An Arsonist's Guide to Literary Agents' Houses

Black Wednesday, December 3, 2008, entered my consciousness a few days after a colleague suggested I hold off contacting agents as HER agent had given her the iffy news about her novel which had been accepted by a Really Good Press: publishers being "dramatically" downsized, "several major publishers" (Houghton Mifflin, Harcourt, Simon & Schuster, Random House dissolving Doubleday) editors, assistants, etc. laid off. What's a southern writer (by that I mean only born in the south--notice I didn't capitalize) do? Faulkner, not being from the correct side of the Mason Dixon Line, if you recall, had that heyday of publishing, seven years, and then after that, as he drifted into alcoholism, his novels falling into obscurity, became out-of-print, until one Malcolm Cowley rescued them with the Portable Faulkner and he arose...But the odds are stacked because of other things: One, my novel is literary: LUCKY JOYCE is a take-off on Kingsley Amis' LUCKY JIM as I probably needless to say, say to most people who happened on this blog, and HORRORS!--an academic novel--THE KISS OF DEATH; Two, at present, better writers from the south than I have not received the attention they deserve: see Paul Tillinghast's article in Salon...even though E.G. once told me it doesn't matter what you write about as long as it's good writing. He started getting published (big time, translations, movies, Oprah--my teacher at UofL) in an age decades ago before all the hedge fund people Took Over and the little bookstores were wiped out and presses began to be run like corporations. My goal on this site, one of them, is to have pieces of my novel, --short pieces--to try out on any readers of this blog I may get. Another is to ask for your opinions about various subjects. It won't all be about publishing. It won't be all whining. Also if you spot any new agents on the horizon--midlisters--please let me know. What does anyone think of university presses? They are still alive, but my experience is that they are just as hard to get accepted by as huge presses, because they only publish one or two novels a year. And may I get a vote? Who would hate reading an academic novel. In LUCKY JOYCE there is sex and funny stuff in additon to dark stuff.