Half-way through the conference. Just thought I’d mention that the bathrooms are co-ed. Gave a rousing talk this morning about query letters. Spent a couple of hours at Powell’s bookstore in downtown Portland and never got out of the poetry section. Met Walter Kirn. Cool dude. Breakfast with Dorothy Allison. Coolest dude. What else? Met a new client who lives in Portland — very smart, lovely man. And played a mean game of croquet with Tin House editor Rob Spillman, his son Miles, agent Julie Behr, and the poet Kevin Young. I held my own.
Filed under: Writing |
Betsy Lerner 
Trivia – Did you know that croquet was Harpo Marx and the Algonquin crowds favourite game?
If I remember, I started my query letter to you: Dear Betsy; You’re probably not going to like my manuscript…”
Even though I was sure that I was totally wrong for you (judging by the smart, hip, young, writers that I knew you represented) I wanted to send my ms. anyway, because at least I’d have the honor of being rejected by the author of my favorite advise book for writers. Forget the fact that you took the ms. and sold it to a fabulous publisher — the best moment of my writing life came when I got your phone call to tell me that you liked it! NOTHING since then has been as validating!
So: Did you tell them at Tin House that sometimes, writing a totally doofus query letter works?