to Simon & Schuster to work in foreign rights, which was a completely different thing for me but turned out to be really, really wonderful.

WH: And you do the foreign rights here at Lowenstein-Yost, right?

ZF: Yes. At Simon & Schuster I learned so much about business, selling and marketing. Of course, getting to meet people and travel around the world was great. I did that for about five years and got to the point where I missed the editorial a lot, so I thought I would try agenting. I’ve been at Lowenstein-Yost for almost four years.

WH: So missing editorial brought you back to agenting. Were you amassing writers and projects you were passionate about over the years of foreign rights? Did that also help lead you back?

ZF: You know, I have always been a voracious reader and have a lot of editor friends. I’d watch them when they were passionate about a book, and notice the difference between that and being stuck with something they didn’t really want to do.

So when I came in, YA had just started to explode and I love that. I love a good Young Adult novel…and I had some good contacts in that area. So I started with that, and then because I do the foreign rights, there’s not tremendous pressure on me to be a niche agent. If I love the book, I can represent it. And I don’t have a gigantic client list, which is okay. I like that better for both the writer and me.

WH: You represent both YA and adult authors. What draws you to YA? What about an adult book catches your eye?

ZF: I think it’s kind of the same thing: I’m drawn to excellent writing. I think for YA, there’s something about the perspective of a teenager when they’re so not sure of themselves and they have no idea who they really are, that’s compelling because you know all that is ahead of them. You’re rooting for them to truly be an individual.  What I love is when characters are written as ones who you really identify with and feel their struggles.

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We at WordHustler, along with the rest of the world, were saddened to hear of Michael Jackson’s passing today at age 50. But, being the publishing-minded individuals that we are, our thoughts turn to the huge amount of Jackson-centric books that will inevitably flood the literary marketplace in the new few months.

Photo Courtesy of Phil Walter/Getty Images

Searching the book section of Amazon with the keywords “Michael Jackson” already yields over 20,000 results. So the question is, WordHustlers, how many books do you think will be released about Jackson in the next 3 months? Let us know your guess.

Goodbye to a true Thriller. And good luck with your writing, WordHustlers.

A Southern Writer Never Kisses and Tells: An Interview with Mindy Friddle

Somewhere in a plant-choked garden in South Carolina, journalist-turned-novelist Mindy Friddle is planting some succulents in an old, broken-down cowboy boot. She’s also thinking about characters and scenes for her next novel, giving them space to roam around in her head. Mindy Friddle is the real deal, folks: a bona fide Southern lady and a talented writer to boot (pun completely intended).

WordHustler sat down with Mindy to get a feel for her writing experiences, her personal writing style, and why you have to talk to everyone about your project (answer: because it may just land you your dream agent).

Read on to explore the magical world of Mindy Friddle’s fertile mind!

WordHustler: How did you get your first big break? I know you have a journalism background- what was the first thing you ever published?

Mindy Friddle: I began writing for my college newspaper, and I found I really took to writing features as opposed to hard news.  As a senior in college, I also wrote a poem and had it published in the college literary magazine. I loved the process of writing that poem– figuring out the ideal word, concentrating on imagery. When I graduated, with a very marketable degree in philosophy (ha) I took a job as a newspaper reporter for a tiny weekly newspaper. I covered everything–town council, school board, and business, but still gravitated toward writing features and columns.

A couple of years later, I was in graduate school working on a Master’s and getting certified to teach English, and I took a class with James Dickey and a prose workshop. From then on, it was a matter of mustering the courage to write fiction. I yearned to do it, even in the face of rejection. I wrote some stories, had them turned down, wrote some more, and finally, when I started with an image of a decaying homestead for my first novel, The Garden Angel, I was on fire.

I worked on the draft, revised, wrote some more for several years. The story had a momentum of its own. I love when that happens! My first big break– well I was blessed to have several: the first chapter of The Garden Angel won an award in my state, and was published in the Charleston newspaper. That was a clipping…my first. Enough to send in a query to an agent, which I later did. A second break– going to Breadloaf Writers Conference, where I met Julianna Baggott, whose first novel Girl Talk, was coming out, and who struck me as an immensely talented writer and generous person. She’s a friend now, and when I asked her–a stranger really, then–if she was pleased with her agent, she had glowing things to say about the agency, and encouraged me to contact them, and to mention that she sent me. To make a long story short, I queried the agency, sent in my lone “clipping” and the first three chapters. They agreed to work with me.

WH: I know you are an accomplished book reviewer as well as author. What kinds of books are your favorite to review? More so, what type of books are your favorite to read?

MF: I love reviewing books I’ve enjoyed. In fact, I won’t review books that I didn’t like or didn’t connect with for whatever reason. It’s subjective–taste– and life’s too short not to praise books and share them. I’m an eclectic reader and often recommend books on my blog, Novel Thoughts (http://mindyfriddle.blogspot.com/). Some of my all time favorite novels–this is a very partial list: Ironweed by William Kennedy, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, every novel written by Ann Tyler, The White Hotel by DM Thomas, The Hours by Michael Cunningham, The World According to Garp by John Irving, Norwood by Charles Portis, Veronica by Mary Gaitskill, Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, Amy and Isabel by Elizabeth Strout, Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo…and lots of Southern faves: Jill McCorkle, Lee Smith, Allan Garganus, Josephine Humphreys, Carson McCullers, Kaye Gibbons, Eudora Welty, Michael Lee West–Crazy Ladies, love it– Fannie Flagg. On and on.

WH: Now for the part everyone wants to hear about: how did you land an agent? Was your first book, The Garden Angel, finished at the time? How many agents did you approach before landing one?

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Announcing The May Essay Contest Winners!!!

The time has come to announce the winners of WordHustler’s May Essay Contest, which centered around the prompt: “What Is the Best Birthday Gift You’ve Ever Received and Why?”

It was a tough decision for the folks at WordHustler- from over hundreds of submissions, we selected three Winners and six Honorable Mentions.

Winners:

T. Katz, Canyon Country, CA

Karen Bumpus, Marshfield, MA

Orietta L’Abbate, Virgin Islands

Honorable Mentions:

Janice Moss, Albany, NY

Lea Schizas, Quebec, Canada

Donna Eggert, Tabernacle, NJ

Colleen Collins, Delray Beach, FL

Christopher Eller, Castle Rock, CO

Ruby Thomas, Gurnee, IL

If you didn’t win this time, you still have a chance to enter the Summer Poetry Contest! Look for contest rules HERE.

The three winning essays are posted below. Read on to see how these three WordHustlers shared their most memorable birthdays in an even more memorable way.

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WordHustler’s Summer Poetry Contest: Sun, Fun, and Publishing Success!

UPDATE: Contest Deadline EXTENDED until August 14th!!!! See below for details!

School is out, as is the sun, so let’s celebrate summer with some fantastic poems. WordHustler’s Summer Poetry Contest is here!  Send us a poem under 300 words that perfectly encapsulates the feel and attributes of summer at its best (or worst).

We will then sort through all the masterpieces and post the best 3 on WordHustlerInk.com*

So get those competitive juices flowing and hit your computer – submissions are due by August 14th at 12:00pm PST. Go to the the WordHustler Summer Poetry Contest listing in the Contests section of WordHustler’s Markets and submit through our system to win!

There’s a bonus too – not only will the top 3 works be posted right here on WordHustlerInk for all the world to read and enjoy, the winning poets will also get one free submission (up to $5.99 value) each.

See below for Official Rules and Regulations. Good Luck, Hustlers!

*Please Note: “Best” will be determined by the WH team. We are looking for compelling writing that gives us insight to you as a writer and what inspires you to do what you do. Note, the WH team consists of 10 writers with a combined experience of over 80 years in the industry who will determine which work captures the theme the most passionately….

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Remember that saying: “Those who do, do. Those who don’t, teach?” Well, Joyce Sweeney has blown that cliché right out of the water. Not only has Sweeney helped mentor 26 writers to publishing success, she is also a published YA author herself. Her first novel, Center Line, won the First Annual Delacorte Press Prize for an Outstanding Young Adult Novel. She has published thirteen other books, as well as a poetry chapbook.

But Sweeney’s real passion lies in helping would-be writers become successful. As Sweeney herself puts it: “Even more than writing itself, I love helping and mentoring writers.”

WordHustler sat down with Joyce Sweeney to discuss agents, editors, and the teenager inside every YA author. Grab your journal, some junk food, and get ready for the most informative [virtual] sleep-over you’ve ever attended!

WordHustler: How did you get your first big break? What was the first piece of writing you ever published?

Joyce Sweeney: My first novel, Center Line, won the first annual Delacorte Press Prize for a New Young Adult Novel in 1984.  I had an agent and had been submitting the novel for a year…over 30 publishers had rejected it.  Then it won first prize in the contest and I won a contract and got some good publicity for the book.  A good example of why writers have to be persistent and ignore rejections!  The very first piece of writing I ever published was a short story in a magazine called NEW WRITERS.  I was 18 and I got paid $25.  I thought I was on my way!  Then came the decade of hard work to get to 1984!

WH: As an author, why are you drawn to YA novels? Do you pull from your own childhood or from kids that you know today?

JS: All the children’s writers I know seem to have some kind of strong inner voice that reflects a certain age group.  The really great picture book writers have an inner child who’s about five.  The middle graders think like eight to eleven year olds.  All of us YA writers have a strong teenager inside us…we just think that way.  When YA authors get together, it’s totally like teenagers…all we do is complain, make sarcastic remarks and laugh too loud.  For inspiration, I pull from my own adolescence a lot…all my main characters are aspects of me…but I learn a lot from the teens I talk with now.  Often my story ideas come from them or things they are going through, but the emotional core of the book… that has to be me.

WH: Now for the part everyone wants to hear about: how did you land an agent? Was your first book finished at the time? How many agents did you approach before landing one?

JS: I got an agent so long ago it’s irrelevant to today’s world.  I got my first agent in the early 80’s. I wrote a query letter and started sending it out (snail mail of course) in batches of five to all the agents I could find. This part of my story was easy. I got two yeses from the first batch…Dominick Abel and Marcia Amsterdam. I chose Marcia.  She was my agent for the first ten years of my career and it was a great relationship for all those years.  But it took years working with her to sell my first book.

WH: How long did your agent take to get you a book deal with Henry Holt? Or did you just go to Macmillian/Henry Holt directly?

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