{"id":485,"date":"2010-10-11T07:40:53","date_gmt":"2010-10-11T11:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=485"},"modified":"2011-04-22T09:49:10","modified_gmt":"2011-04-22T13:49:10","slug":"behind-the-scenes-a-query-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/writing\/behind-the-scenes-a-query-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Scenes: A Query Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"

In May, 2008, I wrote to three dozen literary agents to see if any of them would be interested in taking on Birthmarked, then called The Baby Quota.\u00a0 Here\u2019s my initial email correspondence with Kirby Kim, who now represents me.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dear Mr. Kim:<\/p>\n

In a dystopian future, the world is divided between those who live\u00a0inside the wall, and those, like sixteen-year-old midwife Gaia Stone,\u00a0who live outside.\u00a0 It’s Gaia’s job to turn over her quota of infants\u00a0to the authorities within the wall, until the night one agonized\u00a0mother objects, and Gaia’s own mother disappears.\u00a0 Fraught with\u00a0difficult choices that propel Gaia further and further within the\u00a0confines of the wall, to the prison and even to the Bastion where the\u00a0Protectorate lives with his privileged family, THE BABY QUOTA is the\u00a0riveting story of a girl who wants to save her mother, and a society\u00a0where a criminal is defined by her genes.<\/p>\n

THE BABY QUOTA is an edgy young adult novel of 70,000 words, suitable for mature high school readers.\u00a0 I understand that you represent\u00a0young adult fiction, and I believe my novel has the intensity that\u00a0would appeal to readers who enjoy the works of Ray Bradbury and\u00a0Laurie Halse Anderson.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Since I earned my MA in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins\u00a0University, I have published six category romance novels with\u00a0Silhouette, Bantam, Avalon, and Kensington.\u00a0 I have also published a\u00a0handful of parenting articles for The Hartford Courant<\/em>.\u00a0 Though I’m\u00a0on leave this semester, I normally teach at Tolland High School, in\u00a0Connecticut, where teenagers are a daily part of my life, and I have\u00a0three teenage children of my own. THE BABY QUOTA is my first young\u00a0adult novel.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I’m including a brief summary of the novel below.\u00a0 If you would care\u00a0to see the complete manuscript, please let me know.\u00a0 Thank you in\u00a0advance for your consideration of my project, and I look forward to\u00a0hearing from you.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Caragh M. O’Brien<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"

Yosemite, June 2008<\/p><\/div>\n

That\u2019s cute about Bradbury and Anderson, right?\u00a0 How often do you see those two authors in the same sentence?\u00a0 Kirby must have thought I was something else.\u00a0 He replied the next day in what I would later discover was his typical timeliness.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hi Caragh,<\/p>\n

This sounds very interesting. Although I just sold something similar I’d\u00a0be interested in taking a look. Please attach to an email at your\u00a0earliest convenience.<\/p>\n

Best,<\/p>\n

Kirby Kim<\/p>\n

By June, when my family was driving back to Connecticut via Yosemite, I had four offers of representation and began to believe my novel might have a chance of being published.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In May, 2008, I wrote to three dozen literary agents to see if any of them would be interested in taking on Birthmarked, then called The Baby Quota.\u00a0 Here\u2019s my initial email correspondence with Kirby Kim, who now represents me. Dear Mr. Kim: In a dystopian future, the world is divided between those who live\u00a0inside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[68,9,28],"class_list":["post-485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birthmarked","category-writing","tag-behind-the-scenes","tag-birthmarked-2","tag-query"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":924,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485\/revisions\/924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}