All Points Bulletin

You are a mature, experienced literary agent/editor with a passion beyond reason for good writing and writers. You have an eye for vision, and an ear for voice. Where others see only the pitch in front of them, you can discern the arc of a body of work. You'll follow it all the way, too, if you think it might lead to gold.

You would not deign to use the word "brand" as a verb, without irony, to the face of any writer, but you are practical. You can and will speak any language necessary to the people who get books in the hands of readers. You will find that I am similarly pragmatic. Until I tell you I am taking a couple of years off in between books to put out a poetry collection with a small press in northern Minnesota you've never heard of. But you love poetry, so we're cool.

You are looking for people whose principle talent is writing, not marketing. If this blog were a room we could both stand in, and I gestured around to the stacks and stacks of essays and stories, and showed you my nearly accidental publication credits and said, "There are books in here somewhere. Please help me find them," you wouldn't roll your eyes and slam the door. You would pick up one manila folder, then another, and you would see what needs to happen next, and you would tell me what to do. I would do it, too. Just ask my realtor.

You believe your role is more than just brokering a commodity; you think of yourself as a collaborator. You bring more than signatures to a contract; you bring direction. You bring faith. You are creating something too. You get emotionally invested in the projects you take on. You have cried alone at your desk when a manuscript has met with success or failure. You are one of the last of your kind. Most people say you no longer exist at all, except in myth. But I believe in you.

Please find me.