Literary agents Lauren Smythe and Allison Hunter of Inkwell Management seek new authors

Lauren Smythe

InkWell Management
521 Fifth Avenue, 26th Floor
New York, NY 10175
http://www.inkwellmanagement.com/

InkWell Management is a large New York agency. It was formed in 2004 through the merger of Arthur Pine Associates. Carlisle & Company, and Witherspoon Associates. InkWell handles both fiction and nonfiction, literary and commercial literature, adult and young adult books.

At Inkwell, Allison Hunter and Lauren Smythe have both been promoted to agent.

Prior to joining InkWell in 2010, Lauren Smythe worked in the Literary Department of William MorrisEndeavor. Her interests are wide-ranging but tend toward smart narrative nonfiction (narrative journalism, modern history, biography, cultural criticism, personal essay, humor), personality-driven practical nonfiction (cookbooks, fashion and style), and contemporary literary fiction.

Lauren grew up in Indiana, attended New York University, and lives, predictably, in Brooklyn.

Allison Hunter, a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, began her publishing career in 2005 working for the Los Angeles-based literary publicity firm, Kim-from-L.A. 

She joined the InkWell team in New York City in 2010, and is actively acquiring literary and commercial fiction (including romance), memoir, narrative nonfiction, cultural studies, pop culture and prescriptive titles, including cookbooks.

Allison is always looking for funny female authors, great love stories and family epics, and for non-fiction projects that speak to the current cultural climate. She has a B.A. in American Studies and Creative Writing from Stanford University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

Query Lauren or Allison at: submissions@inkwellmanagement.com

Include 1 or 2 chapters in the body of your email (no attachments).

Full submission guidelines here.

Carly Watters of P.S. Literary Agecny

Brian Henry will lead “How to Get Published”   workshops in Thessalon in Algoma on March 23 (see here), in Guelph on April 12 with literary agent Sam Hiyate (see here), in London on April 19 with literary agent Olga Filina (see here), in Stouffville on May 24 with literary agent Carly Watters (see here) and in Ottawa on June 22 with literary agent Maria Vicente (see here).

But the best way to get your manuscript ready for publication is with a weekly course. This spring (starting soon!) Brian will lead “Next Step in Creative Writing” class in Mississauga on Thursday afternoons (see here) in Georgetown on Thursday evenings (see here), and in Burlington on Tuesday evenings (see here).

Brian will lead “Intensive Creative Writing” classes on Wednesday afternoons in Burlington (see here) and on Wednesday evenings in Mississauga (see here).

And he’ll lead a “Welcome to Creative Writing” course on Tuesday afternoons in Burlington (see here) and a “Writing your life & other personal stories” course on Tuesday mornings, also in Burlington (see here).

To register or for more details of any course or workshop, email brianhenry@sympatico.ca

See Brian's full schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Barrie, Brampton, Bolton, Burlington, Caledon, Cambridge, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Midland, Mississauga, Newmarket, Orillia, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Stouffville, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Algoma, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

How to Make Yourself Write workshop, Saturday, June 21, in Kingston

“How to Make Yourself Write”
~ A creativity workout ~

Saturday, June 21, 2014
1:00 – 4:30 p.m.
Lions Club, 935 Sydenham Road, Kingston Ontario – map here.

Let's get motivated! This workshop is designed to help you find the time and the inspiration to write. No more staring at a blank screen. Come to this workshop and give yourself a kick-start, and then learn how to keep going. This creativity workout will get your words flowing and help you make the breakthrough into the next level of writing.

Workshop leader Brian Henry has been a book editor and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He publishes Quick Brown Fox, Canada’s most popular blog for writers, teaches creative writing at Ryerson University and has led workshops everywhere from Boston to Buffalo and from Sarnia to Charlottetown. But his proudest boast is that he has helped many of his students get their first book published and launch their careers as authors.

Fee: 32.74 + 13% hst = 37 paid in advance by mail or Interac
or 35.40 + 13% hst = 40 if you wait to pay at the door

To reserve a spot now, email brianhenry@sympatico.ca

See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Barrie, Brampton, Bolton, Burlington, Caledon, Cambridge, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Midland, Mississauga, Newmarket, Orillia, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Stouffville, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Algoma, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Free contests for humour and stories about raptors, plus the Elora Writers' Festival short story contest, and the Twisted Vine wants submissions

From I Could Pee on This and Other Poems by Cats

Mergle Flomp free Humour Poetry Contest

Submit one humor poem. This poem should be your own original work. You may submit the same work simultaneously to this contest and to others, and you may submit a work that have been published or won prizes elsewhere. Deadline: April 1, 2014

Word Limit: Poem may be of any length

Entry Fee: No fee. Submit one poem only, please.

Prizes: First Prize, $1,000; Honorable Mentions, 10 awards of $100 each

Full guidelines here. Submit poem here.

Raptorfest free writing contest for kids (kindergarten through grade 12)

Write a story involving any Hawk, Eagle, Owl, Falcon, or Vulture. Ribbons will be awarded for each grade, Kindergarten through grade 8 and one set of ribbons for grade 9 to 12.

Grades 1 – 3 students are also invited to submit a poem about a bird of prey. Grades 4 – 6 students are invited to submit an explanatory piece about adaptations of a bird of prey. Grades 8 – 12 students are invited to submit a piece from a bird’s point of view.

Deadline April 2. Full contest rules here.

Raptorfest also has an art contest for kids (here) and invites the public to their annual Raptofest on Saturday, April 26 in Grimsby (here).

Hi, Brian.

The Elora Writers’ Festival is holding a short story contest this year, and we invite you to send in your short stories. If you belong to a writing group, please send this information to all members of your group, and pass on the information to any other writers you know. 

This is always a terrifically entertaining festival, and the intention is to help foster and give recognition to writers.

Marilyn Kleiber
Contest Committee Member

Note the contest is restricted to residents of Wellington, Waterloo, Dufferin and Hamilton-Wentworth counties.  Entry fee: $15. Deadline: postmarked by April 4, 2014. Full guidelines here.

Twisted Vine, literary journal for Western New Mexico University, seeks submissions for their spring issue. Looking for fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, art, interview and video that crosses, overlaps, and transcends traditional genres. Strongly encourages submissions that are interdisciplinary in nature (i.e. poetry about math). Like the progressive, unexpected and ever-evolving. 

Deadline: April 7, 2014. Guidelines here. 

See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Barrie, Brampton, Bolton, Burlington, Caledon, Cambridge, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Midland, Mississauga, Newmarket, Orillia, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Stouffville, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Algoma, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Great workshops soon: Writing Great Characters in Midland, Writing Dramatic Stories in Sudbury and Toronto, & How to Get Published in Thessalon

How to Write Great Characters

Saturday, March 1, 2014
10:15 a.m. –  3:45 p.m.
Midland Public Library, 320 King Street, Midland, Ontario (Map here) 

Whatever you're writing – fiction or nonfiction – readers will care about your story only if they care about your people. In this workshop, you'll learn techniques for creating fictional characters and depicting real people. You’ll learn how to breathe life into the page so that your characters start telling you how the story should go.

Fee:  44 paid in advance or 48 if you wait to pay at the door

To reserve your spot, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

How to Make Your Stories Dramatic

Offered in two locations:

Saturday, March 22
10:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.
The ParkSide Centre, Kinsmen Room B, 140 Durham St., Sudbury (Map here.)

and

Saturday, March 29
10:15 a.m. – 3:45 p.m.
Glenview Presbyterian Church, 1 Glenview Ave, Toronto (Map here.)

This workshop is geared to both beginners and more experienced writers.  We’ll look at the most important part of all stories whether fictional or true: the fully dramatized scene.  We’ll learn how to create great dialogue scenes, mixing effective dialogue with narrative so that the interaction between your characters comes alive. But the most difficult scenes of all are climactic action scenes; such as love scenes, chase scenes and fight scenes. Using fight scenes and love scenes as our examples, you’ll learn how to ramp up the tension you need for one of these high-octane performances. 

Fee:  44 paid in advance or 48 if you wait to pay at the door

To reserve your spot, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

The Calling by New York Times 
#1 bestselling author Kelley Armstrong,
one of Brian's students

How to Get Published

Sunday, March 23
10:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. 
New venue: Zion United Church, 224 Main Street, Thessalon, Ontario, in Algoma (Across from the grocery store. Map here.)

If you've ever dreamed of becoming a published author, this workshop is for you. We’ll cover everything from writing an opening to getting an agent, from getting your short pieces published to finding a book publisher, from writing a query letter to writing what the publishers want. Bring your questions. Come and get ready to be published!

Special Option: Participants are invited to bring a draft of a query letter you might use to interest an agent or publisher in your book. You don’t need to bring anything, but if you do, two copies could be helpful.

Fee:  44 paid in advance or 48 if you wait to pay at the door

To reserve your spot, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

See Brian’s full schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Barrie, Brampton, Bolton, Burlington, Caledon, Cambridge, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Midland, Mississauga, Newmarket, Orillia, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Stouffville, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Algoma, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Literary agent Catherine Luttinger joins Darhansoff & Verrill, seeks sci-fi & fantasy, historical fiction, horror, scientific nonfiction, and YA

Darhansoff & Verrill
236 West 26th Street
Suite 802
New York, NY 10001

http://dvagency.com/

Liz Darhansoff founded this agency in 1975 and was joined by Chuck Verrill in 1989. The agency has an impressive roster of well-known authors, including Annie Proulx, Stephen King, Neal Stephenson, and Arthur Golden. The agency has been most interested in literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, memoir, sophisticated suspense, and both fiction and nonfiction for younger readers. 

Now Catherine Luttinger has rejoined Darhansoff & Verrill as an agent (as of Feb 20). Catherine will be focusing primarily on science fiction and fantasy (all sub-genres). She is also interested in representing historical fiction, thrillers, horror, scientific nonfiction, and young adult books. Like all new agents, she’s in need of authors.

Send email queries to submissions@dvagency.com

Full submission guidelines here. They don’t say whether they want a sample of your writing, so I would assume they do. Note, they don’t reply to queries, unless they want more material from you.

Sam Hiyate of The Rights Factory

Brian Henry will lead “How to Get Published” workshops in Thessalon in Algoma on March 23 (see here), in Guelph on April 12 with literary agent Sam Hiyate (see here), in London on April 19 with literary agent Olga Filina (see here), in Stouffville on May 24 with literary agent Carly Watters (see here) and in Ottawa on June 22 with literary agent Maria Vicente (see here).

But the best way to get your manuscript ready for publication is with a weekly course. This spring (starting soon!) Brian will lead “Next Step in Creative Writing” class in Mississauga on Thursday afternoons (see here) in Georgetown on Thursday evenings (see here), and in Burlington on Tuesday evenings (see here).

Brian will lead “Intensive Creative Writing” classes on Wednesday afternoons in Burlington (see here) and on Wednesday evenings in Mississauga (see here).

And he’ll lead a “Welcome to Creative Writing” course on Tuesday afternoons in Burlington (see here) and a “Writing your life & other personal stories” course on Tuesday mornings, also in Burlington (see here).

To register or for more details of any course or workshop, email brianhenry@sympatico.ca

See Brian's full schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Barrie, Brampton, Bolton, Burlington, Caledon, Cambridge, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Midland, Mississauga, Newmarket, Orillia, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Stouffville, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Algoma, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

A Tap On The Window by Linwood Barclay, reviewed by Rita Bailey

A Tap On The Window is Linwood Barclay’s most riveting page-turner to date. Guaranteed to keep you up long past your bedtime, it covers all the familiar Barclay territory--a hapless middle-aged protagonist, a missing-persons case that morphs into something devious, and family relationships that are on the rocky side of normal. But Barclay has a genius for taking the familiar and turning it into a fun-house mirror of surprises, and aspiring suspense writers would do well to take notes.

For starters, we can relate to Barclay’s protagonist. Cal Weaver is an ordinary, middle-aged guy who does something monumentally stupid one night: he picks up a rain-drenched teenage girl hitch-hiking outside a bar. He had a good excuse; at least he thought so at the time. She knew his son, who had died two months earlier in a tragic accident. Like any bereaved parent, he’s grappling with the question Why? and he hopes Claire can provide some answers. From that point on, we’re on his side.

Backstory is dropped in, bit by tantalizing bit, and gradually we discover things are even worse than they seem. This rachets up the suspense and keeps us glued to the page.

But it’s Barclay’s use of dialogue that keeps this thriller moving at a furious pace. For starters, there’s a one-page prologue that is pure dialogue. No tag lines—we don’t even know who’s talking—but it kicks the suspense quotient into gear right from the get-go. Entire chapters are dialogue, interspersed with inner dialogue that is just as good. This keeps the tension at the boiling point.

Barclay has a distinctive voice, expressed through the first-person point of view of Cal Weaver. Most of the story is told from this point of view, but he introduces another voice in Chapter Four. Written in third-person omniscient point of view, it is detached and creepy. He inserts it every so often throughout the novel, whenever the previous chapter ends on a cliff-hanger. It’s all about building suspense.

In addition to cliff-hanging endings, Barclay knows how to open a chapter as well. No boring weather details or reams of description.When he does use description, he makes it do double-duty. For instance, when he is describing Claire, we see her rain-drenched hair bathed in the eerie glow of a neon beer sign outside Patchett’s Bar. We get character, mood and setting all rolled into one. 

I have just one niggling criticism of this novel. It is Barclay’s darkest book yet, full of grief and tragedy. It’s difficult emotional territory, and I think Barclay missed it by a hair. For a guy who’s supposed to be thinking of his dead son all the time, Cal Weaver seems to get sidetracked too easily. In terms of plot and suspense, the ending is pitch perfect, but it didn’t leave me emotionally satisfied. That aside, if you are looking for a roller-coaster of a thriller, take this one for a ride.

Rita reading one of her stories at CJ's Cafe

Rita Bailey is a Hamilton writer currently working on a historical fiction novel, set in Dundas during the Rebellion of 1837. When gardening season arrives, she writes a garden column for the Hamilton Mountain News and tends her heritage tomatoes. A fan of  mystery novels since her Nancy Drew days, she is addicted to reading anything with dead bodies.

See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Barrie, Brampton, Bolton, Burlington, Caledon, Cambridge, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Midland, Mississauga, Newmarket, Orillia, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Stouffville, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Algoma, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.