Currently Reading: Tiny Pretty Things, by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton
News
I have a couple of neat resources to share this week, but before I do that, I want to pop in a quick personal note. One of my colleagues at the Rights Factory, Cecilia Lyra, announced her new two-book deal this week! CeCe is a multicultural author originally from Brazil, now living in Canada. She is a brilliant feminist with a background in law, and I love working with her. Her novel The Sunset Sisters was previously published in Germany under the title Sisters for a Summer, where it was a #1 bestseller. The Sunset Sisters will be available digitally in English through Bookouture/Hachette in June! I can’t wait to read her books! If you want to read The Sunset Sisters, please consider pre-ordering an affordable digital copy! If you do so, it will be of most benefit to CeCe, and it will positively influence Amazon’s algorithms – something we should all want to do to support deserving authors.
Resources
For those of you who have been following the violence toward trans people recently perpetrated by the Toronto Public Library, I want to share THREE resources. The first is an informative thread written by trans Indigenous author Gwen Benaway, linked below, who breaks down 191 pages of internal Emails from the TPL released in a freedom of information request regarding the violent incidents.
The second is a great article by Toronto-based journalist Michael Rancic, who writes about the incident to date, as well as TRANScend TRANSform, the related teach-in that happened last week. If you, like me, weren’t able to attend this event in person (don’t worry – there were over 200 attendees!), the third resource is the high-quality video recording of the event, which was hosted by the bookshop where I work. Shoutout to Anju Gogia from Another Story, and Kai Cheng Thom, for putting in the legwork to make this happen, and to get both a live video stream, and this high quality version, online.
I have also updated my own Links and Resources page with a compilation of all of the information that I have posted about the incidents surrounding transphobia at the TPL for quick reference.
On a lighter note, ReQueered Tales, a re-publisher of post-Stonewall pre-2000 queer literature, posted this great Canadian LGBTQ2S+ history resource: unearthed 1970’s interviews with Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera from CBC Radio.
Last, but not least, Lee and Low Books released the results of their recent Diversity in Publishing survey this past week… and guess what? Surprising no one, we’re still super white. Check out the full blog post here.
Guest Post from Rhynn Bowlick-Evans
Given my recent forays into the publishing business, I’ve been thinking so much about the process of writing and publishing a book for the trade market. This post delves into Rhynn Bowlick-Evans’ intensely personal experience of querying an agent for publication… and ultimately deciding instead to turn their back on the process.
Queery Me This, by Rhynn Bowlick-Evans
I did a lot of research when I started querying a couple years back. I had spreadsheets galore, bookmarked articles with click-batey titles about how to write the perfect pitch, meticulously prepared sample pages, and a deep, oppressive sense of longing.
You see, everything had really gone to shit. My family was crumbling. Posturing as cishet was becoming too exhausting, but my queerness scared me. Iâd just finished grad school, which had completely destroyed me. I was stranded on the East Coast with no community, no connections, and no career prospects.
Writing was the light at the end of the tunnel, and as my characters helped pull me back into the real world, I wondered if they might do the same for others who were struggling. Thus, I did what I felt was the only logical thing at the time: I began the disheartening process of querying.
Swing and a Miss
I say it was disheartening, because the things I was searching for were not anything that literary agents could or should replicate.
I knew my word count was too high for a YA Fantasy manuscript. My fantasy of manners-esque style and florid prose didnât necessarily pitch well, without a high-stakes hook. And yet, knowing this, I queried anyway. My manuscript was #OwnVoicesâthere was queerness throughout the manuscript that I wasnât ready to call my own, though, and I couldnât bring myself to type out the words I was abused, this is my story, which meant it was hard to explain why I should be telling this story, and why others should bother to listen.
At a certain point, the shiny new luster of querying started to wear off. Some of the agents I was lusting after made a questionable tweet (or six), and as I began to follow authors who were represented, it quickly became apparent that being agented was not the be-all, end-all fix. Many still worked day-jobs, and a handful were brutally honest about what it meant to not be the agencyâs golden child. And beyond the realities of publishing lay uncomfortable truths about my sense of selfâI could not pitch this book without owning the parts of it that belonged to me. And yet, to own those partsâto stand up and say I am hurt, I am queer felt like handing over my trauma a la some twitsted sort of currency to buy marketability, and I was expected to do it in pursuit of love I shouldâve been seeking elsewhere.
Authors absolutely must be asking why theyâve chosen to query. Why do they want to be represented? Why do they want to be published, and more than that, why is this method of publishing right for them and their story?
Hereâs the Deal
I got some fantastic feedback from my time querying. I also realized that I was waiting for someone to give me permission to be excited about my work.
At some point, I got it into my head that I needed to earn my own enthusiasm. That, with enough collective approval, I could cash in and start gushing about my project. And let me tell you, friends, it is exhausting, waiting to be excited about something youâre so passionate about.
In a lot of respects, querying was a way of searching for affection that my community wasnât giving. It was the first step to building a collective that better reflected my interests and passions, that would get excited about the things I loved. And, too, I think the agent search was really a quest to lend some legitimacy to a project even I wasnât taking seriously at the timeâas much time and effort as I put into my manuscript, I still saw it as a cry for help from a desperate person.
Most of my querying was waiting for someone to hand my manuscript back to me and say, Your feelings are so valid, darling, so valid in fact that we must share them with the world. Thisâand I cannot emphasize this enoughâis not an agentâs job.
I wanted someone to tell me that it was all going to be okay. That it was okay that my manuscript was front-loaded with the queer, masc characters like me. It was okay, writing about how difficult it was to maintain connections with people post-trauma, and too, that it was okay to craft a family on paper like the one I wanted in my real life. And above all this, I wanted someone to tell me it was okay to love that manuscript. Because that manuscript still feels like me, and itâs okay to love me. I am loveable.
Contracted Advance
Iâve seen a lot of people saying how 2020 is the year they write what they want. The distinction between marketable and good can, at times, be quite vast, and so itâs good to be aware that the story you love may not be a story thatâs selling well right now.
I made a promise to myself, when I started writing. An internal contract that I would write what I needed to, and that this project would never be for anyone but myself. I broke this contract, querying.
I didnât want to traditionally publish. Thereâs a lot of reasons why, some practical (retaining rights and control), others, not (Iâm impatient and wanted to publish faster than a trad publishing timeline allowed). The most important reason, though, was that trad publishing could not give me self-love. It could not make me come to terms with myself. And it didnât really matter which publishing avenues I was exploringâif I couldnât find self-acceptance, it would be a miserable journey, no matter the path.
Intrinsic appreciation of the craft was something that I had to nurture. Itâs a balance between writing for yourself and still being able to work with readers and editors, all while retaining confidence in your work. And really, it comes back the the interminable question every good writer should be asking, the one thing we all must wonder to spin the narratives: but why?
PS, if you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving me a tip! It only takes a minute, and it allows me to keep creating content just like this, buying food for my pets, and pursuing my career as a literary agent!
Books Beyond Binaries 