Starting this project, something I’m doing to get my writing back on track, with my publishing sob story seems only appropriate. I’ve been sandbagging anyone within earshot with this story for what, two three four years now?
I completed an MFA in Writing at Vermont College, and looking back on it now, I’m convinced the whole thing was some kind of set up. I’m paranoid to begin with, but it doesn’t help when your progress as a writer doesn’t seem to be moving forward, yet you’re given a little more attention, accepted into some kind of higher standing, the longer you are in the program and the more hands you shake and the more coffee or lunches or dinners at the local Thai restaurant you buy for faculty members. By the time I got to my third semester, I was slobering all over myself with confidence about my abilities as a writer and about the path to being published with some big time house.
I could say I was happy before all of this, but I’ve had in my head from the very beginning, practically out of the womb, that if the word ’success’ was going to be slapped onto anything I ever did, that it could only be when I achieved a pinnacle in that particular area: playing baseball, running cross-country in high school, my relationships with the first few significant love interests, my teaching career, and now my writing — or maybe always with my writing. What other success is there except for a book to come out of all of it — tour, a following, the second book, a contract, a throng…
I sent agent queries out for representation of my book, Absolute Gentleman, a collection of autobiographical stories, connected because I’m the main character and I’ve seemed to have the same kinds of problems all my life, to about twenty-five agents by email. More and more literary agencies are accepting queries by email, so I figured I had nothing to lose. A few agencies said no thank you, some asked to see a sampling of the manuscript, and others wanted to review the whole thing.
I sent the work out and within four days, I got a letter and a contract in the mail from Barbara Zitwer, an agent based on the upper West Side in New York. You had to see this letter: “You’re the next big thing…” “I can’t wait to launch your international literary career…” I should just scan the letter and post it. I’ll do that later. So now I’m completely beside myself with how great I am, and I’m all about the sickening false modesty anyway, but I’m scared: This woman came on strong, and I’m thinking that it can’t be this easy. I mean, my manuscript is good, but I considered it raw in a lot of ways, certainly not as polished as it is now.
I tell Barbara that I want to see her, talk to her. I take the day off from my teaching job and take an Amtrak to New York. She’s got an apartment on the upper West Side, so she’s making money somehow, right? I have a cup of terrible coffee and sign the contract. She tells me I have work to do, though, and short story collections don’t sell, you know. I went home slightly confused, but hopeful. She was using none of the language in the letter she sent by overnight mail that got me to her apartment in the first place. Eventually, the “short story collections are impossible” bit turned into, “…let me know when you’ve finished the novel…”
Then I published a short piece with McSweeney’s Internet Tendency in 2003, and emails started coming in from people, including two from literary agents, one who would make me leave Barbara and take me on as the short story writer I was.
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