Opening to Selective Submissions

Pumpkins.

There are. so. many. pumpkins in October in California. Green ones, white ones, orange ones, bumpy ones, long ones, lumpy ones. And I fell for them all. I gathered as many as I could in one shopping cart and now they are scattered all over my house and yard, as “decor.” Which is what I wish I could do with all of the fantastic submissions I get, rather than regretfully let them go because I can’t have them all. I’ve been delaying opening to submissions, because I know I can’t take on very many new clients right now, particularly new kid-lit or SFF writers. Yet I still want more upmarket adult fiction. I spent a week in NYC (photo of a weather-bedraggled me in the Aevitas conference room) and realized I was hungry for more. But the idea of opening to submissions just overwhelmed me. The pumpkins are everywhere!

Then I read this post by fellow literary agent Eric Smith of Neighborhood Literary. He had articulated exactly what I was feeling about my list “it’s about making sure you’re giving everyone the right kind of attention.” My SFF and kid-lit clients are getting my best attention, anymore and I risk getting stretched thin. But I do have the capacity for more clients in other genres. So I was inspired to take a page out of his book.

I am opening to selective submissions. I am not opening to children’s or genre SFF. My list is quite robust in both these areas already. I am only opening to adult fiction in other genres. So if you find yourself here, because you are wondering why you couldn’t find your genre/age option in Query Manager, hopefully you now understand. I am still actively reading and keeping up-to-date in these areas, and I will open to them again in the future. But for now, I want to make sure my energy is balanced, and that the only clutter happening is from pumpkins.