Because even though I love YA...

Friday, April 9, 2010

Because even though I love YA...

It's not the only genre I'm looking for.

Keep in mind when you're querying agents, yes you want to query agents who read and like the genre you're writing, but an agent who represents a manuscript just like yours might not want another one. It doesn't do us any good to have unpublished projects which are going to compete with each other.

So yes I love YA - send me your fantastic YA manuscripts. I will always love YA - especially literary or upmarket YA with a commercial hook.

But I also love middle grade and adult fiction too - paranormal romance, urban fantasy, science fiction, women's fiction, contemporary romance...

What I'd love to find right now in particular:

A paranormal romance with a fast paced great plot line - something that could be a series (a la JR Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood Series, which makes me feel a little like an addict...ok a lot like an addict)

An intricate middle grade fantasy series with amazing worldbuilding (no wizards please)

A dark romantic fantasy with an epic cast of characters, intrigue, betrayal, etc (a la Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel Series or Anne Bishop's Black Jewels Trilogy)

A strong female protagonist urban fantasy novel that's not vampires but has a strong voice (like Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress Series)

A fun contemporary literary middle grade with a great commercial hook.

For more info, check out my submission guidelines and FinePrint's website.

11 comments:

lotusgirl said...: This is all good news to me. It sounds like when I get mine polished up and sparkling it might be something to interest you.; April 10, 2010 at 7:44 AM
TrishaleighKC said...: I just had to comment because you mentioned Anne Bishop's Black Jewels Trilogy.

I think I called in sick to work to finish those and went into a deep, dark depression when I ran out of words.

Not really on the second part. Mostly.

Thanks for the information.; April 10, 2010 at 3:00 PM
Cynthia Reese said...: Ah, you have highlighted the chief fault with the "research agents until you find one that reps a book exactly like your MS."

It's hard enough for agents to compete with other agents ... entirely too much to ask them to compete with themselves!; April 10, 2010 at 7:05 PM
Josin L. McQuein said...: Are you okay with paranormal MG that isn't wizards? Or would you rather see more contemporary stories without the "unusual" elements?; April 11, 2010 at 4:24 PM
suzie townsend said...: Josin, I am okay with paranormal MG or MG with "unusual" elements. Just no Wizards :); April 12, 2010 at 2:43 AM
Janet Johnson said...: Thanks for sharing your interests!; April 12, 2010 at 11:22 AM
Shelley Watters said...: OMG. I absolutely LOVE JR Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series. It is an addiction. Did you know that Lover Mine is out April 27th? I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Have you read her Fallen Angels series? I haven't yet...; April 19, 2010 at 1:53 AM
Cory said...: A strong female protagonist urban fantasy novel that's not vampires but has a strong voice (like Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress Series)

That made me go, "Yes! That's exactly my book! I should totally query her--oh wait, I already did."

Cue sadface.

Thanks for this post, though; I always like seeing specifics of what agents are looking for.; April 20, 2010 at 5:32 AM
Corinne said...: Posted with the wrong account--this is me.; April 20, 2010 at 5:33 AM
pegasus358 said...: The Black Jewels are the best books ever... I feel as though we need to discuss these in more detail, Suzie!

--Beth M from Writers House; April 21, 2010 at 1:36 PM
edentylerwriter.com said...: even a few months late (one minute away from october, literally!), it gives me confidence to see a certain one of those *wants* on your list.
here's hoping you haven't already found it... ;)
(or maybe you have and just haven't gotten to it yet lol)
love posts like these. they help a lot!; October 1, 2010 at 1:00 AM

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Five Random Things About Suzie

1. I drink so much orange soda, it's probably running through my veins. I've been known to go through a twelve pack of diet sunkist in a day.

2. I'm legitimately nocturnal (or a vampire). I will be so exhausted at two pm that I'm falling asleep standing up - it has happened before, at Six Flags no less - but as soon as the sun goes down I'm wide awake.

3. I have a gorgeous unused $6000 Reem Acra wedding dress hanging in my closet, and it showed up on my doorstep the same day my (now ex) fiance broke up with me. And thank God for that. I wouldn't have wanted to waste that dress on him.

4. Social anxiety plagues me daily. I write a script and practice in front of the mirror when I have to make a phone call, but most people who interact with me have no idea how nervous I am (or perhaps they lie) because I've worked so hard to try to overcome it.

5. I'm actually worried that I will never love my children (when I do have them in the far off future) as much as I love my dogs. I just like animals better than people - they're sweet and innocent and soft and furry - is that so wrong?

quotes

金不一定閃
流浪者不都迷路

"I dreamed you bewitched me into bed

And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane
I think I made you up inside my head
I fancied you'd return the way you said
But I grow old and I forget your name
I think I made you up inside my head" ~Silvia Plath, Mad Girl's Love Song

"Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." ~ Robert Frost

"Love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds." ~ William Shakespeare, "Sonnet 116"

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…And one fine morning-...So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald, THE GREAT GATSBY

"For deadly secrets strike when understood
and lucky stars all exit on the run:
never try to knock on rotten wood,
never try to know more than you should." ~ Sylvia Plath, "Admonitions"

"The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become." ~ Milan Kundera, THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING

William Wilberforce: "No one of our age has ever taken power."
William Pitt Jr: "Which is why we're too young to realize certain things are impossible. Which is why we will do them anyway."

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." ~ Mark Twain

"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." ~ Mark Twain

“You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I cannot tell; what I mean is, that I am under the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resisted in vain, and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you could draw me to water, you could draw me to the gallows, you could draw me to any death, you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you could draw me to any exposure and disgrace.” ~ Charles Dickens, A MUTUAL FRIEND

"I think the idea of life after death is a bad idea. It distracts you from appreciating the uniqueness of the here and now, the moment you are living." ~ Joseph Campbell

"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear...Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved. Cry, the beloved country, these things are not yet at an end." ~ Alan Paton, CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY

"To laugh often and much.. to endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better... To know even one life has breathed easier because you lived, This is to have succeeded." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"After telling the hard facts to anyone from lover or friend, I have changed in their eyes...[Some see it as] a mission, as if ...they can pull me back from the wreckage of that day. Of course, their best efforts are largely useless. No one can pull anyone back from anywhere. You save yourself or you remain unsaved." ~ Alice Sebold, LUCKY

"Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet.
Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air.
Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared." ~Tupac, The Rose That Grew From Concrete

Confessions

Friday, April 9, 2010