Finished a 6-month revision of Desolation Ghosts and just queried another 5 agents. It's a tough sell since people looking for social justice work generally want non-fiction and since social justice and nature are a strange combo. I'll keep trudging away at it though. I'm printing a proof for a "final" proofread through Barnes & Noble printing. Here's the cover. It's kind of ugly. I'm no artist, but I love having Hozomeen on the cover.
I found an agent I was excited about because of her mission statement (books that matter) and because she's done a lot with Philip Roth's work (whose novel The Human Stain is the most like mine in terms of whistleblower fiction). It wasn't clear until I'd already invested some time in the query that she only accepts non-fiction. I guess I was tired, but I got aggressive and sent her a query anyhow. Haven't heard back. :D I've queried 45 agents now and need to keep going. It feels like I'm running out of agencies I feel confident are solid. I know I need to submit some short stories to magazines, too. That would help my credibility to agents.
Part of my query letter to Wendy Strothman:
I’m writing to you because this book, which reflects dire current
affairs, matters. It will change how people think about those struggling with
mental health issues by revealing yet another little-known form of
discrimination they either endure or succumb to. It will educate people about
the toll of being a park ranger and about dangers in nature, and it will make
them curious to follow, in the next book, a memorable character out of the
frying pan of surviving suicidality into the fire of our failing mental health
system, which often leads to jail for people in crisis.
I’m writing to you because you’re singing my song and I’m singing
yours but in different, complementary keys. Philip Roth, Upton Sinclair, George
Orwell, and many others wrote significant and provocative works of non-fiction
as fiction because it was more effective to make their points. Would you say no
to them without peeking at their work? What use is a memoir aborted by libel
laws unless you dress it in fictional skin?
I love this picture of Desolation Lookout (and Hozomeen!) from the air this summer during all the fires. (credit: Jim Henterly, "Edge of the Void")
