This photograph may look like it’s a picture of a lonely heron holding out for a fish amid the tumult of Great Falls (Maryland), after a Spring of incessant rain.

It’s actually a picture of me (and Julia – you’ll have to imagine there’s a second little heron) watching the Greenhouse submissions pour into our inbox.

They arrive in ever greater numbers, and thank you for them. Hold my Blackberry in your hand and you see them slink in silently throughout the day across the timezones from the East Coast, then in the evening from the West Coast, then during my night and morning from the UK and Europe. There is probably no hour, day or night, when a submission for Greenhouse isn’t arriving for either Julia or I. Surely, I think, we must reach a point where everyone who’s going to write a novel has sent it? But no, and it’s the same every day of the year – even Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving, the height of summer . . . you writers sure do have some energy!

So this week I thought I’d focus on submissions, not having mentioned them for a while and because I’ve also looked at lots recently.

The first thing I want to say is that they are ALL taken seriously.  We open every one knowing that this moment, this writer, this work, could be crucial – here could be the fish that the heron has sought for so long! The next one we open and read could be the mega-seller of tomorrow and we dare not miss it, because the bestseller of 2012 will probably come just like this – silently, without bells and whistles.  That is the focus we bring to you, so you should never feel your submission will be overlooked.  Our commercial (and literary) antennae are waving in the wind as we read, all ready to pick up a whiff of possibility.

So what can you do to help yourself – and to help us?  Because I see the same things again and again and again in submissions, I’m going to give you my top tips for submitting, though I admit that this is initially going to look more like a list of what NOT to do. I apologize in advance if I hurt anyone’s feelings, but some things just have to be said.  Here goes:

1. Always do what the agency (and I mean ANY agency, not just ours) asks you to do in terms of submission. And to find out what that is, read their website – don’t just take info from either a hard-copy or online guide. Both of these (especially the hard copy) can be out of date.  Greenhouse changed its submission guidelines in September 08 – to e-submissions only – but we’re still getting paper submissions, often without either SASE or email address.  And I still get attachments, which we also don’t accept.  I reply to what I can, but it’s frustrating and time-consuming – and there’s no way we have time to write snail-mail letters back to you.

2. Only submit the kind of work the agency says it’s interested in. I receive adult fiction, religious work, short stories, picturebooks, illustrations, even TV scripts – all of which we don’t represent. If you see any listing that says we take adult work, please let me know. Probably 20% of submissions we get are for genres that we don’t represent.

3. Beware cut and paste! I laugh a lot when I’m addressed as Dan Lazar (that was the latest), the Prospect Agency etc etc.  Or when people tell me they are enclosing an SASE (with their email). Also, I’d like to announce that my name is SARAH DAVIES, not Sara Davis, because multitudes arrive with my name wrong (in fact, one has just arrived even as I write this). It’s not a life-and-death thing, but would you like constantly to be addressed by the wrong name? Especially when writers are telling me they’ve read our website and are sure I’m the perfect agent for them.

4. Around 50% of submissions open with either a) a character getting up in the morning (often eating breakfast) or b) moving house or c) a dream. Sometimes all these together. I’m not saying this is wrong, exactly – I’m just saying try for a more original opener. Oh, and another 10% start with a loud noise: WHAM, BAM, POW, CRASH, RRRRING!

5. Less is so often more. Don’t overwrite your first sentence in an attempt to be attention-grabbing. Eg, ‘The tumultuous pain rampaged through every seething capillary like a mallet pounding on Lucifer’s anvil.’ How about this instead: ‘My head hurt.’ Your reader’s attention is not seized by adjectives and adverbs; it’s all in the expectation you set up. How about this line: ‘I had a farm in Africa’.  It takes confidence and skill to write with simplicity.

6. If you are going to write about ‘a girl with powers’, you will have to be a great writer and have a particularly great plot.  Yes, supernatural, dark stuff is very commercial, but you’re in a zone where you’ve got huge competition right now. Those ‘powers’ are going to have to be really original and well depicted.

7. Be careful of making comparisons between yourself and any top author, whether it be Pullman, Meyer, Salinger, Rowling etc etc. You immediately set the bar so high for yourself you’re doomed not to measure up. And anyway, we already have all those great authors – what we’re looking for is someone new!

8. If I turn you down (which I try to do courteously) don’t rush back to tell me ‘Then you’ve missed out on something amazing and it’s your loss’.  And please don’t immediately send another submission, and then another, as if we’re robots who have no other deserving authors awaiting our attention. If you have another work to show us, then drop us a little note first asking if we’d like to see something more from you. If we liked the writing in your first piece (but didn’t love the plot) we’ll say yes, but don’t just blitz us and then chase us up if we don’t respond. You are submitting to people, not a ‘process’.

9. Beware writing/submitting massive work. I flinch when I see that someone’s written 100,000+ words. And also if you say your submission is the first in a 7-book series, of which you’ve already written numbers 1-6. (The one exception to this might be if it’s a very young, high-concept series.) It’s going to be hard to sell a huge debut novel, and publishers are going to be wary of committing to a long series. Much better to get the first book absolutely right, though you could map out a second if you want and maybe even write a one-page outline. The problem is, if you do rush ahead and write all these sequential novels, what happens if you get a deal and your editor wants a complete rewrite of Book 1 – as they almost certainly will. Suddenly you’ll find that all the other stories don’t work because the foundations were wrong.

10.It’s good (of course) to engage our interest from the start, but you don’t need to ask us ghastly questions in the first few sentences of your query.  Eg, ‘Have you ever wondered, Ms Davies, how it would feel if your children were slaughtered by a serial killer?’ Or ‘Can you imagine, Ms Churchill, the sensations you’d have if your entrails were pulled out through your nostrils and eaten by crows?’ No, I haven’t, and she can’t, thank you very much, and we don’t intend to start now.

11 Please don’t send either a) a two-line query without even giving your name at the end (because you’ve sent the attachment – hah! - to 5000 other agents and it’s a pain to write personally) or b) write a query the length of War and Peace, containing every twist and turn of your plot. A page-length query suffices nicely.

12 We give you the chance to show us your fabulous writing and request five opening pages to be pasted into your email. So why do so many submissions contain no writing?  It is your chance to shine! Plus, if we like your query we then have to email back again and ask for some writing – again, when we’re trying to make decisions on so many submissions in a timely way, this is frustrating (and it can be easier just to say no without asking for the writing).

13 Don’t outline at length your ambitions for a movie, TV series, or global merchandising deal (unless of course you have some outstanding qualification for being able to make these happen). Everything starts for us with the writing, and the book. If we sign you up and get you a book deal then other things at least become possible.

14. We are not enthusiastic about work that teaches children ‘lessons’. Of course, every great story will have meaning and depth, and leave the reader with things to think about. It’s also true that ‘the best fiction teaches us more about ourselves than about the characters’.  But writing that heavy-handedly aims to ‘educate children about life’ isn’t for us. We believe children and teens deserve entertainment without a barely hidden agenda.  (Besides, I tend to think it’s we adults who need ‘educating’ rather than children, but that’s another issue . . . )

15. We also aren’t interested in fairy stories.  And while both Julia and I adore animals, especially dogs and cats, the truth is that there are tons of animal stories (and anthropomorphic animals) around, and your work is going to have to be really original, quirky and strong for us a to find a home for short, young, animal-centric fiction.

Now you hate me. Well, I hope not because we do try really hard to read your work carefully and get back to you (yes, we know you need closure, even though our ‘official’ guidelines say we only respond to those we want to take further).

So far it’s all been negative – but what do we actually WANT you to do in your query?

1. Read our submission guidelines – and follow them.

2. Remember we are only human and we are looking at around 100 per week (on top of all the other work we do).

3. Keep your query short and concise, giving us rapidly the key points we need to know: length, target market, one-paragraph plot outline, short bio of yourself.

4. Try to write simply and effectively, with an interesting, original start (remembering that you are mainly setting up the reader’s expectation of what will follow).

5. If you’ve got other stories in the pipeline and we’ve rejected you, don’t just send more – ask us first if we’d like to see something else you’ve written.

6. Do your homework. Are we the right agents for you? Approach all agents individually and carefully. Because when you get the details right, it makes us sure you’ll also be a meticulous writer.

Do all this and we’re delighted to hear from you. And as two little herons staring into the foaming torrent beneath, we’ll be all poised to swoop down and pluck the plump fish. And that fish could be YOU!

Oh, and just a couple of little afterthoughts:  To the gentleman (presumably) who enquired, on a certain writers’ chat board, as to my marital status?  Yes, I am married and my husband is VERY FIERCE, so you’re out of luck, though your interest is flattering. And to the tiny minority of you who are absolutely and genuinely terrifying, please note - I have a huge dog, with slavering jaws and a taste for human flesh. Honestly.

What is it about books?

At some point in 1983 the pictures in my childhood album start featuring a new motif. All of a sudden there’s a book in every photo. That’s me in the pink dress, reading Noddy to my grandmother.

Like many of you, I was a big reader as a little one. I’ve just spent a couple of days with my seven-year-old niece and she reminded me of that fierceness of feeling I had for books when I was her age. Can you remember learning how to read? It was so hard. The panicky tears, the pudgy, balled fists, lots of stamping and stubbornness. And then click. So begins a life-long love.

There is a headiness to those first few years of reading. I see it in my niece. Finding the right buy in a bookshop comes with all the fervour of a particularly high-stakes Easter-egg hunt. Those shimmering pink covers, those cover-mount giveaways and deliciously packaged, and oh-so-collectible, series reads. She carries her book out of the shop like it’s her most beloved piece of jewelry.

As a five year old, every Wednesday afternoon I’d practically hyperventilate with excitement before my trip to Battersea Library in London. Meg and Mog, Where The Wild Ones Are, Dr Seuss. And then later The Worst Witch, an Asterix and Tintin obsession, Sweet Valley High, Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton – who was contraband in school. Of course, the classics; The Secret Garden, The Borrowers, Narnia. Then, in come James Herbert, Stephen King and Jilly Cooper.

Can you remember your favourites? The ones that appealed to the bonkers five year old in you, the adventure-hungry eight year-old - the push, shove and wanderlust of the thirteenth year? Or the first time you realized that books could be very, very scary? Goosebumps, for me. The first book that made you sob till you were sick? Watership Down.

Storytelling used to be cave paintings and tree carvings, dance and song, and stories passed down the generations in front of the hearth. It was social. When I watch my niece read, I realize that books are also about the opposite. They’re about unplugging from the grid. She’s unplugging from computer games, TV, white-noise and household chatter. She’s withdrawing from us and occupying some space elsewhere.

In those early years books mean independence and taking control. They’re about important, grown-up, decisions in shops and libraries. They’re about new and fierce loyalties to characters and authors. Once you learn to read, a five-hour car journey isn’t the purgatory it was before. It’s transformed into midnight feasts and sea swimming competitions at Mallory Towers or sharks, desert islands and treasure hunts with The Hardy Boys.

When my niece and I get back from the bookshop she sits on the sofa, cracks the spine on her book and off she goes. She’s so focused on the faraway, her forehead is scrunched and I can almost hear her brain buzzing. She’s reading a bit above her age and I know the story has some scary bits. She looks so brave to me with her little white knuckles and her mind a million miles away. She makes me think of everything books gave me when I was little. I can see her heading past the blurred edges of the map and I realise that in that moment I’m watching her grow up.

Last Saturday night I sat outside a diner on New York’s 7th Avenue, eating cheesecake and smiling up at the moon.

It has been one of the best weeks in the short history of the Greenhouse – packed with progress, excitement, and affirmation that we’re doing some things right and are truly on our way.  Alone in the city on that warm night, and staring up at that moon, I was suddenly ‘surprised by joy’ – as C.S. Lewis once said.

Let’s go back to where my last blog post ended, with me wearily slumped over my keyboard in England. I arrived back in the US Tuesday lunchtime, unpacked and sat straight down at my desk, where (apart from a few muddled hours of sleep – I dream constantly about not having plane tickets) I more or less stayed until 7.30pm the following night, when I finally settled the deal that dominated my British trip.

After an enormous amount of interest among US publishers, and a number bidding in a big auction that finally went to ‘best offers’, Brenna Yovanoff’s debut YA novel, FE (not Fae or Fey, please note – FE is the chemical symbol for iron) will be published by the team at Razorbill, Lexa Hillyer and Ben Schrank, in a 2-book deal.  For any of you who don’t know, Razorbill is the teen imprint of Penguin US and the people behind the NYT blockbuster, THIRTEEN REASONS WHY by Jay Asher. Razorbill loved FE from the start, and I knew this was a very special acquisition for them.

I’ll be posting details of Brenna and the book on the Author section of this site as soon as I can, but I can tell you that Brenna’s voice is elegant and strange, and her story is darkly compelling.  I can practically guarantee that there will be considerable international interest in it.

The hero of the story is Mackie Doyle, a brooding, bass-playing teenager who seems like everyone else in the perfect town of Gentry, but who is hiding a big secret: he is a Replacement, left in the crib of a human baby 16 years ago.  Now, the dark side – those who live under the Hill – wants him back, and Mackie must decide where he really belongs.  Will finding love with feisty, vulnerable Tait finally make him worthy of the human world?

I know many of you aspiring writers must at times doubt that you can find representation through the usual agency submission process. You are one of thousands, and I’m sure you wonder if agents even look properly at your material.  Well, Brenna’s story may encourage you.  She appeared in my inbox last August when I was especially inundated. Her submission immediately made me sit up (something in the way she expressed herself?), I asked to see her whole manuscript, and we then began an editorial process together that resulted in the complete rewrite that went out to US publishers this May – so nine months after our first encounter.  Brenna is a star at revision, a big talent, and it’s been an exciting journey to see FE develop.

Deal done, up at 5am the following morning to fly to New York – only to sit on the tarmac for ages due to fog at La Guardia.  Frustrated, I felt my Blackberry vibrate, took a quick look – and saw we’d had an offer on another project.  Hooray!

A day whirling around New York, seeing a bevy of editors, then off to BEA (see photo). If you’ve never visited the Expo, let’s just say it’s vast, it’s sensory overload, it’s the entire US book industry clamouring at each other in a comparatively small area. You walk miles, you regret wearing heels, you think you may start hallucinating, you think, ‘Why don’t those &*%! [expletives deleted] drummers just SHUT UP!’ and ‘Oh, there’s NEIL GAIMAN’ as you’re swept past the booth where a semi-naked lady is handing out fliers . . .  Grabbed a bagel at the Children’s Author Breakfast, repressed a huge urge (unlike Tomie dePaola) to sing ‘The Hills Are Alive . . .’ when Julie Andrews spoke, and then enjoyed ten minutes alone with Meg Cabot (in glorious lime-green dress) for the first time since I stopped being her publisher at Macmillan UK. (Oh, did I ever tell you I stayed with Meg at her house in Key West?  But that’s another story, which will never be told.)

On to numerous other publisher appointments (lovely to at last meet Nicole Geiger from Tricycle in California, and Richard Florest from Weinstein Books). Then Greenhouse author Sarwat Chadda (DEVIL’S KISS) appeared, flanked by his Hyperion entourage. Chosen as one of the Fall’s breakout YA authors, Sarwat had been flown out to NYC from London for this year’s new YA Buzz Panels, chaired by Scholastic editor/author David Levithan. Big thrill to hear Ari Lewin of Hyperion talking about DK at the first panel (to a huge audience – not even standing-room only), and then to watch Sarwat himself talk about the book next day on the Author panel – the lone Brit amid a bunch of up-and-coming American authors. Not the easiest forum, especially with all the noise and exposure of the Downtown Stage where anyone passing could listen in.

Then on with Sarwat to meet Tim Ditlow, his audio publisher from Brilliance – and a great chat with the head of Amazon Books division.  By which time I think both Sarwat and I were wondering what incoherent insanity was coming out of our mouths. As we parted ways (both flying back early next morning – him to UK, me to DC), I headed straight for an unoccupied table to vacuum up a large cappuccino and blueberry muffin in peace – only to find myself in (unsolicited) discussion with a doctor specializing in pediatric medicine and seeking a literary agent . . .  Aaaagh.

For me, BEA ended with Egmont’s lovely first-anniversary party. Very nice canapés, amazing band! Since they are publishing our Alexandra Diaz’s OF ALL THE STUPID THINGS this was a chance to celebrate with a team that is one of New York’s nicest – Elizabeth Law, Regina Griffin, Doug Pocock (and to meet Greg Ferguson and Alison Weiss for the first time). Greenhouse and Egmont US were born about the same time, so there’s always been a bit of a connection between us.

Pitched up back home Sunday afternoon – surprisingly sprightly, though I do say so myself.  And more good things waiting for me:  fabulous and classy advance proofs of Val Patterson’s THE OTHER SIDE OF BLUE and Lindsey Leavitt’s PRINCESS FOR HIRE.  A final jacket image for OF ALL THE STUPID THINGS (see the Author section on site), and a really attractive and commercial author website-in-the making from Harriet Goodwin, nearly ready to go live.

So what do you think I did on Sunday night?  The Husband (bless him, for without him most things domestic would collapse) had got tickets to the open-air concert venue at Wolf Trap to see Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, and SHAWN COLVIN in concert.  Shawn is in capital letters because she is one of my all-time favourite singer-songwriters who really inspired me to sing in the 1990s. She is everything I’d like to be musically – great lyricist, great guitarist. Oh, and she’s beautiful too.

As we sat there on a rug, on that warm, perfect night, I drank a glass of wine, thought about the week - and felt full of joy at how good the world is. Remember this, Sarah, I thought. Remember this. And I smiled up at the moon. 

‘I enjoy reading your blog because it never lacks adventure,’ said someone who wrote to me recently. 

Adventure? I thought.  Moi? But over this past week I’ve been thinking about it – and perhaps she’s right! Starting an agency, from scratch, in another country, has been the most extreme, exciting, challenging, back-against-the-wall thing I’ve ever done, and I never stop realizing how it’s changed my life from the relative straitjacket of my old corporate publishing days. 

One thing I do a lot of now is – travel. Yes, here I am back in England again – formerly my first home, but now my second. And it’s lovely to be here, especially with all my close family and friends around me. Here, every hour, every day is different – not a vacation but a temporary change of lifestyle and pace.  Is it adventurous? Is it a little crazy?  I’ll let you make up your own mind as I take you through the highlights of my past couple of weeks . . .

1.  One week before I leave for England: Do a deal! Yippee!  Sell debut author Cindy Callaghan’s middle-grade novel, KELLY QUINN’S SECRET COOKING CLUB, to Aladdin (Simon & Schuster). This story always makes me feel hungry. It’s fun, it’s pacy, but it also features amazing ice-cream confections called ‘Super Swirleys’. Oh, and there are recipes too!

2. One day before I leave for England: Do ANOTHER deal!  Hurrah! Did I mention that doing deals is one of my favourite activities in the world?  I sell Sarah Aronson’s BEYOND LUCKY to Dial (Penguin Putnam). This story is sort of about soccer, but it’s also about friendship, self-discovery, forgiving – and it has a really strong voice. Sarah’s first novel, HEAD CASE, was published by Roaring Brook, so very pleased she decided to join Greenhouse– one of our first already-published authors.

3. Still sitting at desk two hours before taxi to airport arrives. Hand luggage still in disarray on carpet. Big Submission just sent out could turn nuclear. Two responses within hours. This is extraordinary. Load all relevant contact details for editors on to Blackberry and contemplate how to handle this from 4000 miles away, five hours removed from East Coast, and even more hours from Author. Say goodbye to Husband and Lucy (a.k.a. the World’s Best Dachsund). Husband is jealous because there are special Henry VIII exhibits in UK right now (500th anniversary of accession to throne). Lucy just looks sad.

4. Airplane. Other passengers watch MARLEY AND ME; I write moderately amusing speech for Sarwat Chadda’s UK launch party and read 2 submissions on Kindle before falling asleep.

5. Touch down 6.15 am, and straight to flat, nipping out of taxi to purchase milk and bread. It is cold. I didn’t bring enough garments – or the right ones. A valve on the boiler (furnace) is leaking. It could flood the flats beneath. A new valve costs enough to bail out Iceland’s whole economy.  How can this square lump of metal be so small, so boring, yet cost so much?

6. More publishers responding to Big Submission. Yes, it is turning nuclear.  Look at Blackberry every 30 seconds and worry constantly that all technological connections to inbox could crash. (NB: This is quite hard for family and friends who haven’t seen me for 3 months).  Yes, the transplanted Greenhouse Operations Room is up and running! Clean the windows.

7. Stand on a chair at Dulwich Picture Gallery and make speech at DEVIL’S KISS launch party, along with Puffin’s Lindsey Heaven, as Knights Templar run around outside in the drizzle, bashing each other with swords. We have a lot of champagne, but then it’s not every night I’m with the British Greenhouse posse – Julia, and authors Sarwat, Jon Mayhew and Michael Ford. Bask in the glow of realization they’ve all become friends – this is the Greenhouse I dreamed of.

8. Meet with Julia and Kevin – our new contracts manager, a.k.a. ‘the smiling assassin’.  This is a man who ENJOYS warranties and indemnities. Enough said. Would YOU want to negotiate with him? Fortunately he’s on our side.

9. Attempt to muster prevailing spirit of righteous anger. British Members of Parliament have been charging all manner of bizarre things to their expenses. Duck ponds, second homes, electric mixers, antique furniture, for starters. There is a wonderful eccentricity about all this – ah, I’m home!

10. Meet with Rowen and Charlie - my brothers, my heroes. Actually, our web designers who created the Greenhouse site, and to whom I run wailing when things crash or when I’m just technologically baffled. We hug a lot, and they get quite excited as we talk about developing the site with innovative new goodies.  Their eyes light up as they foresee techno-fun ahead. I’m told that first of all we have to look at costings. Doh, just poop on my parade, why don’t you.

11. Read submissions late at night - and look at Blackberry every 20 seconds; it quivers at my side like a loaded gun.  Many important emails arrive, and I call excited Author of the potentially Big Book, which is brewing nicely. Finesse BEA schedule – Meg Cabot, Laura Langlie (her agent) and I are attempting to meet up after several years (I published PRINCESS DIARIES in the UK) and it’s not proving easy. Hear that my lovely authors/friends will donate me their room in Betsy’s Bed & Breakfast establishment for July Vermont conference, so I can have aircon in boudoir – a break from trickling perspiration. Flat, however, is freezing - turn on fan heater.

12. Start Tudors fix by visiting Hatfield House, where young Tudor royals were sent either to be educated or put firmly in their place. Look at Princess Elizabeth’s ‘garden hat’ and silk stockings and stroll around knot garden, imagining when Mary ventured out to see her dad, Henry VIII, only to have him ignore her – after all, she’d been cut out of the succession in favour of Elizabeth (who was herself later cut out in favour of Edward), so she was nothing but trouble. Sit on damp grass photographing big purple flowers like puffballs with telephoto lens. Wireless signal wobbly, but manage to send emails from behind large hedge.

13. Sons celebrate their birthdays. More Tudors fix as we visit the Tower of London, where Son texts constantly (what can I say – it’s his birthday), and I stare equally at a) my Blackberry and b) sixteenth-century graffiti gouged into the walls by tortured prisoners. Email New York publisher who has offered on Big Submission; contemplate sending them greetings from the Bloody Tower, which is where I really am. See many suits of armour belonging to Henry VIII, and Son and I comment on the enormous size of Henry’s rear in later life. Those thighs were like tree trunks.

14. Make legendary shrimp and egg sandwiches for ongoing birthday bonanza. The secret is all in the mayo ratio.  Stay up late as everyone still working on East Coast. Sit writing blog post at midnight, with the remains of large chocolate muffin scattered in front of me, and double-chocolate chips glued to keyboard. Look at Blackberry as I sip steaming cuppa. Await more offers. They are coming – oh yes, they are coming.

15. Sleep.

16. Blackberrrrrrrrry. . . . . .

17. Contemplate my adventurous life.

May 7, 2009, is a very, very special date.  Today marks the publication of our first Greenhouse title.  DEVIL’S KISS by Sarwat Chadda publishes today in the UK with Puffin – to be followed by a US edition from Hyperion in September. Seven other countries (France, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Indonesia, Holland, Japan) have currently acquired rights in the book, and an audio edition will be coming from Brilliance Audio in due course.  Sarwat signed with Greenhouse in Fall 2007, when the agency was still being formed, and he went on to secure virtually simultaneous US and UK deals at auction (with just a weekend in between!) in March 2008.  You can find out more about Sarwat and DEVIL’S KISS on the Author section of this site, but now he’s magically dropped in on my blog to tell you the story of this extraordinary year in his life.

Hi Sarwat.  You’ve featured a lot on the Greenhouse website over the past year, so it’s great to welcome you in person. You were the Greenhouse’s first-ever client, so tell us – what’s it like to be a Greenhouse author (if I dare ask!)?

Very nice. I was pretty anxious when we first met, having no real idea what to expect. There was a sense that this was going to be an adventure, no matter how it turned out.
I remember speaking to one or two of the other writers as they were joining Greenhouse and there’s a great feeling of solidarity with the other ‘seedlings’ as we’re mostly debut authors all trying to find our way. I love the range of the Greenhouse writers and how different our journeys are turning out to be.

It’s weird to think it’s only been just over a year since it all started. A lot has happened!

The story of how you got your book deals for DEVIL’S KISS is quite exciting. Can you tell us about it – and did you ever think something like this would happen to you?

Never in a million years. It still feels like I’ve won the lottery. I remember working at the first rewrite over Christmas and sending it to you on New Year’s Day. It was when you contacted me the following day saying you’d read it and loved it that I started to hope I had something good. Then there were the crossed fingers when it went out to the publishers, both in the US and the UK.

My wife and I had forced ourselves not to have too high hopes. If we were lucky we could get our carpets replaced and maybe cover our holiday costs. Our best-case scenario was for me to stick at the day job and maybe, just maybe, in five of six years make a gradual move into writing. But I never imagined that I’d become a writer full time.

I had a running joke at work that I’d quit engineering before my fortieth birthday. Can’t believe I actually did that with two weeks to spare.

We all know it’s very hard to get published, so give us some insights into how you got there.  Going back in time a bit, when did you start writing, how long did it take you to write DK, find an agent, and get to submission point?

I think one of the things that holds people back from their full potential in writing is that they see it as a hobby that pays. I always saw it as a career change. So I put in as much effort as I could, imagining it as a second job. So I read a lot of those ‘how to’ books, I went on courses and tried to get myself involved and understanding the publishing business. Everyone talks about how you wouldn’t imagine playing a gig just because you’d picked up a guitar. The same applies to writing. Don’t think you can earn a living just because you’ve sat down at your keyboard.

The key issue was that the learning never felt like hard work. It felt like playtime.

The rewrites were endless. Fortunately, I write pretty quickly but still it’s hard having the guts to scrap EVERYTHING you’ve already done and start again. DEVIL’S KISS began in Autumn 2004. Between that version and the one that got the book deals I’d rewritten it maybe three or four times from complete scratch. The last (and biggest rewrite) was once I signed with you. From signing with Greenhouse in November 2007 to getting it to the publishers in March 2008 I tore the entire story apart and not one aspect of it survived, not even the title. But my goodness, it was worth it!

Nothing is wasted. All those words I scrapped over the years meant the ones remaining were the strongest. The stale plots were abandoned so what I had left was red and bloody. For me I think my selling point is the passion I feel for my subject. The writing isn’t that sophisticated. What I aim at is getting my story across as powerfully as possible.

DK is very dark and actually quite violent.  Where did the inspiration for the story come from and how did you work out where to draw the line in terms of content, given your teenage readership?

I’ve always loved action stories and gothic horror, so wanted to combine the two. I love Bernard Cornwell and Clive Cussler, but their heroes are the best of the best. You never really feel the hero is ever in mortal danger. I wanted to give my hero a real run for her money and test her to the limit.

The London setting helped immensely. It’s a unique mix of ancient and modern. I used to work in a modern air-conditioned building five minutes away from Temple Church, which was consecrated in the twelfth century. I’ve been out on the streets before dawn, watching the mist roll off the Thames. I love history and the way it creates our present. Writing supernatural horror allows me to take this quite literally. I wanted somewhere very modern and very ancient, like London.

Interestingly, your main protagonist – Billi SanGreal - is a fifteen-year-old girl.  Did you find it hard to write from a teen-girl’s perspective?

No, not to begin with. There are issues at fifteen that are relevant to girls and boys. Identity, the idea of becoming an adult and the responsibilities that brings. Rebelling against the normal order of things, like your parents.
I remember what it was like being fifteen, and the decisions I had to make about what sort of person I was going to be. It’s a time for choices and it’s hard to pick the right ones. There are pressures all around, from parents, friends, and teachers, most well-intentioned. Billi’s in the same position, but her choices have life-and-death consequences.

That said, I have been picked up on where I’ve strayed off the female perspective. Fortunately, having female editors and my wife as a first reader helps. Curiously, writing the romantic scenes wasn’t hard. Billi’s consumed with self-doubt. That’s something I identify with.

So you’re publishing in the UK today and in the USA in September.  Given your deals were virtually simultaneous, I know you’ve been working with both American and British editors at the same time. What is it like to be a truly transatlantic author? Has it been hard to work for two publishers at the same time and are their approaches different?

Ari [Ari Lewin at Hyperion-Disney in the USA) and Lindsey [Lindsey Heaven at Puffin UK] have worked together to make this pretty seamless, collaborating on their edits and sending me only one set of notes. For a while after that my main contact became Lins as we worked on the UK edition.

However, there are different demands from the different markets. I delivered the Puffin revision last Autumn, knowing I still had time to continue working on the Hyperion version, which wasn’t due out until five months after the UK edition. Then my main contact became Ari.
The two books are subtly different. I’d be interested if anyone could actually spot the differences. Of course, I’d be very happy for everyone to buy both.

I know you’ve got a lot of publicity lined up on both sides of the Atlantic.  Can you tell us what you’ve done to help promote yourself, and what your publishers are doing for you?

Oh, the blog – and completely rebuilding my website, www.sarwatchadda.com. I started the blog last year, thinking I’d get bored after a month or two. I probably never really appreciated the world out there on the Internet. I’m still trying to find a balance between blogging about writing, and blogging about books.

I’ve a week of school visits, starting this Thursday. Done one already and it was a laugh. I got the audience to write their own ending to the story then act it out. Fortunately no-one was hurt.
I’ve a trip to New York coming up and will be attending BEA at the end of the month. I’m on a YA panel with other writers so it’ll be great to talk shop with them. I’ve just taken part in the Crystal Palace children’s book festival in London and did a reading there, and that was fun. Met a lot of other writers and I loved the camaraderie. We all know how lucky we are to be part of such a cool profession.

You’ve come such a long way in the past eighteen months.  Imagine you are talking to all the aspiring writers who read this blog.  From your own experience, what tips would you most like to share with them?

Write what you love. It’s the only thing that will see you through. Writing’s the closest you get to revealing your heart so make it worth it (but not worthy).

I know you’ve got some foreign deals, so DK will appear in other languages, thanks to our sister company, Rights People. We tend to think most about the market in our home country, so what’s it like to be published in other parts of the world?

Very, very cool. C’mon, I’m going to be published in Indonesian, how cool is that? Went to Bologna for the international children’s book fair in March. Meeting my foreign publishers there really brought home the enthusiasm people have for books. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever come across. You do it because you love it. Not because it pays well, not because it gives you status, not because it’ll make you popular at parties. There’s something magical about books and storytelling.

Not giving away any state secrets (of course), are you able to give us any clues about what you’re writing next?

THE DARK GODDESS. It’s the sequel to DEVIL’S KISS and takes Billi way out of her comfort zone and drops her in Russia to face Baba Yaga, the fairy-tale witch.

If I have a style it’s that I take ancient legends and myths and put a modern spin on them. Baba Yaga is an avatar of the Earth Mother. Her job is to protect the Earth. She’s had enough of the damage Mankind has inflicted on the planet and is now going to do something about it. Something very drastic.

I think as a species we’re slowly waking up to the idea that we’re not aloof and detached from nature. We’ve tried to conquer it, not realising nature always wins. Always. Humanity hasn’t been on the planet for that long. The terrifying fact is that with us gone, everything else will be better. Baba Yaga represents all those species that have suffered under the dominion of man.

Take us through a typical day in your life as a writer.  How do you organize your time?

Oh, my day is terribly domestic. Once I drop the kids off I try and write a thousand words. Usually in the morning. I try and avoid emails until the afternoon. Actually, one of the advantages about having a transatlantic set-up is that my afternoon is your morning. I feel I almost have a double-day, which means writing when everyone’s asleep too, but that’s cool. Afternoon and early evening is family time. My worst habit is the tendency to write on Saturdays.

I focus on monthly word targets, so there’s some scope for the unexpected. The target is usually about 20,000 words. That’s separate from rewrites, but I divide those up into chapters per week, leaving two weeks to polish before I need to return my manuscript to the publisher.  That’s the ideal arrangement.

One thing I do miss is the chit-chat and larking about of an office. I socialized a bit (a lot, truth be told) in the office. Working alone means I’m probably quite manic now when let out in public.

Your life has changed a fair bit in the past year.  Tell us about that – and how do you see the year ahead?

The main thing is that I love my job now. Really, really love it in a way I feel embarrassed trying to describet as ‘work’. Like I said earlier, it feels like playtime. Which is weird because, when you think about it, it should really be very boring. Sitting alone in a room for days and months upon end.

I spend much more time with the kids. Being away from them so much was something I always regretted when I was a wage slave. To be honest, I think there are times they probably wish I wasn’t around quite so much. In a few years I’ll probably evolve into one of those embarrassing dads, if I haven’t already.

I want to become much more disciplined with my writing over the next year. I’ve still got loads more to learn (like where to put inverted commas) but that will probably be how I feel for the rest of my life.

If you could choose just one word to describe how it feels finally to reach PUBLICATION DAY – what would it be?

Delirious.

Thanks so much, Sarwat - and congratulations!  We wish you a wonderful day and much success to DEVIL’S KISS in all its incarnations.  We’ll be keeping track of your progress in the years ahead.  And also, of course, talking to other Greenhouse authors as they experience their various literary milestones.

Just back from a gorgeous weekend in the Shenandoah, where the sun shone, the flowers were brilliantly lovely, and I clumped around in shorts and hiking boots taking endless photographs in my quest to master light meters and variable exposures. Come anywhere near me and I’ll bore you to death with shutter speeds, F-stops and much more camera-related blah blah blah. If books weren’t my first love (and if English Literature hadn’t been the one thing at which I really excelled in school), I’d probably be found in a studio somewhere, trying to make unattractive people look beautiful, or taking giant photos of insects.

Now it’s Monday morning and I’m at my desk.  But wait! As I peer around my monitor what do I see? A small, furry, red-and-black creature fast asleep on my office sofa!  A number of really good things happened last week, but Lucy – our charming, funny dachshund, who arrived last Sunday – was the best of them. Lots of you were so kind to me when Hogey, our beloved Golden Retriever, died in January, so I wanted to let you know about Lucy’s arrival – and also, of course, share this rather beautiful photo with you.  Lucy is a former champion showdog, eight years old, who needed a ‘forever home’, and somehow we just knew we were the people to fill the gap.  Now the Greenhouse has a Hound once more – a quarter the size of the previous resident, but just as good at a) showing up for work on time b) snoozing on manuscripts and c) demanding walkies. But sometimes walkies and distraction are just what I need, and I’ve made many of my best decisions while ambling up the road with a dog. I wonder what jubilations Lucy will witness in the next few months and years. Oh, it’s good to have a canine staff member again – take a promotion immediately, Lucy!

Apart from dogs, there is another thing that makes me very, very happy – and that is DOING DEALS.  I love it.  I revel in it. I love the strategising and the organizing, the mental mosaic of submissions, the pondering of editors’ personalities and idiosyncracies, the composing/re-composing/re-re-composing of my submission email – and the heart-in-the-mouth moment as I click ‘send’ and a manuscript (born of effort, garnished with dreams) floats away. I feel like I’m sending my baby out into the river on a little craft made of bullrushes . . . Who will discover the baby? Who will give it a home? Who will nurture it as I nurtured it?  How dare anyone push that baby away!  Yes, as you can see, it all gets just a bit personal. As someone once said about soccer – ‘It’s not just a question of life or death, it’s MUCH more important than that.’ Isn’t that how you feel as an author?  Well, despite my hard and flinty exterior (oh, I can always dream), as your agent I feel it just as much.

So this should be a GOOD WEEK, knowing, as I do, that an offer is on its way on a manuscript that’s been out.  It’s really very much like a love affair (OK, so now you can forget the baby). When I submit work, I’m hoping to find that one person – or sometimes more – who will feel they are the perfect match for that book, that author.  A weird kind of chemistry comes into play and sometimes you just know that one editor, one house, is going to be the betrothed – there will be an engagement ring, a marriage, a future.  So it is written, so it is done!  When that happens, I have done my job as Chief Matchmaker, and there is immeasurable satisfaction in that.  We don’t need lots of suitors – we just need one very long and happy marriage!

But other editors, in other countries, are falling in love too.  Miles away, an editor in Denmark fell for the charms of Harriet Goodwin’s THE BOY WHO FELL DOWN EXIT 43, and last week we had a confirmed deal for Danish rights – with a publisher named Forlaget Flachs (don’t even try to pronounce that one, especially after a few gin and tonics).  At some point Harriet’s going to see a book on her shelf that speaks to the Danish market – what will the cover image be like?  What will the title look like in Danish? The one thing we can be sure of is that it will look surprising (as other languages always do), and we’ll be amazed all over again at how the market for children’s books can be so similar and yet so different, around the world.

What else does this week hold?  Various possibilities, as I wait with bated breath and crossed toes for responses on a few things out in the wide blue yonder.  One thing I’ve learned – enthusiasm alone does not a deal make.  Excited emails are great – but show me the colour of the money. I believe nothing until I see the money! So all to play for on a variety of fronts – but now I’m just being annoyingly cryptic.  To distract me I’ve got a lot of planning to do – flights, hotels, meetings for my next trip to New York in late May. I’m spending part of my time seeing editors, part at BEA where Sarwat Chadda will be speaking at a YA Buzz discussion and autographing THE DEVIL’S KISS.  If you’re attending, get in that line – be there or be square! Then there are more flights to book, handouts to plan, breakout sessions to agonize over, for SCBWI Los Angeles in August. This is a new one for me – and it’s big.  Do I want to be great?  You bet – and that’s going to take a lot of prep; I don’t believe in leaving ANYTHING to chance.

Sorry to leave you, but I must get on. Re-reading this piece, I’m feeling a whole lot of love. For the beautiful mountains and rivers of the Shenandoah. My love for books, authors and deals, and for the excitement and mystery of this international business.  But also my love for photography – colour and image - and for my adorable new friend, an elegant, middle-aged, long-haired dachshund named Lucy who snores on my sofa as I write. And finally, upcoming deals make me think about the weird chemistry that draws one editor to love one author’s work - the best platform for great publishing - and my role as professional matchmaker.  That’s the kind of love that makes me know I’ve done my job right.

There’s a whole lot of sun outside, and a whole lot of love in the Greenhouse this morning.  Get writing, people, and feel the love!

I quite often read about the mystery of literary agents.  That to many aspiring writers, agents appear to inhabit some arcane universe, entered only by secret handshakes, coded and cryptic messages, insider knowledge.  And that their decisions are unfathomable and capricious, if not downright cruel. A bit like the election of a Pope by the cardinals, dark smoke probably appears from our windows if an aspiring writer doesn’t achieve representation; white smoke means they’ve hit the jackpot – a new Pope! Everything’s going great!

But where is the logic? How we must be hated sometimes as we sit in judgment in our throne-room, making trite comments (or even worse, no comment at all) on work over which you’ve laboured for years. How you must long to say very rude things to us, shove that middle finger in our faces – and yet you daren’t, because we’re the magic portal by which you can find yourself suddenly teleported on to the desk of a publisher and living the dream.

It’s a tough life as an aspiring writer, but despite what you think, it isn’t all ambrosia for agents either – or publishers.  This is a tough food chain, and the risk and the disappointments and the hunches that go right or wrong travel both up and down the line, all the way to the top. As agents we’re less likely to be sipping champagne than sitting in a Starbucks (because you can only look at contracts so long) with ten manuscripts on our e-reader, wondering where to begin. And there’s nothing to describe the physical sensations you get when an email headed with the title of a current submission plops into the inbox – and you know that this is the long-awaited response from an editor on your author’s work.  Will the smoke be dark (a ‘no’? A ‘can’t decide yet’?) – or could it just possibly (please, please, please!) be white? Deal or no deal – it’s all focused on that moment and it can make you feel positively sick.

If you’re an emotional, passionate person (er, like me), it’s a rollercoaster that can have you sinking to the floor with head in hands, or jumping up and down whooping like a kid.  Or sometimes just wanting to grab an editor by the neck, shake them and yell, ‘Look, just let me know, can you? Enough of the delays, meetings, discussions, vacations, dental appointments - just get on and make a %$#@ decision!’ But it’s no good – we are professionals. We must breathe deeply and be charming, measured and understanding, tempering the excitements, absorbing the pain, always staying positive and encouraging for the author who is hanging on our every word. Because after all, we are omniscient, right?

Most weeks are a mish-mash of so many different events – small victories, setbacks, lots of ordinary office stuff. But then there are the occasional flaming moments of glory – the ones that change everything and bring the sun bursting out. Ha ha, I’m an agent – and there’s nothing to beat it in the world!

I’ve had a few of those moments in the past week or so.  Most excitingly, closing a deal yesterday for Lindsey Leavitt’s teen novel SEAN GRISWOLD’S HEAD, which has been snapped up by Caroline Abbey at Bloomsbury US. So many deals are fascinating sagas, with their own mini-stories attached, and that was true in this case. Bloomsbury narrowly lost out to Hyperion last summer as underbidders for Lindsey’s PRINCESS FOR HIRE. I know that hit them hard – they really loved Lindsey’s wit and voice. So when SEAN went out a few weeks ago, they were really excited to have another crack at acquiring her. It all went swimmingly and we’re so delighted to have SEAN (a novel Lindsey wrote before PFH) with them. And good to know there is still a market for a funny, quirky, poignant contemporary teen love story in our current market. Have a look at our Author section and you’ll see more about SEAN GRISWOLD’S HEAD, which is such a fun and lovely story.

But there have been more bits of great news too.  A mini--auction in the Netherlands for PRINCESS FOR HIRE, resulting in a three-book deal with Uniboek (and I’ve just heard today that other foreign houses have had good preliminary reads following Bologna).  A deal by Hyperion with lovely Tim Ditlow of Brilliance for audio rights in Sarwat Chadda’s DEVIL’S KISS, as well as Rights People’s sale of Japanese rights to Media Factory. Sarwat’s first radio interview on the BBC Asian Network (a star is born).  Great cover proofs of Val Patterson’s THE OTHER SIDE OF BLUE, which looks so classy and enticing. And a new speaking gig lined up in Miami with SCBWI Florida for January 2011 – and more engagements on the way.  Then there are the other things going on that I can’t tell you about (hey, it’s true – we really are secretive!) – the submissions that are out, the revision of the hot manuscript I’m awaiting next week, the quality manuscript I’m currently reading . . .

The one thing I can say about being an agent is that there’s very rarely a dull moment!

Welcome to my world. Today, the view from my desk, over my Vegas boots, is set fair – and the smoke is definitely white.

It’s a good thing President Obama married Michelle when he did, because otherwise one of my two sons would have whisked her away.  Or possibly both. Never mind that they are only 22 (yes, both of them) and spend most of their time in London; age and distance are no object when it comes to their reverence for the gorgeousness of the First Lady.

You see, Europe loves the Obamas.  My husband now gets greeted excitedly by customs men at London’s Heathrow airport, simply because he is American and wearing his Obama hat.  French publishers struggle incoherently (zut alors! C’est merveilleux!) to express their excitement over a bottle of wine in a Bologna restaurant, even as Monsieur Sarkozy hovers gnat-like at the President’s shoulder in his desperation to absorb some radiance from the Sun King. And now even the Queen has dropped centuries of stiff-upper-lip and let Michelle embrace her.  What is the world coming to! Touching? Smiling? By rights, the First Lady should be in the Tower by now, waiting to have her head chopped off.

These last two weeks have been all about Europe – both in the big, bad world of politics, in the children’s books industry, and for me personally. It’s not all been easy.  Protests in London (I’m sorry, but what on earth is there to protest about? None of us are exactly thrilled about the economic situation). And then for me, getting sick just before I flew to Bologna for the book fair, and staying sick for the whole thing. In fact, I couldn’t speak (though Julia might say that was a welcome relief). I can tell you, I was mad as a hornet to be lying in bed with a tray of room service while my buddies were sauntering over the cobblestones to La Antica Osteria Romagnola for another smashing dinner, but hey ho, one has to at least try to be mature. The main thing is that it was a great fair for the Greenhouse. Julia and I had bags of appointments (even if I did have to whisper and croak), there was loads of interest in our foreign rights, and follow-up manuscripts are going out to publishers all over the world.  Oh, and we’re also anticipating our first Japanese and audio deals, which is all very cool. Sure, the fair was a bit quieter than usual in terms of the number of feet on the floor, but the editors who were there definitely felt they had a great opportunity to score the best projects around, which made them feel pretty smug.

Then it was on from Bologna to Paris, and a few great days’ vacation in the city with French family and friends.  I love it, I love it, I love it.  I love the grandeur of the architecture – the insanely splendiferous vision of Louis XIV (really quite a small dude, but with awfully big hair) who popped up new palaces on a weekly basis.  Louis XVI who just didn’t see the end coming, and whose Marie-Antoinette was playing milkmaids down at the farm instead of contemplating the possible severance of her head. I love the epic vistas, the gleaming gold leaf, the sun turning stained-glass into jewels; the centuries’ old collection of armour over at the Musee de L’Armee (sorry, no accents on this keyboard), the squares, the gardens and ‘etoiles’. And I love the wallopingly huge edifice of Napoleon’s tomb.

Yes, I have a weakness for a really good tomb. Because at a tomb you can stand and imagine; a tomb is the ultimate leveller; it sorts out the ones you need to go and visit, even in death, and those whom history has passed by. And in Paris there are some crackingly good tombs for all of us obsessed with books and writers. Here on my blog photo is Jean-Paul Sartre, ensconsed down at Montparnasse with Simone de Beavoir. But I also paid a visit to Voltaire, Dumas, Victor Hugo – and Baudelaire. None of them may quite have the tomb-perfection (thin blue light, gloomy hugeness) of General Foch, or the panache of Serge Gainsbourg’s last resting place (‘je t’aime, je t’aime, Jane Birkin . . . ‘), but we know, don’t we, what they contributed to books and letters and how, in their strange and magisterial ways, they influenced us to follow behind, struggling in their wake to master big ideas and this great and difficult craft of words.

Europe. Here is history, untold centuries of it, layered in buildings, books and language.  But also the present day – a political community, hub of commerce for the children’s books industry and so much more. Europe is like the glass pyramid outside the Louvre – the startlingly new abuts the casual grandeur of antiquity.

Can we make what we write and create speak to the present day and to a global marketplace - but also worthy of the vast literary heritage from which we come?
Now that’s a tough one. But you know what? I think we should try. 

I think I’m going to make it.  It was touch and go at times, but I prevailed.  The fog has cleared, I’ve climbed up the tree and can almost see the plain below . . . Yes, there’s scope for metaphor in the hectic days leading up to the Bologna Book Fair!

Some of you will know all about Bologna, others of you will have vaguely heard that something bookish happens there. But still more of you may be thinking . . . Bologna? What’s that? Here then, in my first-ever self-interview, is a guide to everything you need to know about the Bologna Book Fair.  Including the bits that most professionals will never tell you.

So, Sarah, what and where is Bologna? 

Bologna is a very beautiful town in northern Italy – in fact, it is the capital of Emilia-Romagna, located between the Po River and the Apennines.  It was founded by the Etruscans in c. 534 BC and has had a long, varied, and at times rather bloody history since then.  It is home to the oldest university in the world – the Alma Mater Studiorum, founded in 1088.  It is also, apparently, consistently rated one of the most attractive and desirable Italian cities in which to live and . . .

Sarah, do us a favour and shut up.  What we REALLY want to know is – why are you going there?  After all, you’re supposed to be a literary agent of children’s books, not a medieval scholar.

Doh, you Philistine. OK, Bologna is also home to the annual international children’s book fair, which is held each Spring in a gigantic complex of exhibition halls just outside the city. Publishers, agents and other industry professionals flock to Bologna for about 4 days to do business, to talk about business they might do, and to make and cement the networks of connections that could enable them to do business in the future. It is a melting pot of people, information, images, languages - and business cards are the currency of this huge international melee.

Wow! But why do you need to go all that way just to see people?  Aren’t internet and email good enough?

You’re a spoilsport, aren’t you! Though you’ve got a point – or you would have if this business was a science and not an art.  You will never get around the fact that this is an industry lubricated by the oil of relationships, and (as in any business) you tend to engage in commerce with those you know – and like.  You chat with them, and you know their tastes – so you submit work to them.  They’ve seen your wares – so they ask to see something you’re representing.  You pick up ideas, information and tips ‘on the wires’ (you might say). What is hot, what will be hot, what’s out there, who’s snapped up something good.  It’s a buzzy business and it’s the job of publishers and agents to be up to date with the buzz.  Plus, actual deals are often done at the fair (though not so much with fiction, which requires a longer read), with a lot more in the subsequent follow-up. Bologna can be worth thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of dollars or pounds to a publisher. It’s a trade fair, it’s about buying and selling – it’s not a writers’ conference (though some organizations like SCBWI have events running alongside).

OK, enough already, you’ve convinced me.  But what exactly is being bought and sold? Not actual copies of books, surely.

You’re right! Every book is a Work – an intellectual property in which there are numerous ‘rights’, which are sliced up and sold in different segments.  These segments are what are sold at Bologna – or in which interest (with a view to sales) is solicited.  For Greenhouse, being a transatlantic business, the most important segments are the US/Canada and UK/ Commonwealth chunks. Then there’s the ‘translation rights’ chunk, represented (usually) by my colleagues in Rights People. Film/TV (aka ‘dramatic’) and merchandising rights are further chunks, which we always retain to be sold separately, while audio (physical and non-physical formats) is up for debate, often but not always falling in with volume rights, along with electronic.  All these chunks are of interest at the fair.
I pitch some Works at Bologna which haven’t even been submitted to publishers yet, while chunks of the rights in others have been sold already.  Last year the baby Greenhouse had only sold one author by the fair - this year we have a whole portfolio. 

How does it all work, what does it look like, and who goes?

Imagine rows and rows of exhibition halls, a bit like warehouses. There are grassy bits with benches in between the halls, where you can grab a cappuccino or panini and sit if the weather’s good.  If it’s bad you run between them. US and UK have a couple of halls, with European halls adjoining.  The further you go the more exotic it all gets – Iraq, Africa etc etc. I’ve never been to the furthest reaches, but it’s a real eye-opener to the sheer scale of the industry. The halls are packed with publishers’ stands, most designed so you can’t see inside (for fear of piracy), and with giant ‘panels’ of book jackets on display. Agents have an area all their own, with lots of small tables for one-to-one discussions.  Mostly, attendees schedule their days in half-hour slots, often without a break from 8.30 to 6pm.  Sellers tend to remain on their stand; buyers walk miles between stands.

Who goes?  Publishing rights-selling staff (they sell - and are the engine-room of the fair), senior editorial staff (they want to buy – and are looking for new projects), scouts (both book and film), agents, representatives of more niche businesses – whether marketing, ebook/electronic, retail. And trade journalists. Though this year will be leaner than most, due to the global economy. Authors are sometimes hosted at the fair – if they are a really international property. This year Greenhouse is taking Sarwat Chadda (DEVIL’S KISS) for 24 hours. It’s a brilliant opportunity for him to meet face to face nearly all his international publishers in one place and at one time.  Even if we all have to go to Italy to do it!  But then, from London it’s a very quick hop.

Come on, Sarah, we know this is really all about great food and lots of fun, isn’t it?

Well, it’s true that you won’t starve at Bologna, and the evenings are a highlight. You scramble back to your hotel for a very quick turnaround, then usually out for drinks/dinner at one of the city’s many great restaurants (you have to book early!).  The food is fantastic, usually lots of little courses, and it’s fun dining out with people you don’t normally get to see – especially when they’re from different parts of the world. I’ve been to around 10 fairs and have got to know a lot of people. I always say this is a very international business, and at Bologna you live and breathe that.

So, go on - tell us the bits that most people don’t know. Like you promised?

Aha, I knew it! You want the good stuff. OK:

The Pink Bar:  This is down at the bottom of the Via Independenza and is where the hard-core, cool people hang out till the early hours.  By midnight I can hardly stand up I’m so shattered, so you’ve got to hand it to anyone who’s still up for it at 2am. Often you can see quite famous authors there, looking a bit wild.

The Bologna Haircut and Outfit:  It’s lost in antiquity, but everyone (well, everyone female) knows you have to get your ‘do’ done just before Bologna. And there must be at least one new item in your suitcase. It’s just law. Could be because we pasty-faced, lumpy-looking Brits and Americans have to stroll up and down past the fabulously beautiful Italians, all chic little Armani suits, tans and black manes of hair.  It’s tough in a place where even the bus drivers could model for Vogue.

The Book of the Fair:  This is what you always wish you had.  This mythic Work that is so hot it’s practically sizzling, that sets the halls a-buzz with envy and speculation. Who’s got it, who wants it, what they have paid for it or would pay for it.  Believe me, if you’ve got The Book you just float as people lurch up to you with wine-glass in hand hoping to stand in the shadow of your greatness.

The Bologna illness:  It’s guaranteed. You’ll get it before, during, or after.  Take your pick. This year I’ve chosen before. Or it’s chosen me.

The Lost Luggage: Ha ha! Always gleeful schadenfreude when it happens to others - as it does every year, to Americans.  Because there’s nothing more horrific than imagining oneself at the fair without even a spare pair of underpants.

The Dark Glasses:  What you see on the faces of many ‘industry professionals’ as they sit in Bologna airport, waiting to fly home. If you talk without ceasing for 18 hours per day for 4 or 5 days, stay up much too late and get up much too early, drink too much prosecco and eat way too much mascarpone . . . well, only enormous dark glasses can save you now.

Thank you, Sarah, though why I should thank you for going to Italy, I don’t know. Rumour has it that you’re even going off on vacation after the fair to an Undisclosed European Destination.  Tell me it’s not true or I’ll hate you even more?

Er, actually it is true – but only for a few days.  Back in the hotseat on April 1.  See you then!  Ciao!

What do you get when you take one very busy trip to London (including a talk to about 50 SCBWI members on ‘writing the breakout novel’), add an upcoming Bologna book fair (complete with schedules to fix and decisions to be made on work to be pitched), throw in a large pinch of eye problems (the eye doctor is now my best friend), season with a towering manuscript pile that has all delivered simultaneously, and then top everything off with some hefty contract negotiation.  Oh, and did I mention the book deal? 
What you get is . . . absolutely no blogging.  For three weeks.  No, I didn’t vanish from the face of the earth – I just got a bit busy, and next week is going to be even more packed.  (But did you guess that I love it all?)

The really exciting news is that both Julia and I have clinched deals in the past week – and very strangely, in similar genres and to the same house – Bloomsbury!  The path by which one reaches a deal destination can be very long and circuitous, but it can also be fast and amazingly direct, and these two deals exemplify both.

I started working with Jon Mayhew some months ago.  As soon as I saw his draft for MORTLOCK, a middle-grade Victorian gothic chiller, I knew he was on to something with great commercial potential. Quite simply, it’s gloriously, fabulously over the top in its evil and it romps along with a panache that is outstandingly child friendly.  It’s all about Josie, an orphan who performs as a knife-thrower alongside her guardian, the conjuror known as the Great Cardamom. But Cardamom has secrets – many years ago he and his two friends, Lord Corvis and Mortlock, discovered the Amarant, a pulsating red plant that gives its possessor power over life and death. When three aged ‘aunts’ turn up at the house, kill the conjuror and transform into giant eviscerating crows (who are truly fantastic!), it becomes clear that the Amarant’s power is far from dormant – and that somehow Josie must destroy it. So off she goes – with her newly discovered twin Alfie, an undertaker’s ‘mute’ - on a terrifying quest that involves a circus of the living dead, and a ghastly encounter with the Amarant in a graveyard where Mortlock certainly does not ‘rest in peace’. 

Here is a story that is high-concept, pacy, and very commercial – a great fit for today’s market. Lots of publishers really liked it, but finally we had a shoot-out between two houses that totally fell in love with the story, resulting in victory for Ele Fountain at Bloomsbury UK, who’s signed Jon in a three-book deal.  A wonderful result, which will enable Jon really to develop as an author, backed by lead-author status and marketing campaign on a list that has so successfully built Angie Sage in the same genre. Congratulations, Jon! 
This is a book with considerable international potential, and I’m looking forward to going out with it in the USA – plus we’re already getting interest from scouts for other territories.  All great timing, with Bologna opening just over a week from now.

But hold on!  Was that all our news? No, it was not – because Julia has been busy too over there in London.  I’ll hand you over to Julia herself to tell you about it:

Exciting news from the UK. I’ve just tied up a deal for a chilling murder mystery for 10+ by Michael Ford. The Ghosts of Greave Hall is about a Victorian servant, haunted by her mother’s ghost, who is pitted against a sadistic housekeeper. Very creepy, with shades of JANE EYRE and THE WOMAN IN BLACK. Ele Fountain at Bloomsbury UK was the acquiring editor. It was sold on the strength of a partial manuscript and detailed synopsis, which doesn’t happen very often, and that’s testament to the quality of the author’s writing and concept. Michael is himself a book editor and one of those people with tonnes of great ideas, who are such fun to work with. I can’t wait to see how the novel grows in the next few months.

A bit more about the story:  The year is 1856, and orphan Abigail Tamper lives below stairs in Greave Hall, a crumbling manor house in London. Lord Greave is plagued by madness, and with his son Samuel away fighting in the Crimea, the running of Greave Hall is left to the tyrannical housekeeper, Mrs Cotton. The only solace for the beleaguered staff is to frighten Mrs Cotton by pretending the house is haunted.

So when a real ghost makes an appearance - that of her beloved mother - no one is more surprised than Abi. The spirit has a revelation that threatens to destroy Abi’s already fragile existence: she was murdered, and by someone under their very own roof. With Samuel returned to England badly wounded, it’s up to Abi to nurse him back to health, while trying to discover the identity of the killer in their midst. As the chilling truth dawns, Abi’s world is turned upside down.

The Greenhouse UK juggernaut is on the road and we’ve just smashed a bottle of champagne over it! Cheers!

Back to Sarah: Yes, well, thank you, Julia – don’t get over-excited now with those ‘juggernauts’.  But in honour of your first Greenhouse deal, and Bloomsbury UK, I’ve topped this blog post with a photo to remind us all of England . . . My husband was given these wind-up figures for Christmas by our nieces, and they always make me smile.

So, my office looks like a bomb has gone off in it.  There’s a still unopened scanner sitting in its box in the corner, a ‘soft phone’ sent from our London office so we can speak direct through the internet (which of course requires copious voltage converters, adaptors etc), and paper everywhere. But I can assure you there is method in the madness and everything will (I think) be where it should be by the time I leave for Bologna a week Saturday. 

Cheers, everyone, I’ll be writing again soon.

On January 26 - just two days after our first anniversary - we welcomed a new agent to the Greenhouse. Julia Churchill is in London, England, and her job is to grow the UK side of our business, which is exciting news for aspiring and established authors on that side of the Pond. You can read more about Julia in the About Us section of this site, but here is our very first interview with Julia (who, I have to tell you, is quite brilliant!). 

Hi there, Julia!  It’s great to have you in the Greenhouse, building our UK author list.  Can you tell us a bit about your career to date and what made you join Greenhouse? 

It’s wonderful to be here!

I started out as a Press Office intern at Sheldrake Press in London, and then in 2002 joined the Darley Anderson Literary, TV & Film Agency as an assistant. Two years later I was the Agency Manager, and then in 2005 was made Associate Agent with a brief to build the children’s books side of the business.

I’d been watching Greenhouse’s progress with a lot of interest over the course of 2008. I kept on reading about these great deals and amazing-sounding books in the trade press, and I was aware the agency was selling books to both the USA and the UK. Most young agencies can take a few years to get out of the blocks so I was really impressed that so much was happening in a short space of time.

I like it when something is from more than one place, and Greenhouse feels truly international. That’s something that strikes a chord with me personally and obviously makes business sense too. If I were an English-language writer I’d want to be represented by a transatlantic agency that had feet on the ground in both English-language markets. I was also very impressed that Greenhouse has its own rights-selling sister company, Rights People – it is just so strong internationally.

What led you into agenting and what do you love most about it?

Funnily enough, when I was a teenager my mum told me I should become a literary agent. I’m not sure what she saw in me, but I loved books and was a mini wheeler-dealer in the playground – selling sweets, food, collectables, music. I didn’t think much of her suggestion at the time – I probably rolled my eyes a bit.

Then a few years later I’d graduated and knew I wanted to work in the book business. I applied to hundreds of places – publishers, packagers, agents, scouts. Pretty much everybody in the Writers and Artists Yearbook got a resumé from me. I was in the interview at Darley Anderson’s, hearing about the role and about what literary agents do and I remember thinking, ‘I need to get this. I have to make this my thing.’ I had white knuckles.

There is a lot to love about this job. Every day is a treasure hunt. All agents are beachcombers - heads down looking for something heart-stopping in the sand. It’s a thrill to find talent, it’s a thrill to help develop it, and it’s a thrill to do great deals for my authors. I love sending them the big cheques and sending them the little cheques too – for Danish bookclub audio, Dutch public-lending rights, Taiwanese large print.

It’s magic, and starts with one person who quietly believes that they have a story to tell. And they give up their spare time and their thinking space, tap, tap, tap on a keyboard and they create worlds. It still blows my mind when I find a great manuscript – goose-bumps, sleeplessness, nervous energy, sometimes even a few tears.

Right now somebody somewhere is sitting at home tapping out the book that’s going to change the publishing landscape of 2011 or 2012.  And it’s exciting to be jostling on the front line of that.

You’re going to be based in London and specifically looking for UK-based authors.  What kinds of books do you particularly like – and what will you be looking for? 

I‘ve got broad taste in books and like anything as long as it’s good! I’m as happy in the book aisle at ASDA as I am in the ‘staff picks’ section of Daunts. I like books that scare me and books that make me laugh. Fantasy adventure, graphic novels, romance, horror, silliness, really sad stuff, heavy, light, dark. I just like to be in the hands of a storyteller who can do their thing.

I’m looking for children’s and teen fiction - for boys, for girls, for all ages, though we’re not representing picturebook texts or illustrators at the moment. I’m looking for anything with storytelling magic, really!

Can you tell us a bit about the UK market at the moment and what you feel is particularly working (or not working) there in terms of children’s and teen fiction? 

The lists are dominated by Stephenie Meyer right now. This is really significant. It means we’re going to see a lot more teen fiction making it in the UK. We’ve been predicting it for along time - the teen market smashing things up a bit. And it’s really happening now which is super exciting. The Twilight books could well do for teen what Potter did for middle grade – a big old shot in the arm. I really hope so because in the UK that market has struggled (unlike in the USA) and this might be the watershed moment. It’s also a golden time for middle grade (8-12). New authors breaking through, and publishers are still very keen to acquire for that core group.

One of the things I love about the business is that there is always a big surprise round the corner – massive bestsellers that no one saw coming. Books on odd subjects, books published by tiny presses, books that are initially self-published. And these unexpected, odd books come along and just push everything else off the mat. It’s quite inspiring.

Rumour has it that you’re quite a world-traveller (very much in keeping with Greenhouse’s international spirit!).  Can you tell us a bit about that?

I’ve got a Dutch mother and my family is spread throughout the world so I spend Thankgiving in Boston, Christmas in France, Easter in Spain and holidays in Holland. Last year I spent six months living up a mountain in La Gomera, Spain. I have a need to climb up things – trees, walls, volcanic plugs. It’s the goat in me – Capricorn. So I indulged that to the max.

Which authors do you most enjoy reading and are there any who have been particularly influential in drawing you into a career focused on literature for young people?

As a kid I was an obsessive collector of the Hardy Boys. I love all that Robinson Crusoe/ Survival Handbook/island adventure stuff. Very tomboy-ish. Tintin, Asterix. Boys’ books really. And then when I got to about twelve I made the switch to adult fiction because at the time there wasn’t much teen. So I loved Steven King and James Herbert – dark, nightmare stuff. Also adored Judy Blume and then a bit later Sidney Sheldon.

At the moment I’ve got Captain Underpants by the side of my bed and I’ve just finished Last Exit to Brooklyn which I’ve read a hundred times.

Are you open to submissions and how should writers contact you? 

I’m wide open to submissions - the more the merrier. I am specifically looking to build our list on this side of the Pond, so if you’re in England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland do get in touch. If you’re American (or rather, living in the USA/Canada) please remember that you should be writing to Sarah. If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, take your pick. While Sarah and I talk most days and discuss promising submissions together, it does help to divide things up geographically at the outset, simply because that’s the way publishing contracts work. Rights for the UK and Commonwealth are generally packaged together, with North American rights forming a separate contractual package.

If you want to send me a submission, please first check out our submission guidelines on this site – everything you need to know is on here.

Anything else that we should know about you?  How do you like to spend your time when you’re not working?

Much like a dog, I really love my walks! I cook a lot too. I have in my possession right now a recipe for mango chutney which features flaked almonds and pistachios and is insane. And I love very loud music.

Thanks, Julia. Great to welcome you to the Greenhouse.  And bon appetit!

It’s 6.15 – still early, but too many ideas and things to do, and I’ve lost all taste for languishing. A quick cup of coffee, a glance at the Washington Post.  (Go on, guys, just bail us out, stimulate us – before the blood of more publishers stains our words.) On with an ancient pair of track pants, hoodie, walking boots and off I go, up the road towards the lake.

Past the empty lot, and a dart of scarlet, brilliant and gone almost before I can take it in.  A Red Cardinal, whirring through the winter foliage. Up the road, down the hill, saying hi to a rabble of Golden Retrievers ripping through the yards, and the friendliest maintenance guys you could ever find (and never in London). Cutting through the wooded path that winds round to the lake.

A commotion in the bushes to my left. And suddenly five does burst out of the trees a few feet in front of me, their white-bob tails wiggling to attention.  They stop. I stop.  They regard me silently from the earth above, and I stare up at them with soft eyes. We bid each other good day and move quietly on. The woods are full of sound, but we are alone in this early morning as the pale sky turns to blue through patchwork branches.

Up the sharp bank, where once a puppy named Hogan tipped and rolled, eyes of light, bright tongue flapping. Down to the lake, the ice gone. A staccato honking and I glance upwards, to see the Royal Flight of Canada geese in their vast, perfect arrow formation arcing across the sky above me. I sit on the wooden bench, looking out over the smooth, quiet water.  I know it now –the weight of stone in my hand as it skims, the twig that tests ice, the deep dark of weed and silt. Trees turning, the balance of sky, water and light.  I see through my inward lens, each day different, the small sounds of transformation.

Back up the long tarmac road and the tat-tat-tat of woodpeckers on hollow trees. Busy, determined, jobs to do. Reminding me that it is February 11, that it is time to hurry home and re-enter my virtual urban world.

But I am the Greenhouse and here is my compass. Here is my heart. 

Not my words (oh, that I might be so eloquent) but those of John Updike, whose death was announced this week.  But what a wonderful phrase to describe the high calling of writers, whose job it is to memorialize and bring to luminous signficance the small everyday worlds that we all inhabit. And what a reminder as we struggle with the issues that dominate our time and attention - whether it be chores, getting the children to school (or keeping them entertained at home on snow days), battling with getting Page 26, paragraph 3,
line 6 absolutely perfect, opening the mail/inbox to yet another request or rejection . . . Yes, most of our lives are very mundane - but when seen through the eyes of a writer, there is also beauty to be found.

All this is in my mind as I move at speed through an incredibly busy couple of weeks, just about keeping my head above water.  Or perhaps I should say above the snowline, since we’ve been ‘deep and crisp and even’ here since Monday. Not good when your vehicle is the fabled red-and-black Mini Cooper with teeny-tiny wheels, no 4-wheel drive, and a distinctly stunted stature next to the mighty pick-up trucks that stare down at us from a great height. So I’ve been staying in, ploughing through a ton of stuff - concluding a contract that’s taken months to negotiate (but all the better for waiting), making a couple of submissions to publishers, doing a lot of reading, talking to a prospective author about her manuscript, helping my Rights People colleagues prepare materials for Bologna - and talking daily to Julia Churchill who started on Monday over in our London office.  It’s a lot of fun having Julia on board and, as you Brits will discover (if you’re lucky enough to have her sign you up), she’s got a pretty good sense of humour and a great turn of phrase!  You’ll find out a lot more about Julia next week when I’ll be interviewing her on this blog, by which time you should also spot some amendments to the Greenhouse website to reflect her arrival.

But it’s not just the weekdays that are packed - it’s weekends too at the moment.  Last weekend’s trip to Florida for the annual conference of the Space Coast Writers’ Guild was quite a treat - not only because of the gorgeously balmy weather or my fleeting moments of dreaming solitude on the white sands of Cocoa Beach, but also because I met some really tremendous people there. Many aspiring and highly committed writers (lots of one-on-one sessions listening to pitches), agents like Deidre Knight and Lucienne Diver of The Knight Agency, Jennifer Schober of Spencerhill Associates (hi, Jennifer!), Mary Sue Seymour - and more.  And then there were the editors - Alyson Day of HarperCollins and Dedi Felman of Simon & Schuster.  It’s always great fun to get together with others in the industry and shoot the breeze informally, but we also joined forces for a panel in which we all pitched in to answers writers’ questions about the publishing business. 

So now it’s nearing the end of another hectic week and I’m packing my bag again to fly to New York at 5 am tomorrow. YES, I REALLY DID SAY FIVE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING. My New York trips are always busy and this is no exception as I grab a cab from the airport to the offices of Farrar Straus to see various editors, then to Harper to see Michelle Corpora of Greenwillow, moving swiftly on to Clarion’s Jennifer Wingertzahn via a stop-off with new Hyperion publisher Stephanie Lurie (fairly recently moved from Dutton). Alisha Niehaus of Dial rounds off the afternoon before we both head down to the pre-conference cocktail party that launches SCBWI’s Winter Conference. 

But I’m still lingering over the passing of John Updike and the eloquence of his words, quoted by the New York Times yesterday. 

‘To condense from one’s memories and fantasies and small discoveries dark marks on paper which become handsomely reproducible many times over still seems to me, after nearly 30 years concerned with the making of books, a magical act, and a delightful technical process.  To distribute oneself thus, as a kind of confetti shower falling upon the heads and shoulders of mankind out of bookstores and the pages of magazines is surely a great privilege and a defiance of the usual earthbound laws whereby human beings make themselves known to one another.’

I bid you good day and the most pleasant of weekends.

You can learn a lot of things from an Inauguration.  Things like the unique wonder of the Constitution.  The colourful weave of centuries of history.  The truth that you can usually reach your destination in the end - if you try hard enough, and wait long enough. And that life is big and amazing, and that something (or someone) extraordinary can grow from the smallest and most unlikely of beginnings. You can learn that there is power in believing and striving and longing. And that there is always, always hope.

You can also learn that it’s no use going to the Washington Mall on a frigid January day, in the company of two million other people, unless you can locate a bathroom.  Because without a bathroom, and with a steaming hot, double-shot cappuccino inside you, you may be doomed.  DOOMED, I tell you. DOOMED.

You see, without the small necessities, the big wonders can rapidly lose their gloss. Without Mr Don and his 7000 Johns you may as well cancel your travel plans and stay home with the TV set, because for you the Inauguration will metamorphose from a glorious celebration of this nation’s finest moment to an alarming rush through the crowds to the nearest museum that will let you in to its amenities.  And that, presidential supporters, will not be fun!

Yes, we DC residents have become very knowledgeable about these matters; the Post has been full of little else.  Will 7000 be enough?  Is there the statistical evidence to support that figure? What fate may befall this great city if there’s been an underestimate? We are bombarded with interviews with Mr Don’s employees and are well versed in their various skills (none of which you need to hear about, since they include ‘suctioning’). We’ve read the career resumes that have brought them to this high point in their professional lives.

Today I ventured into the city to preview the Inauguration - and the Johns themselves (if you’re unlucky enough to have opened this post before a photo is attached, then please return shortly as all will be explained).  Striding at speed through the frozen city, clad in furry Uggs, giant Puffa jacket and copious layers, I took in the majesty and thrill of this great forthcoming event. Barriers were broken down as strangers laughed and chatted, photographing each other against backdrops of flags and banners, monuments and memorials, while enterprising entrepreneurs attempted to seduce them to spend two dollars for a photo alongside a cardboard cutout of the president-to-be.

But I am a literary agent from top to toe, even in the freezing wind of a winter’s day.  And as I pondered (from the depths of my fur-fringed hood) the strange juxtaposition of the grand and the prosaic, the epic and the basic, the Inauguration and the lines and lines of Don’s glorious Johns, I had some strange but, I believe, highly significant thoughts.  And believe it or not, they are related to writing!

Yes, you need the great storyline, the thrilling plot, the fabulous action, the big ideas.  But you also need the small things - the details and finesse that don’t attract much attention unless they’re just not there.  Because the small things are very, very important - and without them the big things just don’t quite seem to matter as much. Yes, it’s like an Inauguration minus the Johns!

What kinds of small things do I mean?  Well, taking care not to repeat words in a way that stops the flow of your sentence. Really thinking through grammar and punctuation so that you create a seamless line the reader can absorb without having to read it twice. Knowing your characters so well that you don’t inadvertently change their names halfway through (I see this a lot; even ‘professional’ writers slip up). Making sure you provide the reader with enough explanation when needed.  Being consistent with details and information and checking all the ends tie in together to create the whole.  Writing is about the macro - but it’s also very much about the micro.  Dream big dreams, think big thoughts, and become a writer of power, panache and vision - but also a nit-picker with a passion for detail.

So we prepare to inaugurate a president, and have the audacity to believe - in ourselves, in the future, in justice, in a better world . . .  But don’t forget Don’s humble Johns.  Because without them you won’t be contemplating the reinvigoration of the banking system, or life in a post-racial world - or how we might collectively end global poverty.  No, you will be scurrying through the crowd, intent and very, very nervous. And in what may be a unique piece of agenting insight, I can assure you that there are literary parallels. For no writer can succeed unless they master the details as well as the big picture. The most important things can be small, not terribly glamorous, and even a little bit aggravating.  But just see what disasters can happen when they’re not done right!

Wishing you all a wonderful, inspiring, and supremely comfortable Inauguration Day, wherever you may be.

(PS:  Is this the very first agent’s blog to be written on the subject of bathrooms? I think it possible. )

Welcome to my very first blog of 2009 - and welcome to the Greenhouse. If you haven’t visited us before, I do hope you’ll continue to drop in and enjoy keeping up with news of the agency, which now enters its second year - after a fairly storming start.

But first, I have some very sad news for those of you who are regular readers.  It’s taken me a few days to be able to face writing this and it’s still far from easy.  Our beloved Greenhouse Hound died on Monday night.  In fact, I can now tell you that his name was Hogan - much better known as Hogey.  A pure white Golden Retriever, nearly fourteen years old, and the sweetest, kindest, cleverest dog you could ever wish to know.  Hogey was facing various health issues and these overtook him over the Christmas break, with an incredibly fast slide downwards since last Thursday.  As we watched him deteriorate and turn in on himself, we knew he was ready to go and that we couldn’t let him suffer any more. We were able to spend time sitting with him, talking to him (although he’d been stone deaf for the past two years) and stroking him, before the moment agreed with our wonderful vet came, and we took him on his last journey in the back of the Mini Cooper.

He was a dog who gave joy to everyone he met.  Strangers would stop us in the street to say how beautiful he was, and he never lost his happiness at meeting people, especially children, whom he loved.  The office feels very empty without his large, shambling presence; despite the arthritis of his final years he would haul himself up the stairs and collapse on my manuscripts with a groan, doing all he could to interrupt me with small but very clear reminders about the urgency of lunch or walkies. He loved to climb on to the sofa with me, entwining himself around my legs to get as close as possible. And he loved his multitudes of stuffed toys - especially Polar Bear, various ducks, a grey and disgusting Snoopy. No creature ever took as much pleasure in being given a new toy, which he would chew, throw around and growl over with huge delight before going out to his private stuffed-animal-stash to grab a new one.

Right now I see Hogey all around the house and yard. Lying out on the deck with his nose stuck between the bars looking for his mortal enemy, the Fox.  Rolling down the slope in the front yard, a look of great delight on his face as he scratched his back on the long, slow downhill slide. Coming in out of the rain and going straight into his big dog-crate - because of course he knew his feet were wet and must be dried off. Carrying a towel to the washing machine in the hopes that his ‘helpfulness’ might elicit a Milkbone. Struggling up the stairs at bedtime - one of his favourite moments of the day, when he and I would lie on the floor together and commune a while.  In his final months he was increasingly vocal - groaning, sighing, smacking those black lips, and barking when he felt we didn’t jump to it quite fast enough. He was all personality; a big character.

So now we move on, but I’m posting here one of his very last photos, taken on Sunday when he’d struggled down to the backyard one last time. We can’t imagine how he got down there - he could barely walk - and I fear you’ll think me soppy if I say it’s as if he wanted to survey his empire one last time.  I knew it was important to remember that moment.  Rest in peace, Hogey Bear, and I hope that somewhere you are free and young again, romping with your friends.

But January now lies before us and I turn my head towards all the exciting things that are in the future.  On January 24, Greenhouse marks the first anniversary of its inception - and oh, how much has been achieved in one short year.  Lots of deals done, a number of lives changed, speeches made, many miles travelled, friends gained . . . and I wonder what 2009 will hold. One thing I can definitely tell you is that on January 26 my new colleague Julia Churchill starts with Greenhouse over in London.  Just to clarify (because some of you have already been sending submissions marked for Julia), Julia will be focusing on building our list of British authors and selling to the UK market.  While we’ll be keeping a degree of flexibility between us, and will no doubt be speaking daily, her efforts will focus on the UK, with me mainly focusing on the USA (with some notable exceptions).  All will become clear as we make changes to the website (submission guidelines etc) over the coming weeks that will reflect Julia joining the team.  I’ll also be interviewing Julia on this blog in early February so you British readers in particular can get to know her a little. 

There are other good things in the pipeline too.  Today (I believe) an in-depth interview I’ve done for Cynthia Leitich Smith will go live on her blog.  So if you fancy reading a lot more of my pontifications, do tune in to Cynsations!  Then in a couple of weeks I’m off to the Space Coast Writer’s Conference over in Cocoa Beach, Florida.  Well, you know, someone had to go to the sunshine state in winter, so why not me? The month rounds off with a swift trip over to New York for part of the SCBWI Winter Conference, hopefully fitting in appointments with a number of publishers at the same time, plus the chance to meet lots of old and new editor/agent friends at the brilliant cocktail party that kicks off the conference.

So January is a busy month, and my thoughts are already turning towards Bologna, which comes particularly early this year - in late March.  Should be really exciting, with Julia popping over briefly and also DEVIL’S KISS author, Sarwat Chadda, making the journey to meeet his international publishers.  Last Bologna Greenhouse was a little babe-in-arms.  This year we are all grown up, and my Rights People colleagues have high hopes for a number of our titles on the international market as final manuscripts become available.

Meanwhile my reading pile is towering.  So many of you have been writing like dervishes over the break, for which many congratulations!  I’m gradually making my way through the piles of both new submissions and full manuscripts, and I hope not to have to keep you waiting too long.

Today I look back at the past - all our happiness with our wonderful dog Hogey, and the huge and aching hole he has left in our lives. I know that soon the painful memories of the past few days will give way to the happy recollection of his long life, well lived. But I also look forward to the future and to what I hope will be a challenging but successful year for us all.

Take care, all of you.