Maggie O’Farrell’s new novel, Land, is her most ambitious to date: sprawling, mystical, and filled with wonder at the vastness of Irish history. I reviewed it for @vulture.com: www.vulture.com/article/magg...

Welp, the scammers are pretending to be me now, too. 😔 Two people just reached out to ask whether an email using my name and logo from an official sounding Gmail address was actually me. Friends, I will only ever use my official Fuse Literary email, so please be careful!

I'm in for the accountability, and also subscribed because Jami's doing it as a fundraiser for a Scholastic Book Fair in New Orleans. Don't know about anyone else, but the Book Fair was my absolute favorite thing about having to go to school.

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. From a powerful all-female perspective, in A Thousand Ships, classicist and author of Divine Might, Natalie Haynes retells the story of the Trojan War – putting the women, girls and goddesses at the centre of the story. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/a-th...

June brings new paperbacks by Melissa Febos, Geoff Dyer, Catherine Lacey, and more!

I'm just one person trying to compete in a busy algorithm but still hoping to remind you that 1000 Words of Summer starts this coming Saturday, May 30. Our ninth year of writing 1000 Words a day alongside thousands of other people for two weeks straight. 1000wordsofsummer.substack.com/about

I’m just an agent, sitting in front of my slush pile, asking for writers to actually explain their book in their queries

Truth

👀Querying Authors: Please note that I am open to queries for the first 15 days of every month and I work hard to get through my queries quickly. If you decide to email your query to me instead, it is automatically deleted and the email is reported as spam. Please follow sub guidelines.

Don't skip comps! Will not having them make agents auto-reject your query? No. But comps are so important in the industry, and saying your book "isn't like anything else out there" can actually hurt your pitch. Here are my quick tips for finding and choosing effective comps. 📚

PSA, re: scams. There are several Lit Hub-related email scams making the rounds. The latest is someone impersonating LH editor Jonny Diamond, offering paid publicity packages. This is a scam! Don't do it!

Writers beware!

I have Office Hours tonight at 6 CST—if you have questions about publishing, writing, or anything else, pop by and hang out! www.patreon.com/posts/may-an...

If a scene is only a page or two long, the reader spends most of their time orienting and very little time inside the scene. The ratio of setup to payoff is off. They’re doing more work for less reward. Seth Harwood explains how you can give the reader time to settle in and better enjoy the story.

If @harpercollins.bsky.social offered you an early read of @janecasey.bsky.social's upcoming new thriller, Everything She Didn't Say, what would you answer? Of course you'd scream 'Yes Please!'. Out July 16th, it can be preordered right here: www.amazon.co.uk/Everything-S... #netgalley #booksky

So thrilled that #TheLastPlaceYouLook has been bought by Suhrkampverlag & will be published in Germany in 2027. A huge thank you to Kate Burton & the CWAgency rights team, as well as my agent Sophie Lambert.

My hope is that this allows me to open more often, which will give you all some regularity and predictability, as well as helping me find amazing new authors. So stay tuned - this is an experiment, & I’m working out the details, but I expect to open in May for up to 100 queries in a single category

Happy Independent Bookstore Day! Your independent bookstores put their money back into their local economies at many times the rate of the chains or tech giants. Authors would be lost without them. Support your local indie today (and every day).

Congratulations to all of the shortlisted independent publishers in this year's Women's Prize for Fiction! 🙌@cassavarepublic.bsky.social, @europaeditionsuk.bsky.social, @saraband-books.bsky.social and @canongate.co.uk www.thebookseller.com/news/womens-...

1000 Words of Summer starts May 30 and I've already started getting some of the contributing author letters in and it's going to be a REAL GOOD YEAR. Come write 1000 words a day for 2 weeks straight & change your life? 1000wordsofsummer.substack.com/about

If you've submitted something to the Second Chance Inbox and received this message when querying me with that same project, feel free to reattempt when I reopen next month. I've adjusted the pre-qualifications for my query inbox.

"Some say the pandemic prompted them to reconsider unsatisfying corporate jobs, while others say that because they could not find LGBTQ+ literature in their local bookstores, they decided to open their own."

This week! Join us over your lunch hour, recorded if you can't make it live. Register: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

📣Mark your calendar! Join @michellehazen.bsky.social, author of 🔪SERIAL KILLER WANTED❤️ at the Chicago North Writer's Conference Spring Fling on APRIL 16-18! https://loom.ly/nXtPQxY

There is no crime novel subgenre that inspires more feelings of complicated ambivalence in me than the police procedural. But once I realized how much fiction diverges from reality and treated the procedural as a vehicle for hope, I could put this starter pack of personal favorite books together.

Check out my post focusing on mysteries and thrillers for my query workshop today. open.substack.com/pub/erinnium...

Here’s everything you need to know about the Topps lawsuit. *If you are an Authors Guild member who wrote in one of these series and have not been paid, please reach out to us by sending in a legal request.

Openings still available. Use code FBSAVE10 at checkout for 10% off!

#DVpit is returning in 2026 on Bluesky! A bluesky pitch event for creators from marginalized communities to pitch their unagented projects to agents and editors! #DVpit will be on Bluesky on Wednesday, September 30, 2026! go to dvpit.carrd.co for more info and stay tuned for more announcements!

Minnesota Proud!

**Deadline tomorrow!** Please share The Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award is an annual grant of $2,000 for an emerging writer of color administered by Sisters in Crime. Grant information and submission requirements are here: https://twp.ai/4iwd2n Help us spread the word!

This blew me away. Of all the books coming out this week, @theatlantic.com chose mine to highlight? I don't even want to know how they chose it (maybe someone bribed them?). It's amazing!

This photo is fake. Many people have pointed it out in the replies but the person running this account just keeps hiding the replies. Block this account.

When you write about family: the fine line between honesty and revealing the private times of others. @lhertzel.bsky.social at @dintywmoore.bsky.social brevity.wordpress.com/2026/03/23/p... #writingcommunity #authorlife #memoir #family

Book Spotlight: Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino @bookofthemonth.bsky.social #BookSpotlight #Thriller #BOTM #BookBlogger #BookReviewer #BookInfluencer #BookSky jerseygirlbookreviews.blogspot.com/2026/03/book...

At 8:30 Central!

Our chapter website has just gone live! Check out www.mwasouthwest.com

The Lambda Literary Awards shortlist is out! Congrats to all the finalists. lambdaliterary.org/2026/03/anno...

In a few weeks I’ll be teaching one of my favorite workshops, on using the forms found in fairy tales to apply to any creative writing to open up new possibilities. It’s always highly generative! writingworkshops.com/products/onc...

Teaching a new workshop on May 9 to get people revved up to write for this year's #1000wordsofsummer (and forever) www.jamiattenberg.com/workshops

I am officially OPEN TO QUERIES!! And I'm back on QueryManager 😍

The LA Times book festival schedule has been announced. I get to interview Susan Orlean, Melissa Febos and Lana Lin! On Saturday, April 18. www.latimes.com/events/festi...

If you want a taste of my new memoir GHOSTS OF FOURTH STREET (pubbing March 31 from @uminnpress.bsky.social ) here's an excerpt in today's @literaryhub.bsky.social : lithub.com/family-ghost... Enjoy!

March 14th and 15th

Tips for Keeping Timelines Straight: elizabethspanncraig.com/mystery-writ... #wkb89

This is a must-read by @sarahkendzior.bsky.social: sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/the-no-wor...

The program allows authors to verify that their books are written completely by a human and not generated by software, and then gives them a trademarked seal to signal that the book is human authored.