I am simply over the moon about WOODFEAST! 🔥🐇🌱

I'm so proud to have co-founded Authors Against Book Bans, the strictly single-issue author army to be deployed to fight for the freedom to read nationwide! Are you traditionally or indie pub'd? Do you have a book forthcoming? JOIN US! sign up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/1F1G...

“When children love your book, it’s ‘I love your book, thank you, I want to marry you when I grow up,’” Sendak said in a talk that was printed in the Book Review in 1987. “Or it’s ‘Dear Mr. Sendak: I hate your book. Hope you die soon. Cordially.’” gift link www.nytimes.com/2024/02/01/b...

Editors are being laid off. Positions are barely opening. Creators are losing their advocates and champions in house but sure, let’s have the largest publisher’s CEO say he wants to implement AI

Just passed a headshop called World of Smoke and Vape. Whose fantasy novel is this?

Taking a deep breath & getting ready to dive into 2024: At long last, I'll be reopening to queries on Monday, 1/8! Check out my wishlist here, & visit our website (howlandliterary.com) for the text version of this MSWL & my QueryManager link. Can't wait to see your work. ✨

Dark fantasy about a vampire knight who wanders through a reborn world that is overflowing with life inside the corpses it left behind. A legend of painful self-examination, blood bags who bare their souls, and a desperate hunger for a purpose. Sometimes a journey is a man and his coffin.

A new study found that one out of every four land animals raised for food in 2019 wound up in the trash. That’s 18 billion animals total, or 2.4 for every human on earth. It’s incredibly bad in the US where it’s 7.1 animals wasted per person. www.vox.com/future-perfe...

I just got an email from my library that they are offering free music lessons in their app and I am just convinced that libraries are actually SECRETLY COLLEGES

Plant a garden. Give a gofundme $5. Offer to rake neighbor's leaves. Foster a dog. I felt better when I focused on things I could control. They are small things, but they have agency. I put $10 in gas in someone's tank the other day who asked for help. Small acts mean a lot to folks who recieve them

Thrilled to announce this deal! Meg's artistic voice is unlike anything I've ever seen, & I'm over the moon that NECROLOGY has found a home with Creature, whose books I've admired for a good while! Amanda truly Gets It. This unsettling, wild, beautiful folk horror is headed your way next fall! ✨

I get to announce a book soon that's one of the best things I've ever read. When agenting is good, it's very good. 😌

In the winter a young woman's fancy lightly turns to nonstop Taskmaster reruns until daylight saving time.

Gotta be honest, this is my whole agent M.O. as well. 😅 I'm so here for the weirds, the mold-breakers, the unsellables.

Long thread incoming for Giving Tuesday! Some news to share for anyone in the #amquerying #amwriting #WritingCommunity camp who might be looking for some editorial help on their manuscripts/queries/synopses between now and spring 2024:

I think we’ve learned an important lesson today, which is: If you ever run a media company, do not ever create a situation where your poetry editor might have cause to write a resignation letter, because it will scorch you from the face of the earth.

This news fills me with an inexpressible inchoate rage. Ban private equity.

This week while working on client manuscripts I have gone down rabbit holes researching funnel-web spider bites, pigment-making in the 1400s, & the lost paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. I love that this counts as work. 🤓

I’m ecstatic to announce that I’m representing Anca Szilágyi’s incredible work. I was in from the moment I read in her pitch, “the life and legacy of Netherlandish painter Jheronimus Bosch—& the immortal witch who hates his guts.”

OMG SCHOLASTIC STRIKE

Maybe it's because I live in the South & these events almost always take place at churches, but something about trunk-or-treats just feels so insidious to me.

I have never felt more like the neighborhood witch as I did just now coming home from the store with a big bag of candy & mousetraps.

When I reopen to queries (I’m still not sure when that will be - I’m sorry! Hopefully soon!), I’d love to see more nonfiction at the intersection of food & culture in the vein of SMOTHERED & COVERED: WAFFLE HOUSE & THE SOUTHERN IMAGINARY. #mswl

Scholastic Book Fairs is ending their segregated book program. We made ourselves heard.

Holy moly. Ryan Tate (ryantateart.com) made this gorgeous painting after reading my client Elie Lichtschein's literary horror, L8ER SK8ER (on sub now, if anyone is intrigued 👀). This made me emotional; this book is so brilliant, & Ryan nails the vibe! www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNRo...

I just finished 3 weeks of travel for work/weddings/etc. I'm so in a daze, but all I can think about is this suited businessman next to me on a recent flight who ordered "apple juice, no ice," downed the whole thing in one gulp, & slammed the plastic cup down on his tray table.

Vincent Price for Smirnoff, Life magazine, 1955. Photo by Bert Stern

I'm heading to California to teach at a writing workshop tomorrow, & one of my tasks is to share a favorite scene from a book. Do you know how hard that is? ONE favorite scene? I've been sitting on my office floor in a pile of books all morning. The pressure!

CLARA POOLE AND THE LONG WAY ROUND: holidayhouse.com/site/pixel-i...

One of the best parts of the WGA deal: AI has now hit a brick wall in Hollywood, *and that includes adaptations.* Based on the deal, AI can't be source material. So if you're a publisher, AI novels or graphic novels or whatever just became that much less appealing because *they can't be optioned.*

Covid booster ✅ Flu shot ✅ Giant sandwich & cookie to reward myself for getting my Covid booster & flu shot ✅

This is important. If you hadn’t been following it: Alabama instituted maps which a lower court struck down as violating the VRA (what’s left of it) b/c it denied Black people the right to vote for someone of their choice, and told them to draw a new fairer map. (Cont)

🩸 COVER REVEAL! 🩸 Eva Jurczyk’s sophomore novel, THAT NIGHT IN THE LIBRARY, coming from Poisoned Pen Press next summer, is a campy, bloody, satirical romp—with rare books. It’s a sheer delight, & I can’t wait for y’all to read it! Gorgeous cover by Sarah Brody.

I spent a lovely weekend in Atlanta at the Broadleaf Writers Conference. Between getting to talk shop with agents & authors, this (slightly) cooler weather, & sending out exciting new client submissions, I'm feeling invigorated for the fall.

The new season of Sex Education is finally out, but I can’t watch it, because then it will all be over.

hereditary (2018)

Happy book birthday to THE FAIRFLEET AFFAIR, the first in K.H. Saxton’s new MG series, out today in hardcover & paperback! It’s the perfect clue-filled mystery for the kid in your life who loves puzzles & scavenger hunts. (& you, let’s be honest, because don’t we all?) bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

LET’S GO GIRLS!!!!!* *The thousands of union autoworkers of all genders who just walked out on a historic strike against corporate greed

I'm finding it hard to want to post regularly since the Twitter/Bluesky/X change, but I'm trying! I wanted to update those querying that it's still going to be a minute until I reopen to queries. I have client manuscripts on my plate & some fulls still to read. I'll keep y'all updated!

I was grateful for Harpers Bazaar for giving me a chance to talk about the significance of a an exp I had with Scholastic (spoiler, it sucked) this past Spring. I hoped and hope that what I did then will embolden others to refuse these kinds of offers. www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/a448...

Psst: May I suggest you use your B&N PREORDER25 code well? I know SEVERAL books that would make excellent candidates to save 25% on! I would be happy to share those titles with you. Otherwise, use the tip and happy shopping. But go support your local indie and library, too!

Want to win a copy of BEING ACE? There's a goodreads giveaway going on! Ten lucky winners will be selected on September 3rd, so go enter now! www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sho...

gross, and also if you think this kind of shit can't come to our house, you're deluding yourself

Win a signed copy of CLARA POOLE AND THE LONG WAY ROUND, plus bookmarks, stickers, and even a hat! The auction begins at 6 AM HST/Noon EST Monday, 8/21, and ends at midnight HST on Friday, 8/25. There are tons of amazing items! https://tinyurl.com/2bpwbj6a @booksformaui #BooksforMaui

Then: “Rejected our proposals, refused to counter.” Now: “Last Friday, 102 days after they walked away from the bargaining table and put us out on strike, the AMPTP offered responses to our proposals in all work areas.” Solidarity works. #WGAStrong

This is the space I live in as well. A relationship with publishing is not the healthiest relationship. 🙃