Virginal No More

Thanks to Nathan Bransford, literary agent in the Frisco office of the NY agency, Curtis Brown Ltd., for christening Red Stick Writer’s blog with its first comment. The names of both agent and agency sounded familiar, and it took only a quick glance at my agent database to confirm that I e-mailed a query to Nathan on August 6. He sent back an e-response the same day indicating that he was declining the opportunity to represent me in the literary marketplace. I don’t know if he thought my query had something in common with a Hoover vacuum cleaner, my hook was barbless, he simply wasn’t looking for a suspense/thriller novel at the time, or whatever. That he commented on my last post could indicate that he was so taken by the allure of my words that he couldn’t help himself.

In the tradition of Sophia Petrillo, I digress. Golf is one of the pastimes by which my life has been enriched. It plays me more than I play it, which is why I gave up on trying to master the game. I realized that golf courses, along with most college campuses and some cemeteries are among the prettiest places in the world. Given that, golf is simply one of the ways I commune with nature. I have seen in my pursuit of high-compression, dimpled balls bearing names such as Titleist parts of nature most humans haven’t even imagined, many of them involving briars, brambles, and sometimes even gators. All of this is mentioned to enable me to say that, as invited by blog comment and under the guise of a mulligan, I might again send e-correspondence to Mr. Bransford.

The reason I say “might” is that I have a full manuscript currently under consideration by a lady who agents from Pennsylvania. From comments I’ve read from her clients and from independent journalists, I will indeed be a lucky fellow if she chooses to hawk my story and guide my writing career. When I went to the post office to mail my entire manuscript to her, I asked the postal clerk to put some good juju on the package. She told me that she didn’t think she had that power but was certain that things would go well. I took two steps away, glanced at the coins and currency I received from her, and returned to her window to express my sincere and superstitious appreciation for the Keystone State quarter she had by chance included in my change. That omen’s failure, God forbid, would be one of the circumstances that might precipitate my return as a bad penny to Nathan Bransford’s e-mailbox.

I stumbled into Nathan’s My Space world while following a thread of information regarding another agent. Discovering him occurred in exactly the manner I described in my previous post, chasing one thing and happening upon a myriad of other interesting things. That’s how I came to send him a query in the first place. I was impressed with his writing and the comments of his friends back then. After receiving his comment on my last post, I read all of the entries at his relatively new blog page, Nathan Bransford Literary Agent. I still like the way he writes and intend to continue reading his interesting and informative blog, make comments there, and take advantage of the Q&A opportunity he offers.

Thanks again, Nathan. Red Stick Writer is virginal no more.