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Monday, March 17, 2008

Thanks for visiting. I am no longer updating Notes to Self. I hope you'll join me on my current website, PlantingDandelions.com

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.

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9 Comments:

Blogger amy turn sharp said...

yr building it :)

11:52 AM  
Blogger cce said...

And me too...find me too. I want that. Good luck with this one. I don't even know where to start searching for such a gift as the one who seek.

12:08 PM  
Blogger Elan Morgan said...

You just wrote part of my heart out, too. I hope they do find you.

(and me)

9:52 PM  
Blogger Jennifer S said...

Maybe she/he is reading Good Housekeeping right now...Keep the phone close by.

9:56 PM  
Blogger Texasholly said...

Good luck...

10:03 PM  
Blogger JCK said...

Keep the faith. Keep writing, if nothing else...for yourself.

Congrats on the GH!

12:04 AM  
Blogger Julie @ Letter9 said...

You'll get there. Just keep swimming (as Dory from Finding Nemo would say).

6:26 PM  
Blogger jena strong said...

Brilliant letter. This is such a poetic expression of asking for exactly what you need, creating the vision of it in words. "There are books in here somewhere. Please help me find them." I have been saying these words for some time now, but reading them here inspires me to put them out there in new ways.

11:59 AM  
Blogger Emily said...

I will become a wildly influential publisher just to grant your wish....I love you.

6:18 AM  

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