Big News! Agent!

This week I signed with Victoria Marini of Gelfman Schneider Literary Agents! Victoria will be representing my second novel, Bulfinch, and future works of fiction to editors at publishing houses. I'm absolutely thrilled; Victoria already has a list of pretty classy editors to start submitting to, and I'm looking forward to hearing soon about how the first round goes! GSLA is a respected agency, and they're represented some big works, like Girl with a Pearl Earring.

So, for those who don't know, a literary agent represents an author's work to acquiring editors at publishing houses. This is a vital service to the author since most major publishers don't accept "unsolicited" manuscripts - in other words, manuscripts submitted directly by authors. Agents basically select out promising writers from the immense pool of hopeful authors, which is why editors prefer to look at submissions from them - the sheer volume of unsolicited manuscripts makes the agent's role in selection just as important to editors as it is to the authors they represent.

Getting an agent is a huge first step for any hopeful author after she's learned to actually finish a manuscript. Writers find agents by querying them: sending letters (or, more typically, emails) with a synopsis of the work, a brief bio of the writer, and some basics on the manuscript: length, stage of completion, genre. And boy do we query in droves: my mom and several of her writer friends asked one another about it once, and determined they'd each queried about 100 agents before signing with their first ones. I think I got off pretty easy with about 40 queries before Victoria came along.

The process doesn't end with the query, either; if an agent likes the query, she might ask for a partial, or excerpt, of the manuscript, of anywhere from five to fifty pages; if the first partial is short, the agent may even ask for a second, longer partial before finally requesting the full manuscript. And even then, some agents - like mine - may ask for revisions before considering representation: they want to know you're willing to work with them, and there might be issues in the manuscript that make it unmarketable in its current state, but they want to be certain that revision will address those problems satisfactorily before agreeing to represent.

After an agent agrees to represent your work, she'll begin submitting it to editors. A lot of agencies also handle subsidiary rights if the author retains a portion of them after an initial sale: electronic rights, film rights, foreign rights, reprint rights. Agents work on commission and typically subtract 15% from the sale of most rights as their fee.

And that's how publishing goes 'round. Please ascribe any glaring errors in grammar, spelling or punctuation to a dangerous concoction of cold medication, sinus congestion and David Foster Wallace.

This week I received revisions for Queens of All the Earth from Harrison Demchick, my editor at Bancroft Press. Getting accepted is only half the battle - there's still a lot of work to do, but I'm hoping that with some focus I can get through the edits in a month and a half, working on evenings and weekends. Whew! Even with all this work ahead of me, it's still exciting to think that this will end up as a book on a shelf.

wants to be lawyer, filmmaker, novelist

It's done! The second major revision of my second novel, Bulfinch, is done, and I think this is its final state, barring minor adjustments. It was hard to put it down - after two years, the characters have begun to feel very real to me, and almost like a family, and it's a little strange and alienating to realize that from an outsider's perspective, it might seem sad to be so attached to creatures who only live in my imagination. I just hope that when other people read it, they can feel the same connection, and the magic of seeing these characters come alive. I don't look back at the two years I spent writing and revising Bulfinch as a process of creating something; by the end, it felt like a weird combination of playing God and experiencing something, as if I were there with my characters, just recording what they did and said, and though I dictated to them what would occur, they sometimes shot back with unexpected quirks. If it ever gets published, I'll have to return to it again to satisfy editors' suggestions, but I have a feeling that this is the end, for this project, of that supernaturally intense phase of absorption. I'll miss it.

But I already have plenty of other things to look forward to - such as the Washington, DC 48 Hour Film Project, in which I'll be joining a team to create a short film in 48 hours using a prompt that will only be revealed to us at the start of the contest. I'll be the primary writer and rough cut editor for my team, and I'm thrilled - it will be quite an adventure, creatively and logistically. Franny, my little DVX, will be sitting this one out, sadly - she's been one-upped by another team-member's P2 camera. Franny will come out soon, though, once I finally convince her that not all filmmakers are section men.

New Year, New Book, New Film!

I'm very happy to announce that I've sold my first book to Bancroft Press of Baltimore, Maryland.

The Queens of All the Earth is a young adult novel about two neurotic sisters who escape their iceberg mother one Thanksgiving by traveling to Barcelona to find a little peace. But they stumble into the opposite, as the eccentric travelers they meet in their hostel show them what they're really running from. The Queens of All the Earth is a gentle coming-of-age inspired by E. M. Forster's A Room with a View, a story of young love and awakening.

Bancroft Press has also purchased the cover I'd designed for the novel. You can see it below; I hope to post more tidbits about the book, and give away some free copies, as its release approaches. Right now, it's scheduled to come out this fall.


In other exciting news, I'll finish post-production on the Bedford Square short film Chatterton within two weeks. Once that's wrapped up, I'll be focusing on festival submissions and internet promotion - meaning I'll finally have time to compress and post bits of it here, and soon I'll even make the whole film available online.

So what else is coming up in this new year? Well, after a little break, I'm doing another revision of Bulfinch; I'm hoping to start working on an album-length lost-and-found film borrowing some music from the band Menomena; writing a few film columns for Historical Novels Review; and working on some new fiction. Oh, also, holding a job and trying to be a normal person.

It's too beautiful outside. Who let it get so beautiful? It's a disaster. I bring my laptop to the patio because on a day like today interiors make it difficult to think. But outside it's worse. I continually wrestle with the urge to skip, jump, pick buttercups and generally frolic. It's very dismaying. The only way to sedate my energy and focus on work is with a tall cool glass of iced tea.

Skimming Bulfinch for the fourth time, with very helpful suggestions from mom. But the fixing should only take a few hours. Querying agents as I go along. Music is distracting but inevitable. Lots of fat bumblebees on the butterfly bush.





ADDENDUM: Oh GOD, rural Pennsylvania, why do you have to smell like so much POO? Even my Norma Desmond sunglasses cannot shield me from that.

Finished the 3rd pass on Bulfinch - this one moved much more quickly because it didn't involve rewriting or major revision, just sweeping up afterward. Mom's looking at it now to give me her thoughts. In the meantime, I'm browsing Publishers Marketplace to make a preliminary list of agents to submit to, and then I'll rap out a query letter.

This is one of those waiting-weeks that drive me up the wall. I'm moving on Saturday and with the preparations for that, plus working on Bulfinch, you'd think I'd feel busier. Instead, I'm wilting with boredom. I'm anxious to start my new job, settle into my new place, and shoot Chatterton. But there's nothing I can do now except play the waiting game.

On the other hand, I did buy a smashing new businesslike purse and a pair of sunglasses about as big as my face yesterday. And I'm embarrassingly excited for the SYTYCD finale tonight. So it's not like I'm bending all of my energies to Higher Things! Nor do I really want to.

Bulfinch page 110

Once I found Immanuel Kant wedged in the toaster.

Since pre-production work on Chatterton has relaxed a lot in the last week, I've had more time to work on my novel, Bulfinch. Finally, after over a year of chasing the whimsical wistful little story, I've finished a draft that I think is acceptable. At 225 pages (64,000 words) it's still a little short, but a third pass through it should flesh out a few more scenes and then, with some editorial input from my mom, I'll be ready to go huntin' fer agents.

Bulfinch is the story of a university student so obsessed with medieval history that a knight pops out of her imagination and into the real world. Our narrator embarks on a quest to find the device that will return him home, all while keeping him (and his medieval chronicler) out of trouble with the police, angry neighbors, and her crazy Uncle Alvin. In the meantime, the reopened investigation of her parents' disappearance challenges her memories of her idyllic childhood, making her long to hold on to the companionship she's found with her new time-misplaced guests.

Below you can read a sneak peek of Bulfinch. Wish me luck as I begin the search for publication! Also, happy birthday today to Alter-Hannah/HSII/Clone. Have a great one.

PART I
CHIVALRY

Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. “My dear fellow, medieval art is charming, but medieval emotions are out of date. One can use them in fiction, of course. But then the only things that one can use in fiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact…”

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

The summer I was twelve, my parents disappeared and I moved in with my crazy Uncle Alvin in Baltimore.

How did my mom and dad vanish? That's an interesting story. I wish I knew what it was. They were on a Mediterranean cruise celebrating their twentieth anniversary. Dad had surprised Mom with the trip a week before they left, one of his extravagant gestures that made Mom blush on birthdays and holidays. He presented the tickets to her with a pair of diamond earrings to wear to the captain's table. I ogled the two of them, beaming their megawatt smiles at each other across the table, the two happiest parents a girl could ever dream of. The night before their ship left the Port of Baltimore, they deposited me at Mom's brother's house with a mighty rain of kisses. That was the last time I ever saw them. My story is full of lasts.

I wish there was an event that I could describe that would make their disappearance a reality to you. I've imagined enough possibilities: an identity mix-up that forced them on the lam for crimes they didn't commit; a freak lightning storm that separated the cliff they stood upon, in a terrified embrace, from the chalky bluff; a ride with a psychotic local fisherman zealous to add more tourists to his “collection.”

According to the official record, they were last seen boarding a small boat alone on the evening of August 15, near the Zakynthos sea caves in Greece. And I never moved out of the spare bedroom in Uncle Alvin’s tiny old rowhouse in Hampden, where the pink flamingos nod in front of peeling porches.

Welcome to Bedford Square

Hello! As I enter my adult career and launch myself as an author and an independent filmmaker, I will keep this blog tracking my projects. The name Bedford Square comes from the home of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of 19th century painters, poets and critics who rejected the mannerism of academic art. Unlike later waves of avant-gardists who struck against the establishment with minimalism, abstraction and chaos, the PRB freed themselves from convention in order to better portray lush detail and lavish storytelling.

Now, introducing the stars of my own Bedford Square. This month, you're going to hear a lot about two projects in particular: the revision of my second novel, Bulfinch (and the knight who was misplaced), and the production of my short film, Chatterton. I'm currently in preproduction on Chatterton, in the midst of casting and location scouting.

Chatterton's narrator, Daniel, is out of work, out of inspiration, and lorn for his best friend's girl.

He's also a member of a photographic forgery ring with his two roommates.

Desperate and frustrated, he proposes their greatest project yet: an "early art photograph by a forgotten master" to be sold to the Baltimore Museum of Art. But as Daniel and his abettors work more feverishly to produce the perfect photograph, Daniel's illusions about his bohemian life erode under his feet...

Chatterton is a 30 - 40 minute short featuring live action, hand-drawn animation, and lost and found footage sequences. Thanks to Polyvinyl Records, the entire film will be scored with music by of Montreal. Shooting should happen in early August, and I hope to have a finished film out by the end of that month. Visit back to stay posted on the progress of this project, as I'll be posting updates about all the moving parts involved in organizing an independent film shoot!


Bulfinch (and the knight who was misplaced) is my second completed novel. It's about a history major who lives with her crazy Uncle Alvin in Baltimore, and the characters that one day march out of her imagination and into reality.

I'm currently revising the second draft of Bulfinch, after which I will continue searching for an agent and/or a publisher for this and my first novel, The Queens of All the Earth, a modernized retelling of E M Forster's A Room with a View. Stay posted for stories about the book biz as I navigate the query and marketing process with the guidance of my mom, Libby Malin Sternberg, herself a published novelist. It's a world just as crazy and fascinating as Hollywood. But sometimes with a better vocabulary.