Lunch and Learn: Surviving the Slush Pile
Agents read hundreds of submissions each week, and small mistakes often bury a promising manuscript.
In this Lunch and Learn, join us as we hear Michelle Barker and David G. Brown, senior editors of The Darling Axe, discuss what makes for a strong query letter to literary agents. Participants will examine an intentionally flawed (and fake) query letter and synopsis for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, as well as the (real) opening of the book, and diagnose the problems that weaken them. We will then look at improved versions of the query and synopsis and discuss some important components of an opening. A Q&A will follow the presentation.
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About the Presenters
Michelle Barker is an award-winning author and poet. She is the co-author of Immersion and Emotion: The Two Pillars of Storytelling, Story Skeleton: The Classics, and Fake Query Letters by Dead Authors. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in literary reviews worldwide. She has published three YA novels (one fantasy and two historical fiction), a historical picture book, and a chapbook of poetry. Her latest project is a poetry collection called Chef (Caitlin Press, 2027). Michelle holds a BA in English literature (UBC) and an MFA in creative writing (UBC). Many of the writers she’s worked with have gone on to win publishing contracts and honours for their work. Michelle lives and writes in Vancouver, Canada.
David Griffin Brown is an award-winning short fiction writer and co-author of Immersion and Emotion: The Two Pillars of Storytelling, Story Skeleton: The Classics, and Fake Query Letters by Dead Authors. He holds a BA in anthropology from UVic and an MFA in creative writing from UBC, and his work has appeared in literary magazines such as the Malahat Review, White Wall Review, and Grain. He has published three novels: When the Sky Breaks, We’ve Come for Your Eggs, and No Country for Old Dragons. David founded Darling Axe Editing in 2018, and, as part of his Book Broker interview series, he has compiled querying advice from over 100 literary agents. As an editor, he pays special attention to structure, relationship arcs, and voice. David lives in Victoria, Canada, on the traditional territory of the Songhees and Kosapsum Nations.