Query- ***- 1st Revision

Click here to read the original query.

Dear Ms. Agent,

I am writing to you because you represented Blah Blah by What’shis Name and I think my novel may interest you.

Machiko Yamamoto does not understand why she pulls out her hair, picks at her skin, or triple checks the locks to the small house behind the school where she works. She does not understand why, born brilliant and beloved into kindness and privilege, she spends her days alone, reading grammar books and watching travel documentaries. When a quiet foreigner moves into the abandoned thatched roof house next to her uncle’s ryokan, she decides it's time to venture forth from her loneliness.

Krista Black does not mind the weekly visits from the local English teacher. The scarred woman seems harmless, but she always wants to talk about travel and language and why Krista has come to the small, Japanese village. Krista avoids her questions; she knows the world and what it does to fragile people. Machiko may want to know Krista, but she must never learn her secrets.

Set in Kyoto, New England, Africa and Kathmandu, *** is a 96,000-word work of literary fiction, interwoven between two protagonists, across two cultures. Like THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS, or a Diane Arbus photograph, it peers beneath the comfort of expected storytelling to investigate the nature of suffering, religion, sex and, ultimately, kindness.

This is my first novel.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Me

(I’m sorry- the working title has to remain anonymous. I haven’t come up with a good one yet, and it’s just too mortifying to publicise my shitty attempts.)

Thanks so much for this opportunity Rick!