Eleanor Is Swellanor
16 Nov 2010 1 Comment
I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve signed with Eleanor Jackson of the Markson Thoma Literary Agency. Eleanor will be handling my new novel, Gravity, and whatever else comes out of the pen in the future. Pretty goddamned awesome if I do say so myself. Go team!
Jan 07, 2011 @ 20:10:45
Congratulations, Christian!
I hope you won’t mind answering a question about query letter format, specifically when writing to Eleanor.
Ideally a writer can say, “[Your friend/client] recommended that I contact you about my novel.” If that isn’t the case, how important do you consider it to kick off your query with the reason you’re contacting this particular agent–assuming you’ve satisfied yourself that s/he represents the kind of thing you’ve written?
Here’s my situation: I expect to query Eleanor because of her success in placing Edgar Sawtelle, although my literary novel has no more in common with a tale of sentient dogs than it does with your story about a depressed astronaut. I just think that an agent drawn to a retelling of Hamlet in the Midwest might be interested in a novel (inspired by The Waste Land) about the Grail-like quest of a young American bride caught up in World War I.
Based on your experience, is Eleanor more likely to respond favorably to a query that starts out essentially as in the preceding sentence, or to a letter that goes directly into the subject of the novel without giving lip service to why I’ve chosen to write to her? If you don’t mind disclosing it, what reason (if any) did you give in your query letter for contacting her?
Thanks for any help you can give.
John