Dear Public Query Slushpile,
At thirteen years old, Lucy Gibbons has her career set. She will follow in the footsteps of her late ballerina mother and become the principal female dancer of the Montgomery Ballet in England. With the school verging on bankruptcy, what better money-maker than a young ballerina taking over where her famous dead mother left off?
Or, at least, that's what her instructors at Montgomery's have in mind. All Lucy wants to do is enjoy her first year in England - make friends, explore London, perfect her arabesque, and find one straight boy in a sea of gays.
When she snags all the good roles, however, and meets all the right people, her fellow first years turn their noses up at her. Turns out it's pretty lonely at the top. She pulls some strings amongst her newfound connections and gains her best friend Alex a supporting role. Bad move. Alex isn't what they're looking for, and if Lucy doesn't fire her, Montgomery's might garnish a bad review and lose its sponsors.
THE ACADEMY is a young adult novel of 50,000 words that follows Lucy's journey from tutus and pointe shoes to every prima ballerina's ultimate dilemma: fame or friendship? Will Lucy please her instructors and follow her dreams, or does limelight really wreck a girl's complexion?
I am a dance teacher and bookseller with a bachelor's degree in English literature. This is my first novel.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Oct 19, 2010
Query - Possessed (Second revision)
Click here to read the original query.
Click here to read the first revision.
Dear Agent,
Fourteen year old Gabriel's parents are dead. He barely escapes from his family's burning estate and flees to a nearby forest. Gabriel defeats an armed pursuer only to be chased by another, who turns out to be a man that is not harmed by any of Gabriel's bullets.
Then, Gabriel awakens in a bright room. It is filled with people wearing long, white coats. They tell him that he volunteered at the White Horizon Research Facility for a classified psychological study two weeks ago. The program is a failure.
Gabriel`s hazy memory returns along with the angry voices that have plagued him for five years. He knows what they want, but he has no idea how to make up for the unforgiveable thing he has done.
The paranoid medical staff debates on whether or not to euthanize the study`s volunteers. Gabriel and two other participants run away from the facility. To make matters worse, an armed maniac - one of the study's ex volunteers - will not rest until she kills all three of them. Wherever they go, she finds them.
Gabriel will have to find a way to keep himself - and his new friends - alive.
Possessed is a young adult supernatural thriller that contains a final word count of 56,000 words.
Thank you for taking the time to review my work.
Sincerely,
Sara Flower Kjeldsen
Click here to read the first revision.
Dear Agent,
Fourteen year old Gabriel's parents are dead. He barely escapes from his family's burning estate and flees to a nearby forest. Gabriel defeats an armed pursuer only to be chased by another, who turns out to be a man that is not harmed by any of Gabriel's bullets.
Then, Gabriel awakens in a bright room. It is filled with people wearing long, white coats. They tell him that he volunteered at the White Horizon Research Facility for a classified psychological study two weeks ago. The program is a failure.
Gabriel`s hazy memory returns along with the angry voices that have plagued him for five years. He knows what they want, but he has no idea how to make up for the unforgiveable thing he has done.
The paranoid medical staff debates on whether or not to euthanize the study`s volunteers. Gabriel and two other participants run away from the facility. To make matters worse, an armed maniac - one of the study's ex volunteers - will not rest until she kills all three of them. Wherever they go, she finds them.
Gabriel will have to find a way to keep himself - and his new friends - alive.
Possessed is a young adult supernatural thriller that contains a final word count of 56,000 words.
Thank you for taking the time to review my work.
Sincerely,
Sara Flower Kjeldsen
QUERY: THE ODD I SEE (first revision)
Click here to read the original query.
Dear Agent,
I am writing to you because I read your interview on xxxxx, your submission guidelines, and (novel you represented). Please consider representing my novel The Odd I See, a 71,000-word work of slipstream fiction.
Following a half-assed stay in the loony bin and entry into the “real world” by way of graduation from college, Fifi wants to know why she ought to bother with existing.
Fifi, is twenty-two, working an underachiever’s dream job, and struggling to reconcile her worldview with modern middle-class American living. Her (maybe-imaginary) vampire lover tries to convince her that she'll become part of a constellation if she kills herself. On the other hand, her real-life boyfriend (who she met while having an adventure in pretending to be a prostitute) seems a solid case for divine intervention in a world Fifi deems just shy of apocalypse. Unsure of her continued interest in the business of existence, she uses blue (and sometimes black) humor to systematically reason her way towards the meaning of life.
An excerpt of this novel was published in the spring 2009 edition of the Newport Review literary magazine. A separate excerpt was published in the 2006 edition of Loyola University Chicago’s annual literary journal, Cadence. I very much appreciate your time and consideration in reading this letter. I have pasted the first chapter below and would be delighted to send you the rest. I can be reached by phone at xxx xxx xxxx, by e-mail at bre@jamstage.net, or by postal mail at 123 Main St.
Best regards
Bre Kidman
Dear Agent,
I am writing to you because I read your interview on xxxxx, your submission guidelines, and (novel you represented). Please consider representing my novel The Odd I See, a 71,000-word work of slipstream fiction.
Following a half-assed stay in the loony bin and entry into the “real world” by way of graduation from college, Fifi wants to know why she ought to bother with existing.
Fifi, is twenty-two, working an underachiever’s dream job, and struggling to reconcile her worldview with modern middle-class American living. Her (maybe-imaginary) vampire lover tries to convince her that she'll become part of a constellation if she kills herself. On the other hand, her real-life boyfriend (who she met while having an adventure in pretending to be a prostitute) seems a solid case for divine intervention in a world Fifi deems just shy of apocalypse. Unsure of her continued interest in the business of existence, she uses blue (and sometimes black) humor to systematically reason her way towards the meaning of life.
An excerpt of this novel was published in the spring 2009 edition of the Newport Review literary magazine. A separate excerpt was published in the 2006 edition of Loyola University Chicago’s annual literary journal, Cadence. I very much appreciate your time and consideration in reading this letter. I have pasted the first chapter below and would be delighted to send you the rest. I can be reached by phone at xxx xxx xxxx, by e-mail at bre@jamstage.net, or by postal mail at 123 Main St.
Best regards
Bre Kidman
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