Literary agent Carolyn Forde at Westwood Creative Artists seeks nonfiction including memoir and fiction both literary and commercial

In This Moment, by Karma Brown,
represented by Carolyn Forde of WCA

Westwood Creative Artists

138 Sussex Mews

Toronto, Ontario

M5S 2K1

http://www.wcaltd.com/

Westwood Creative Artists is one of Canada’s most respected literary agencies, representing some of the best known authors in Canadian literature. Westwood represents literary fiction, quality commercial fiction including mysteries and thrillers, nonfiction in the areas of memoir, history, biography, science, journalism and current events, and a limited range of practical nonfiction. 

Westwood has six literary agents, but for new authors, your best bet is Carolyn Forde…..

Carolyn Forde has been with Westwood since 2005 and became a shareholder in the agency in 2010. She has a BA Hons in English Literature and History from Trent University, a Postgraduate Certificate in Publishing Sciences from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, and has attended the Simon Fraser University Publishing Intensive course in Vancouver.  

She has lived and worked in Japan, Mexico and the Czech Republic, she is a dual citizen of Canada and the UK.

Carolyn represents two dozen authors including Karma Brown, Kristi Charish, Trevor Cole, Lynn Crosbie, Sylvia Fraser, Bill Gaston, Ian Hamilton, Clifford Jackman, Roz Nay, Mark Richardson, Manjushree Thapa, and Padma Viswanathan.

Carolyn is looking for books she can’t put down, and books with international appeal. She travels to both the London Book Fair and the Frankfurt Book Fair each year on behalf of Westwood and works closely with the agency’s co-agents around the world. She also travels to New York regularly and maintains relationships with many editors there.

Our Little Secret by Roz Nay,
represented by Carolyn Forde

In fiction, Carolyn wants to be so absorbed with the world and the story or so affected by the language and the characters that she stays up past her bedtime. “I like books that feel like treats, not work,” says Carolyn. “I know I’m onto something when I want to press a book into the hands of my friends, saying,  ‘You must read this,’ because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they will love it.

More generally, Carolyn is looking for literary fiction and fiction with a commercial bent, psychological thrillers, women’s fiction, literary horror, crime, and whimsical almost-fantasy books. She’s love to find some indigenous authors.

She’s not looking for military or CIA inspired fiction, climate thrillers, high fantasy, cozy mysteries, romance, erotica, poetry or humour.

In nonfiction, Carolyn is seeking memoirs that tell an unusual tale, books she can learn from, books from an expert in a field on a current issue, and narrative nonfiction that expands the reader’s world. The writing and the story are both paramount.

She’s not looking for memoirs about illness.

Query Carolyn at: wca_office@wcaltd.com

Include a sample of your work of at least ten pages in the body of the email. No attachments.

Full submission guidelines here.

Literary agent Monica Pacheco will be
the guest speaker Aug 12 in Collingwood

Brian Henry will lead Writing for Children & for Young Adult workshops on Saturday, May 13, in Caledon at the Bolton Library with Yasemin Uçar, senior Editor at Kids Can Press and author Jennifer Mook-Sang (see here), on Saturday, May 27, in St. Catharines with Anne Shone, senior editor at Scholastic Books (see here), and on Saturday, Aug 12, in Collingwood with literary agent Monica Pacheco (see here). 

Note: For updated listings of Writing for Children & for Young adult workshops and for weekly Kid lit classes, see here (and scroll down).

And don't miss joining us for a weekend writing retreat at Arowhon Pines Resort in Algonquin Park. There are two retreats scheduled for 2017: the June in Algonquin Retreat, Friday, June 2 – Sunday, June 4 – or extend your retreat to Monday, June 5 (see here) and the Fall Colours Retreat, Friday, Sept 15 – Sunday, Sept 17 (see here).

To reserve a spot or for more information, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Other upcoming workshops include: “You can write great dialogue,” Saturday, June 10 in Guelph, with author Hannah McKinnon, (see here), Saturday, July 15, in Mississauga (see here), and Saturday, July 22, in London (see here), and “How to Write Great Characters,” Saturday, June 17 in Burlington (see here).

This summer Brian will be leading three creative writing courses, introductory to advanced:

Exploring Creative Writing, Tuesday afternoons, July 4 – August 22, in Burlington

Next Step in Creative Writing, Wednesday evenings, July 5 – August 23, in Burlington

Intensive Creative Writing, Wednesday afternoons, July 5 – August 23, in Burlington

      Details of all three courses  here.  

For more information or to reserve a spot in any workshop, retreat, or weekly course, email brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Read reviews of Brian’s courses and workshops here.

See Brian’s complete current schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Algonquin Park, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Ingersoll, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Saint John, NB, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Navigation tips: Always check out the labels underneath a post; they’ll lead you to various distinct collections of postings. Also, if you're searching for a literary agent who represents a particular type of book, check out this post. 

Next Step in Creative Writing course, July 5 – Aug 23, in Burlington

Image from Sally Rosenbaum

Next Step in Creative Writing

Eight weeks towards becoming a better writer

Wednesday evenings, 6:45 – 9:00 / 9:15  p.m.

July 5 – August 23, 2017

Appleby United Church, 4407 Spruce Ave, Burlington, Ontario (Map here.)

See details of all three courses offered this summer, introductory to advanced, here.

The Next Step in Creative Writing will challenge you to take a step up in your writing. Over the eight weeks of classes, you’ll be asked to bring in three or four pieces of your writing for detailed feedback. All your pieces may be from the same work, such as a novel in progress, or they may be stand alone pieces. You bring whatever you want to work on.

In addition to learning how to critique your own writing and receiving constructive suggestions about your writing, you’ll discover that your greatest growth as a writer comes from critiquing other people’s work and form seeing how your classmates approach and critique a piece of writing and how they write and re-write. This is the course you want if you're ready to seriously improve your writing. 

Check out two reviews of the Next Step course here. And see more reviews of Brian’s courses and workshops here.

Fee: $167.26 + 13% hst = 189.  

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

Instructor 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 Saint John.But his proudest boast is that he’s has helped many of his students get published. 

See Brian’s complete current schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Algonquin Park, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Ingersoll, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Saint John, NB, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Sudbury 1972: The Frontenac Hotel by Anne Burlakoff

Hotel Frontenac, Elm St, Sudbury, courtesy Greater Sudbury Historical Data Base

The main entrance for the hotel had two separate doorways: overhead on the left the sign read Men Only; on the right it was Ladies and Escorts. Brushing off the snow, we entered through the right hand door to find a large open area divided with a four-foot wall, which seemed ineffective for the purpose of protecting the sensibilities of the gentler sex from the hard drinking louts yonder.

Both sides were busy with locals who nodded to Pete and pretended not to stare at the rest of us, particularly Joe, with his long hair, faded blue jeans and scuffed Frye boots. We found a table in the corner and borrowed a couple of extra chairs. The wooden table top was scarred and gouged and the table itself tilted precariously until Joe folded up a matchbook and put it under one of the metal legs.

The air was blue with cigarette smoke.  The selection of music available from the jukebox that stood up close to the bar was limited to country: Faron Young, Charley Pride, Conway Twitty, Johnny Cash. Our waitress had tired eyes and thick ankles, but when Joe used his Virginia twang to charm her, something close to a smile flashed for just long enough that you could see how pretty she'd been at eighteen. She brought us a bowl of peanuts and a pitcher of draught, and we ordered another one right away.

Pete went table-hopping, stopping to have a glass with a table of middle-aged miners in coveralls or to shoot the breeze with the old gents who looked like permanent fixtures. After a while he returned, and the boys drifted around the corner of the half-wall to play shuffleboard on the men's side.

I stayed at the table with Roz to sip beer and make small getting-to-know-you talk. Four years older, Roz was far more sophisticated than me. She had traveled across the U.S. and Canada, and held firm opinions on many topics I knew very little about, such as the war in Vietnam. 

I admired her fringed buckskin jacket, just like the one Bob Dylan wore on the cover of his album.

Sounds of cheering drew us toward the shuffleboard table. Pete was in the process of playing his fourth opponent. He had taught Joe the game, then beat him three straight. A couple of older men from a nearby table played him, one after the other, but Pete was on a roll and won two games out of three each time.

His current opponent, Jean, was a miner from Elliott Lake who had spent two seasons in the NHL. He still had steady hands and a keen eye along with a fierce competitive instinct, and he played with both concentration and an Export A hanging out of the corner of his mouth. Pete was all jittery with nerves at the thought of playing a local hero and minor celebrity and Jean had won the first game at 15-8. But Pete regained his confidence enough to take the next game 15-11, inspiring cheers and rowdy talk. They were just beginning the rubber, and Jean had the hammer.

Pete went first, sliding his rock with a flair that put it in the 3-point zone. Jean sent his with enough accuracy to knock Pete's into the gutter, but there was so much momentum Jean's rock slid in after it. Everyone had a good laugh about this. Jean lifted the corners of his mouth briefly and shifted the cigarette from right to left, then turned his attention back to the game.

Pete delivered the next rock into the 2-point zone. Jean ignored it, and slid his into the end zone, also gaining 2 points. When all 8 rocks had been delivered, they were spread out across the board, with one of Jean's slightly ahead to earn him 3 points. They switched direction and started the next round, this time with Jean sliding first.

For ten minutes the points and the lead see-sawed back and forth. No player earned more than 3 points in a single round of play. Pete was still having a good time, but Jean was becoming anxious. He took longer to line up his shots, and several times he removed the cigarette from his mouth and held it between his fingers in contemplation of his next play. 

There was no more friendly chatter. When Jean cursed at the waitress who took just a hair too long to deliver his next beer, the bystanders muttered to each other. Clearly he was taking the competition a little too seriously.

With the score tied at 11-all, each man had one last rock to slide and Jean had the hammer. Pete slid his all the way down the board to knock one of Jean's 3-pointers into the gutter and leave his own hanging over the edge. This was worth 4 points. All Jean had to do was knock off the hanger to regain the lead, but his last shot went wide and slid off the board into the gutter all by itself.

Pete was the immediate centre of a flurry of hand-shaking and back slapping. Without a word, Jean stalked out the back door. Pete acted nonchalant about it.

“He'll be fine, no problem. He's just not used to losing, that's all.”

“He's no Davey Keon, either,” one of the bystanders retorted.

There were rumblings of disagreement from the other men. This was considered a cheap shot to take at a local, who, after all, had made it all the way to the big time.

Despite his casual remark, Pete's eyes cut nervously toward the back door several times. His shoulders visibly relaxed when, after a few minutes, he was proved right. Jean was back inside and coming forward to shake Pete's hand and clap him on the shoulder. “Next time I won't be so easy on you, eh?” That got a good laugh and the atmosphere in the room lightened considerably.

Last call came at 1 a.m. Pitchers were emptied and we shrugged on our parkas, along with the rest of the crowd. The regulars piled into waiting taxicabs or cold pickup trucks left in the back parking lot. When the final vehicle roared off, the streets were empty and silent. The snow had stopped falling but the sidewalks were covered, muffling the sound of our footsteps. In the small park in front of the library we made angels in the snow. The temperature had dropped and snow crunched beneath our feet all the way home.

Anne Burlakoff was raised in Southern Ontario, but at the age of 17 she felt the pull of the west and hitch-hiked out to Vancouver, with many an adventure along the way. Lately she’s been thinking about that adventuresome girl with the open road and her entire future ahead of her. “In many ways that trip helped to define who I am today as a woman and as a Canadian, says Anne.

See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Algonquin Park, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Ingersoll, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Saint John, NB, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

A new book: Perfect Execution and Other Stories by Michael Joll

Hi, Brian.

Perfect Execution is now out in paperback. I did find a couple of minor glitches which I hope the publisher will correct before the great book-buying public gets its hands on a copy.

I have tried to make each story unique in time and place, in theme and writing style so that the collection could masquerade as an anthology by a variety of different authors. Your readers will be a better judge than I in determining if I have succeeded.

Thanks for your invaluable help with the blurb and for your ongoing encouragement.
Regards,
Michael Joll

Perfect Execution and Other Stories by Michael Joll

Michael Joll

A viola player in Depression-era San Francisco is surprised by the hidden talent of a panhandler he encounters. In Barbados, a middle aged voyeur confronts the object of his desires. A woman in Delhi plots revenge on her abusive husband. A German army corporal in WW2 has to decide between conflicting evils. A veteran Winnipeg detective solves a string of arsons and a trail of bodies in an unconventional way. A bomber pilot returning home from a prisoner-of-war camp discovers that life in post-war England is far from what he fought for – these are just some of the situations in Michael Joll’s wide-ranging collection of short stories. 

Available from Smashwords here or from Amazon.ca in paperback here and Kindle here or and from amazon.com in the U.S. and amazon.uk in the U.K.

See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Algonquin Park, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Ingersoll, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, St. John, NB, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

New literary agent Gabrielle Piraino at DeFiore and Company seeks sci-fi/fantasy, horror, thrillers and upmarket Chick Lit for adults or YA, plus Children's Lit

Us Conductors by Sean Michaels,
winner of the Giller Prize,
represented by DeFiore and Company

DeFiore and Company

47 East 19th Street

3rd Floor

New York, NY 1000

http://www.defliterary.com/

Note: Don't ever miss a post on Quick Brown Fox. Fill in your email in the box to the right under my bio, and get each post delivered to your Inbox. ~ Brian

Gabrielle Piraino is the newest member of the team at DeFiore and like all new agents, she needs authors. Gabrielle is a graduate of St. Bonaventure University with a dual B.A. in Honors Classical Languages and English. After graduation, Gabbie earned her Masters of Science in Publishing at Pace University. She has previously worked for both major commercial publishing houses and literary agencies alike, including Farrar, Straus & Giroux and most recently at AGI Vigliano. Gabbie joined the team at DeFiore and Company in the summer of 2016.

Gabrielle "Gabbie" Piraino

Gabbie is actively seeking projects that you can lose an entire afternoon reading: imaginative sci-fi/fantasy with strong world building, blood-curdling horror, whip-smart thrillers, and up-market chick lit that pairs well with sand and a margarita. She’d love to see any of the above for Young Adult readers (virgin daiquiri, though!), and wholeheartedly enjoys spunky, stubborn characters that never do exactly what you’d expect.

For Children’s and Middle Grade, Gabbie is looking for books that introduce curious young readers to new concepts—be it historically leaning or learning your manners—with compelling characters and an engaging voice. She’s also interested in author-illustrators working within the comic/graphic novel space and can’t wait to develop the next generation’s favorite villains. An avid personal baker/cook, Gabbie would also love to receive queries for cookbook and crafty lifestyle projects.

Query Gabrielle at gabrielle@defliterary.com 

Put “QUERY” in the subject line. Include:

A brief description of your book,

A brief, relevant bio

For fiction, please include the first 50 pages in the body of your email

For illustrators, please include your website or online portfolio

No attachments, please

Submissions page here

Speechless by Jennifer Mook-Sang,
who will be one of our guest speakers
at Writing for Children & Young Adults
in Caledon (see here)

Brian Henry will lead Writing for Children & for Young Adult workshops on Saturday, May 13, in Caledon at the Bolton Library with Yasemin Uçar, senior Editor at Kids Can Press and author Jennifer Mook-Sang (see here), on Saturday, May 27, in St. Catharines with Anne Shone, senior editor at Scholastic Books (see here), and on Saturday, July 29, in Collingwood with literary agent Monica Pacheco (see here). 

Note: For updated listings of Writing for Children & for Young adult workshops and for weekly Kid lit classes, see here (and scroll down).

And don't miss the June in Algonquin Writing Retreat,  Friday, June 2 – Sunday, June 4 (or extend your retreat to Monday, June 5) at Arowhon Pines Resort. Details here.

Other upcoming workshops include: “You can write great dialogue,” Saturday, June 10 in Guelph, with author Hannah McKinnon, (see here), Saturday, July 15, in Mississuaga, Saturday, July 22, in London (see here), and “How to Write Great Characters,” Saturday, June 17 in Burlington (see here).

Time After Time by Hannah McKinnon,
who will be our guest speaker at "You can
write great characters," in Guelph (see here). 

This summer Brian will be leading three creative writing courses, introductory to advanced:

Exploring Creative Writing, Tuesday afternoons, July 4 – August 22, in Burlington

Next Step in Creative Writing, Wednesday evenings, July 5 – August 23, in Burlington

Intensive Creative Writing, Wednesday afternoons, July 5 – August 23, in Burlington

      Details of all three courses  here.  

For more information or to reserve a spot in any Saturday workshop or weekly course, email: brianhenry@sympatico.ca

Read reviews of Brian’s courses and workshops here.

See Brian’s complete current schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Algonquin Park, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Ingersoll, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Midland, Mississauga, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Saint John, NB, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Navigation tips: Always check out the labels underneath a post; they’ll lead you to various distinct collections of postings. Also, if you're searching for a literary agent who represents a particular type of book, check out this post.