Episode 20: Rachel Orr, YA and Children's Literary Agent
Decades-long agent, Rachel Orr, talks about real life clients as she shares what agents and editors are looking for, what to include in your query letter, and how to challenge the status quo.
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Transcript of Podcast episoDe 20: Interview with Rachel Orr, YA and Children's Literary Agent
Mary: Hello, this is Mary Kole and "The Good Story Podcast," helping writers craft a good story. With me, you will hear from thought leaders related to writing, and sometimes not, about topics important to writers of all categories and ability levels. Here is to telling a good story.
Thank you so much for joining us. I would like to present to the group, Rachel Orr.
Rachel: Thank you. Yes, it's always funny when you get introduced at conferences and they've clearly, like, gotten the bio from the website, and maybe it's not, like, quite accurate still. And I'm like...but...
Mary: Oh, I need to rewrite my bio and [crosstalk 00:00:49.976].
Rachel: Exactly. Or I'm like, "Where did they find that? Oh, no." Anyway, so I'll give you the real me. Yeah. So, Rachel Orr. I have been at Prospect Agency, and now, I'm gonna try to remember when I started there, since 2007. So, prior to that, I was at HarperCollins from '98 to 2007. So, I started marketing. I then slid over...well, it's funny. I interviewed, I knew I wanted children's publishing. I interviewed for William Morrow Marketing and HarperCollins Editorial, got interviews for both. Did not get the HarperCollins editorial job and I was crushed. I didn't know what marketing was, but I went to William Morrow because it was in New York, it was a job and it was in children's publishing. And then, within, like, eight months, Harper bought out William Morrow and I slid over to editorial, and I got a window office, which was sweet. So, I stayed there, because I didn't have a window in my bedroom apartment in Hoboken. And so, I just stayed there 'til they laid me off, and then, yeah. And then, here I am.
So then, I had already really been wanting...so initially, I was not keen on agents. I just thought, "Oh, they're really mean and scary and they want money." But yet, I was reading manuscripts, and if they weren't right for me, I was passing them onto other editors. So, one of my editorial friends was like, "You've kind of been doing this all along, so maybe you should agent..." And I'd already spoken with Emily Sylvan Kim at Prospect because I learned a lot of great things at Harper. But, at this time, again, around '07, it was really this celebrity book craze and I was kind of being told, "We're not here to encourage and nurture new talent." I'm like, "Oh, that's funny because that's exactly why I'm here."
So, it was really great. I went with Emily at Prospect Agency and she does more YA, women's fiction, romance, some erotic, how she used to do when that was in, so I do very different things. Yeah. But, really started the children's division there, and then now we have Charlotte Wenger from...she was originally at Page Street Press in the Boston area. So, she's working on a lot of children's books as well. Emily is still there. Then, we also have Ann Rose in Texas, who does older stuff as well. In fact, during our recent meeting, she was talking about this book that she can't seem to sell because the main character enjoys slaughtering the victims on the kitchen table. And Charlotte and I are like, "Oh, my. That's very different from what we work on." So, yeah. So, yes.
Ann, Charlotte, Emily and I, and then we have Tina Shen, who is our foreign rights person and we also have Ellen Brescia, who's our assistant. So, yeah, a really nice, just great team that I'm very excited to be working with. And we work very collaboratively as well. If I hear about somebody who's acquiring picture books, I'll let Charlotte know or we'll help each other with contract negotiations, etc. So, again, I would say my focus there is really, is picture books. I do some...and board books, middle grade YA, graphic novels. I kind of run the whole gamut. And it's interesting because there's a lot of crossover too, so there's a few picture book projects. They actually started as picture books...so, there's a few graphic novel projects that started as picture books and then became graphic novels.
One of my clients, Bob Holt, I signed him up as an illustrator. He used to work for Hallmark and he was the creator of Hoops and Yoyo, which was, like, a greeting card line back in the '90s. So, he had emailed me and he had this fantastic animated clip called "The Unlucky Snowman," and I thought it was hilarious and I'm like, "I need to sign this guy up." We sent out "The Unlucky Snowman" as a picture book and nobody bought it, and then I said, "Why don't you turn it into a graphic novel? They're really big." And he was like, "No, snowman can't talk." I'm like, "Okay. He does kind of in here." But anyways, so he's like, "Well, I based this on a book called, 'The Unlucky Kid.' Maybe that would work as a graphic novel." I'm like, "Sure." So, anyway, we sold that as a graphic novel to Kids Can Press.
Yeah. And then, some books, they...you know, I feel like when I was growing up, it was very cut and dry. There were picture books, and then there was, like, Ramona, then there was like, Lois Duncan, Christopher Pike for the YAN. So now, there's...[crosstalk 00:05:46.417] Christopher Pike...
Mary: He is slaughtering on the kitchen table.
Rachel: I know, I know. Yeah. I really, I was a huge Christopher Pike fan. So anyway, there wasn't as much crossover, and so, it's really exciting now to be working in publishing where there is so much crossover, where something might come in as a picture book and we end up selling it as a board book. Or sometimes, I won't say what I...I'll let the editor think what it is. So, for example, two books I sold recently to Frances Gilbert at Penguin Random House. These have not been announced yet, but they're called, "My First Book of Tattoos" and "My First Book of Beards." So, they're very, like, baby books for the hipster crowd.
Mary: One of, like, the "Baby Be of Use" series out from, I think, Tricycle or something?
Rachel: Oh, okay.
Mary: Have you ever heard of those? It's, like, “Baby Do My Taxes, "Baby Plan My Wedding," like, "Baby Be of Use" because babies are useless.
Rachel: Right, right. Yeah. So, Frances Gilbert at Doubleday, I don't know if you guys know her, she's terrific and she's very focused on the marketing hook of the book. She wants to know exactly...I mean, and she likes good writing too, obviously, but really what's key for her is how can I sell this? Who am I selling this to? She wants to present materials. She's at Doubleday, which is part of Penguin Random House, which is huge. So, when she goes to our sales meeting, she wants to present materials that they're going to remember. So, I had sold a few books to her in the past. Todd Tarpley had written a book that I actually sold to Michael Joosten who worked with her, and then she took it over when Michael left, called, "Library Books Are Not for Eating," because that's a big...right? Like, librarians love books about books. So, I had sold that to them.
I also sold Bob Holt's first picture book, "Let's Taco About How Great You Are," which is all, like, specifically for the kind of preschool graduation set, like, you know. And Frances was just like, "Yeah, I don't really believe in that, but a lot of people do, and so let's sell it." So, with Robin's books, the tattoo and the beard book, I wasn't sure...a lot of people don't do original board books, although I knew Frances did do some, but she just said, "Oh, Rachel, I have some spots open in my Summer '22 list. What do you have?" So, I usually am very strategic in sending one editor a project at a time and waiting to hear back. But, this was, like, an open invitation, so I just, like, threw things at her. And, you know, I sent her, like, eight projects. She was like, "No, no, no, no, no." And then, I was like, "Well, let me..." And this is a book I hadn't shopped around, like, in a long time, so I didn't tell Robin. I just, like, sent...I'm like, "Let's just see." And I didn't say they were board books, I just said they were picture books and I thought she can decide if they're board books or not. But, I was definitely picturing them as board books.
So, she came back to me and she's like, "Oh, I really like these." And again, they have a very specific audience. It's, like, the hipster parent for baby audiences. And so, she said, "Would you see these at board books?" And I said, "Well, yes, yes, I would. I think that would be fine." So, just in terms of the fluidity of the market and really being able to think in different ways, and with graphic novels too, I don't know if you guys have seen, there's the Harper "I Can Read! Comics" line...
Mary: Yeah.
Rachel: ...which is really cool, because I feel like the "I Can Read!" line is a very specific skillset, but they're really great. And for awhile though, they were just doing kind of, like, "Biscuit," "Fancy Nancy," really their big giants or movie titles.
Mary: So, licensed properties, basically. They...
Rachel: Right.
Mary: ...come off a production line and they're gonna sell anyway.
Rachel: Right. So, I'm excited that they're doing some...the ones I just saw that were out, Vicky Fang has one, Sergio Ruzzier. So, they're, you know, the authors that are very successful in the picture book market and the graphic novel market, kind of making this jump into comic books, which is fun.
Mary: So, that's really exciting because I know a couple of people in our group and we can talk specifics kind of after our Q and A, may have ideas that could be board, could be picture book, could go even up to chapter book or kind of young graphic novel. And I like that you're sort of seeing opportunity, whereas in the children's book market, as you were saying, the way we talk about it for aspiring writers, or if you wanna debut, it has to fit into this bucket or that bucket or this bucket, it seems like once you have an idea, maybe it can actually be a little bit more amorphous.
Rachel: Right. Yeah, exactly. And it's funny, like, with Bob Holt, he's got the picture book and he's got the graphic novel, and then he's also doing some novelty books, some board books for Worthy [inaudible 00:11:01] and then some novelty books, which are, it's called "When I Grow Up," it comes out in November from Houghton Mifflin, and it's, like, a die cut, it's got this...like, half moon die cut. So, you hold it up to your face and then you are...the body is down here and your head's here, which was a little tricky to sell because a lot of editors were like, "I don't know how this works. Is the child holding it?" But then, if the child's holding it, they can't see it, the art. And then, if the adult's holding it, then that's weird because they're already grown up. But, I was just like, "Whatever." Like, you could have siblings read it. I don't know. Look in the mirror. I don't know. So anyway, Chris Krones at Houghton Mifflin agreed with me that it was a great idea and is publishing that, so.
Mary: I mean, you hardly ever hear stories of, like you were saying, original board books, novelty books. When we see somebody who has, like, a concept that would be great for a novelty book, it's like, "Oh, I'm so sorry."
Rachel: Right. And I kind of go on spurts. Like, just recently, I felt confident going out in the marketplace with those. I have another author, Susie Lee Jin, who I've been repping for years and she has a published picture book, "Mine!" from Simon & Schuster before I started working with her. And she was working on some picture book ideas, but none of them were really sticking. And then, last year, she came out with two really cute novelty projects and I'm like, "Oh, this..." I just feel like that's her strong suit and I think that's a lot of publishing, is creators figuring out where is their strong suit and experimenting with different things and who you really find it. So, she has these two books. So, one, we just sold recently to Scholastic for a three-book deal, another one, we sold to Schiffer Books in Pennsylvania, so a smaller house and a bigger house, which is also kind of a nice balance to have. Yeah. So, I'm, like, thrilled for her because it was a long time in coming and figuring this out, and now, I feel like she's hit her groove and we're just kind of running with it. So, I think it's a lot for the, just in terms of my confidence. Same with graphic novels. At first, when I was at Harper, it was the era of, like, everyone wanted to do a graphic novel but no one really knew how to do it. And so...
Mary: And they're expensive. Full-colored graphic for everything. I feel like houses were, like, so gung ho about it and then had to walk it back. Like, let First Second take it because...
Rachel: Right, right.
Mary: ...it's hard.
Rachel: So now, like, they know what they're doing and then I've sold a few so I feel more comfortable. So, it's just once, you know, like anything, now I'm like, "Okay, now I can do this. Now I know how to sell novelty books. Now I know how to sell graphic novels."
Mary: So, let's take it back a couple of steps. I would love to hear, so first, how do you decide to work with a picture book creator, you know? What is your criteria for when someone approaches you and they say, "Here's one thing" or "here's a couple of things," most likely, "that I've been working on." What is that process like for you, from the representation end? And then, I'd love to talk about, and I wanna get this out there before I lose my train of thought, I'd love to talk about that, you know, how do you help somebody develop into their strengths when they have other ideas, you're already working together. But, let's start first things first, how does that working together piece even come together?
Rachel: Sure. So, I'll use the story of someone, my latest client I just signed on. I mean, I have a lot of clients already but I feel like I physically, like, cannot live without this project. So, it really, really needs to be big. But for me personally, I need to absolutely follow-up with this. So, this was, like, maybe just about two months ago. I don't know, it was Friday night and, like, I'm just hanging out. I'm like, "Oh, let me actually, like, go through my submissions." So, I'm looking through, and I was getting frustrated because I didn't like any of them. And then, I found this one called "Proper Badger" was the title. And I'm like, "Oh, that's kinda cute." It's different, right? It's something that caught my eye. Oh, I should have opened it up. Basically, a jacket and tie might make the badger proper, but can it stop his claws from coming out during the party? And I'm like, "Oh, this sounds fun," so I open it up and I read it, and it's about this badger who goes to a party and, like, it's a lot of denial. Like, Proper Badger did not stick his claws into the cake, you know, because he wouldn't do that. And he wouldn't do this and he wouldn't do that. And it ends with him, like, him wanting to bite the person who told [inaudible 00:15:55] on him, it was so fresh.
And so, this picture book author, so recently, I told her...well, I wrote to her right away. Like, I read this at 8 and I wrote to her, you know, like, 8:30. And I was like, "Oh, can you please send me..." It's Friday night but I'm like, "Can you send me more of your picture book manuscripts?" So, by 9, I'm like, "I haven't heard from her yet." My daughter, who's 10, was like, "Mom, like, chill out. It's a Friday night." But, like, my kids, so I have a 10 year old and a 12 year old and they get super invested into this, so they, you know, now they're like, "Okay, did you hear from Proper Badger?" So, she sends me another picture manuscript, which is, like, in rhyme, it's about a mouse, and I'm like, "Oh, whatever." But, she also says she's got a YA novel, a fantasy, and I'm like, "Oh, I don't love fantasies, but I just love 'Proper Badger,'" so I'm like, "Yes, send me your YA fantasy." So, I read it and it's really cool and really good. It takes place in Key West. It's a Jewish family in Key West and it has some light fantasy, so nothing too heavy.
So, she's got two other agents looking at it, so I am, like, speed reading this because again, like, I cannot live without "Proper Badger." So, I just offer her representation and then either the kids...oh, and my daughter also, because she wrote in her query letter, "Miss Orr." And she's like, "Does she call you Rachel yet? Are you on a first-name basis? Has she gotten back to you?" I'm like, "No, not yet." So anyway, I finally signed her and then had a phone call with her. So now, and then it turns out she's also this, like, amazing YA short story writer. Like, she kind of does everything, which is super exciting because I didn't know that about her.
So anyway, as we're talking about picture books though, I told her, I'm like, "I don't wanna give you too many rules because everything you did in 'Proper Badger' broke all the rules, and I'm afraid if I tell you too much, then you're gonna be formulaic." So, we've agreed to, she'll send me a manuscript and I'll give her feedback on an as-needed basis, but I'm not gonna just, like, spill all the trade secrets, because it was just so different and unexpected, so that's something that really caught my eye.
And that was very quick, but then two other clients I signed on last year, they were kind of, like, my COVID clients. I'm like, "I need to just mix this up a little bit and I need to sign new people." They both came to me from the 12 x 12 group, the Julie Hedlund [inaudible 00:18:34]. And I had read them, I mean, this was...I signed them both around March, April 2020. I had read their work, like, 2019, maybe 2018, but I had really been thinking about them. So, one...yeah, it was this very sweet story called, "The Hole," and it was about this hole in the ground. Again, like, different, right? It wasn't your normal protagonist. And he makes friends with a dandelion who then blows away. I don't know. It was really, really sweet. And so, but then, she had some funny stuff as well and a lot of character-driven stuff, which was also something that I look for. So, a lot of humor, some heartfelt. And it's funny because I rep Cori Doerrfeld, who wrote, "The Rabbit Listened," which is all about empathy and is very heartfelt, which I love but I also really love, like, totally bizarre humor, but also character-driven stories because I find that's a lot of times what editors are looking for.
So, Tasha Hilderman, who wrote "The Hole," she had a bunch of character-driven stories. And again, just very sweet, funny, warm, loved it. So, I signed her on and we haven't sold anything from her yet, but we're waiting some editorial notes from an editor before she goes to acquisition to the project. And then, Suzy Levinson was the other one, who had, she had a very sweet, soft prose story, called "Henry and Boo." We changed it to "Roger and Boo" because there are too many Henrys out there.
Mary: There are a lot of Henrys.
Rachel: I like Henry. That was what my daughter was going to be if she was a boy, but she wasn't. Anyway, so we changed it to "Roger and Boo." But, it's very sweet, very soft, and then I asked her to send me more stuff, so she did. I'm like, "Send me whatever." And she had some really great rhymes. Like, she really, really knows how to rhyme well. I know a lot of editors kind of stray away from rhyme, but if you know how to do it well, then it's great. So, she sent me a few others that were great, but then she sent me this one called, "Pantaloons: Poetry about Animals in Pants." And I, again, was like, "Oh my gosh. I cannot live without these, like, groundhogs in their lederhosen. I need these groundhogs." So then, at that point, I made an offer of representation, which is kind of risky because poetry collections can be really hard to sell, but I was like, let's try it.
And it's funny, I sent it to Frances Gilbert and she wrote back right away she loved it and needed to check in. And then, like, I didn't really hear back from her about it so I'm like, "Okay, maybe it's..." Because she said they are hard to sell. So, we sent it out. No response, nothing, nothing. Nobody was taking it. So, we kind of pulled it back in, which is what I'll do sometimes. I'll wait for comments from editors and if either everyone's saying the same thing, then we'll edit it, and if everyone has different things to say, then we just carry on with it as is. So, I arrange her back, we just pull back and we sent out some other things. Then, I think she had asked me about it, like, "Oh, can we send it out again?" I said, "Sure. How about these people?" And then, she was the one that came out with Cameron books, Amy Novesky, who her friend published with. I'm like, "Sure. You know, I don't know if this is right for them. I really haven't worked with them before." So anyway, Amy ended up buying the book, so it's going to be with Cameron books, which is distributed by Abrams. So, super exciting stuff. Yeah. So, I'm trying to remember what else.
So, those were just two examples of people that I have recently taken on. And when I work with them in terms of developing manuscripts, I do do pretty heavy, typically pretty heavy line edits, just being that that's my background at Harper. So, really thinking through those things, or not. "Proper Badger," I don't think I changed, like, anything. We did end up, some people were having problems visualizing it, so I did send it out, the latest round, paginated and with some art notes, because it's not exactly a linear story, which is one of the rules that it's breaking. So, because of that, I had a clear vision for it, but it seemed like some editors weren't connecting with it. So, I did that. I know art notes are tricky and people say not to do them, and they're right. But, in this case, I felt like it was necessary.
So, definitely going back and forth with a lot of edits, and people work in different ways. Some people will just send me something fully polished. Susie Lee Jin just sent me a bunch of, just kind of popcorn ideas, right, these kernels. So, I'll go through and say, "Yes, this sounds great," "this has been done a lot before, you can try this," kind of thing. Did that answer any of your questions? I feel like...
Mary: Oh, yeah.
Rachel: ...I just went on a tangent.
Mary: No, absolutely and I love two things about that answer. One is, just hearing about real stories of how you've worked with writers, what you've identified sort of as people's strengths, and this idea that not all of the rules, like we talked about, these buckets, you don't necessarily need to tick all these boxes. I mean, that does make it a little bit difficult on the one hand, because we hear about the rules and then we're like, "Okay, if we follow the rules, we'll get where we wanna go." And then, we hear, "Well, you can break the rules selectively," and then it's like, "Okay, so I have the rules and I have not the rules, and now the whole wide world is open to me and I don't know how to forge ahead."
Rachel: It is tricky...in fact, I was talking to an author about this yesterday, and I'm not an artist myself. The woman I was speaking with is. And so, I told her, I'm like, "I feel like it's, like, when you go to art school, I presume you start with, like, a figure drawing class, right? And you draw the bowl of fruit, and then you draw the awkward, naked person standing in the middle of the room," is kind of how I always pictured art school to be. And then, once you do that, I feel like you need to know how to draw the human body proportionately before you try to stylize it. So, maybe that's kind of how it is with writing as well. I mean, "Proper Badger" is an exception because I don't think she does know the rules, but again, to me, it's whether it works or not. And even with novels, sometimes writers will say, "Oh, but I followed the hero's journey," and I'm like, "Well, that's great, but I don't even really know what the hero's journey is and I don't think it works." You know? It's for me, whether it works or not.
Mary: So, let's say, and a lot of picture book writers, they have a lot of different ideas, and you mentioned some of them in your response. So, let's say I have some funny manuscripts up my sleeve, I have some character-driven or narrative-driven, kind of more like, "Here's the problem. Here's my character-driven solution" type of manuscripts, you know, that follow that standard structure. I have some maybe inspirational manuscripts having to do with a lot of the topics that we see as being kind of really popular in the market, like self-actualization, celebrating the unique individual identity of everyone, celebrating diverse elements and backgrounds. You know, kind of that more heartfelt vein. How do I know what is a more viable area to go into if I have sort of a lot of different ideas, kind of along these bigger categories?
Rachel: Well, that's why...so, in a query letter...and this is where I feel like the importance of a query letter comes in. I'm actually going to be doing a talk about query letters at the LA Conference and...
Mary: Nice.
Rachel: ...basically, like, I think a lot of authors stress over this and I can't speak for everyone. But, I would pretty safely say most people, like it doesn't matter about the query letter, it matters about the manuscript. But, the one important thing in the query letter is, this is where you can let the editor know, "Hey, this is also what I'm working on."
So, saying, "Oh, I also have..." At least for our agency, you can submit one manuscript. So, for something like this, I would suggest submitting what you feel is your strongest and most indicative of you. And then, saying, "Hey, I also have..." Like, for Suzy Levinson, she sent the "Henry and Boo," but it was also clear that she was a poet and she talked about being in the Poets' Garage, which I guess is a poetry group, and having poems published in "Hopscotch" magazine and different things like that. I don't think she named any specific manuscripts. I would just say, "I have other manuscripts in these veins that you might be interested in." Or "I also am working on a non-fiction book about this," something like that. Or again, if you cross genres in saying, like, "Oh, I've got a YA..." Don't tell me you have, like, five YAs because then that makes me worry that you're not really focused and you're a little everywhere. And again, I think it's great to experiment, but I want to see that you're somewhat focused. So, you could just say, "Oh, I have other picture books manuscripts for you to consider."
So, if I really love someone's writing, I will ask them to send more. And usually, I specify three, and then that's your opportunity to show me your range. So, send me...maybe if you started with your diverse own voices manuscript because that's probably what's most sellable right now, or humor. Humor is super, that's what editors are looking for now as well. So, send me your humor manuscripts. So, you've done your research. You know I like humor, you know that's really big right now. Then, if I ask to see more, then send me your picture book bio, send me your lyrical, thoughtful, this is how we are empathetic in the world, and send me your character-driven. So, at that point, that's where I can really see.
And I do think different, just because I don't like something the first time, if I don't respond or ask you to send more, doesn't mean I won't like something down the road. So, one woman I met at a conference, I'd read her work before and I wasn't really super connecting with it, but then she sent me something recently that I liked. Except that I requested more and I haven't heard back from her and it's been, like, two weeks, and I'm like, "Oh, okay. Maybe she's found another agent already. I don't know." So, there's definitely something to be said for perseverance and keeping at it and trying people again, for sure.
Mary: Well, like you were saying, you just signed some people in your COVID roster that you'd been in touch with since, like, 2018, so...
Rachel: Yeah. And again, that might [crosstalk 00:29:58.845].
Mary: ...it sounds like you had nurtured that over time. Sorry.
Rachel: Yeah, no, no. I'm just saying, that...and one of those...no, I think both of them I had...Tasha, a little more, I'd been asking, like, "Hey, like, can you send me some more stuff?" And then, she would follow-up with me and just say, "Hey, it's been a few months. Did you read my manuscripts?" And I'd say, "Oh, yes." You know? And it wasn't quite right. And so, it's about the manuscript, and then it's obviously about timing, right? And that goes for editors too.
Like, Frances has some holes in her list and she needs something to fill them, or this is really popular right now.
So, at Little, Brown, one of the editors, Nikki Garcia signed Diana Murray, I believe is her name. She wrote a book called, "Help Mom Work From Home." So again, like, super timely. She's not one of my clients, but it's being illustrated by Cori Doerrfeld who is. So, that was kind of, like, a crash project. But, something like that, that, you know, if the market's right, if I feel like, "Oh, I can definitely sell it now," but I have to love it as well. I'm not an agent who's just gonna take something on because it's timely. I wanna work with somebody who I love their work and I feel like I can sell it now or whenever.
So, timely is a little bit different. There's kind of current event timely, and then there's general mood timely, you know. So, like, the whole, "Oh, people want books on empathy now." That kind of thing. Because I feel like what happened was, like, 5, 10 years ago, all the books were on, like, "You are great." And now, all the kids have read those books and they think they're great and no one else is. And so now, I feel like we're backpedaling as an industry, being like, "Wait, wait, everyone's great. Everyone's great. It's not just you." That's just my own personal interpretation of the market in that way, but...
Mary: So, publishing and popular culture created a large problem and now publishing and popular culture are solving that problem.
Rachel: Yeah. I'm sure that will lead to another problem. But, you know, I don't know. So, that's kind of where we are right now. I feel like editors are really looking for diversity, own voices, they're looking for books about empathy and, like, non-fiction. And it's interesting, I feel like it used to be...with some books, it used to be okay for a certain subset of writers to write about, now it's a little trickier. So, one of my clients wrote about Jackie Robinson, she's Indian. I feel like it would have been harder for a white person, and now I feel like they want it to be a black person. And of course, now, all of the clients I have who fall into that marginalized realm, like Larissa Marantz, she, like, is black and she likes to draw these purple hippos. I'm like, "Okay." But again, like, I want them to be drawing what they want to draw. I want everyone to be writing what they want to write, and now she is doing a graphic novel with a mixed race family, which is cool. Yeah, I'm not gonna make people, like, only write, like, about that culture, you know. If they want to write about hippos, then go ahead. But, it's trickier if she's black and wanted to write about Asian culture. She's actually half Asian so she could do that, but just along those lines.
Mary: Yeah. So, two kind of polarizing picture book topics that I'd love to hear your take on. One is humor, because you mentioned loving humor, but the thing about humor is everybody has their own sense of humor. And so, how do we sort of write a humorous picture book that has a chance of connecting rather than being too out there? I mean, the Badger manuscript seems like it could be just a lightning strike idea that happened to connect with you, but could be polarizing for somebody else. So, how do we approach writing humor? And also, that rhyme question. Rhyming picture books are still published every day, but if we wanna write humor or we wanna write rhyme, how do we approach that with an eye toward the market?
Rachel: Sure. Okay. So, thinking of rhyme first. Sometimes, something I'll see in submissions is, I refer to it as a situation which rhyme is hijacking the story. So, if I'm reading a story and it's cute and it's got this fun, sing-songy rhythm, but if you rewrote that in prose and it would fall completely flat, then I feel like the poetry is just more of a gimmick there. So, really when you're writing rhyme, writing it in a way that it helps the story and it accentuates it, but doesn't, like, take the place of a plot.
Personally, I also like rhyme where there's a chorus or some kind of refrain that grounds the story, not just a bunch of couplets, but something...so like, the "Library Books Are Not for Eating," there's, you know, first the librarian eats the books and then it eats, like, the chef...the cafeteria worker's cookbooks and then the gym coach's playbook. So, each time they say, "This shouldn't need repeating," or something, "library books are not for eating." Which doesn't rhyme exactly, but that kind of an idea.
Or if it has kind of this repetition throughout. So, [Sudipta Bardhan-] Quallen, who is one of my writers who writes very, really, great verse. Very, really, I don't even know what that is. She has, "Chicks Rule!" and "Chicks Rock!" So, the "Chicks Rule!" is "sporty chicks and biker chicks," something, "soccer chicks and nerdy chicks," and it has that chicks repeated throughout. "Chicks who bike and chicks who read, chicks who knit and chicks who knead," or I don't know, something. That's totally not how it goes, but something like that. So, it's very well-grounded. It's not just this story that happens to be told in rhyme. So, a lot of times, I will advise people to try that way as well.
The "Chicks Rule!" story is kind of interesting as well, in that it was about timing. So, the other thing, we always tell writers not to write to the market, but a lot of it...like, write what you want and then it might just not be the right time yet. So, "Chicks Rule!" we sent out on submission and nobody had bought it. And then, the Women's March happened in DC, so we're like, "Oh my gosh. We have to send this out." And so, this was a little sneaky, but we found out that some of the editors from Abrams were at the march. And she had already published with Abram, so we're like, "Oh, this is a good time to send it." So, we did and then they bought it and then they did the sequel to it. So, paying attention to the market and what's happening, but not writing to the market.
But again, the two biggest things I would say for verse are, yeah, having some kind of refrain or some kind of intentional repetition, and the rhymes that are a little more sophisticated, not just the super predictable, like, day, play, say, but the really tricky ones. So, one of my favorite poets, who I don't represent, but David Greenberg, he used to run some courses on the west coast for the Oregon Coast Children's Book Writing Workshop, which is on pause now. But, he had a book called, "Snakes," that came out years ago from Penguin, that had "a speckled anaconda steals the family's Honda, races down the driveway in reverse." And it's great because, like, he rhymed "anaconda" and "Honda" and that's just really fun.
And as for humor, it is just kind of a matter of who is going to connect with it. And it's my job as an agent to know, "Okay, who out there, which editors are enjoying humor right now?" Right? Like, that's part of my job is to know which editors like dogs, which editors like cats, who likes humor. So, a lot of times, it is just trying it out and see if it sticks. The one, and something else in general I always look for is if there is some kind of a hook, not necessarily...or a moral. And I hate to even use the word, moral, I like to use takeaway, moral sounds so heavy-handed. But, the one thing about "Proper Badger" that I like is that really, like, on one-hand, you've kind of got the snarky, naughty badger, but on the other hand, it could open up conversations, really with young kids of how you should act in social situations, right?
So, you should say, like, "Oh, Proper Badger did this. Would that really be a good idea to do at a friend's house, to pee on the carpet? No, probably not." You know, those kind of things. So, I think the more layers to your writing, whether you're writing in verse, humor, you could have something that's just funny and silly and slapstick, and on one-hand, that's fine. Like, in the Animals in Pants book, there's no moral and I think that's completely fine. Except that you should wear pants. Like, that's basically, like, the only moral. But, if the more layers that there can be in a story, the better. So, if you have something that's funny but it also works on this level and this level, or has room in the illustrations to contradict the text, that's also something that can add a lot of humor, right? Like, if the text says the character is doing this, but he's actually doing something else, that can add humor. And that's something that, and if you're a writer only, you can definitely put in an art note, because otherwise that would be missed if it's not in the art note.
Mary: That's really interesting and you bring up the all important idea of the takeaway.
Rachel: Yes.
Mary: So, you, it sounds like you're saying, you know, obviously you do want the story to be anchored by something, but how over are we being or how obvious is the takeaway, even with some digging in your preference, in a picture book. Other than the Pantaloons book, which sounds fabulous, by the way, how do we give our book a big idea without sort of giving it a big idea, like, kind of shoving it in there?
Rachel: Well, definitely, and this is probably something you've heard, you know, everyone's heard before, but in terms of letting the kid solve the problem, the more that the adult is solving the problem, then the less impact it's gonna have on the kid. Yeah. Because then, it goes back to the character. There should be some kind of character change. Again, maybe there's not always, but the less heavy-handed it feels, I guess it's more based on a feeling, but the less heavy-handed...I mean, it shouldn't be so obscure, because then sometimes, you know, sometimes a client will send me a something and I'll say, "Oh, I'm not sure, you know, what the takeaway is here." And they'll say, "Oh, it's coming to terms of blah, blah, blah." I'm like, "I totally [inaudible 00:41:42] with that."
And it's interesting because I feel like the European market tends to be much more subtle, which is kind of also makes sense. Like, the American market tends to be a little more obvious, in your face, and the European market tends to require a little more digging. So, one of my clients, who's American but her husband is Swiss, she spent a lot of time in Europe and is very influenced by the European picture books. But, I find that sometimes it's been hard for the Americans to connect with it because it's not a, "Here's the moral of the story," right? Like, so we tend to do that, for better or worse, in America a little bit more than the European market. And again, that's just my job to kind of see, you know, which others out there are connecting with her stuff.
So, for example, we haven't sold anything to her yet from her, but like, Beth Terrill at NorthSouth, because they're a German U.S. company, if there is something that is a bit more understated or wacky, like "Proper Badger," I do tend to send to publishers that have a strong connection with the UK, like Walker books or Candlewick, or NorthSouth with Germany.
Mary: And so, once you identify kind of, this is the kind of writer that somebody is, how do you suggest that they nurture those things when they're in your fold?
Rachel: I mean, just writing more too, like, just keep on writing things. But again, I don't wanna totally pigeonhole them, especially if they're early in their career. Lots of encouragement as well. But, yeah, it is interesting because I have one client who really likes to write lyrical, kind of quiet, deep, lyrical books, but she's very good at...and not just because I like this kind of writing, but she is very good at rhyming and funny stuff. So, sometimes, I'll be like, "Oh, why don't you just try." You know, just try, that's all I ask people to do, is I'll give them suggestions, right, and I don't want to work with somebody who's robotic and is just going to make all the changes they suggest and then be bitter at the end because they're not happy with it, because at the end of the day, it's their book, it's not my book. But, I also want someone who's not going to, like, come back to me with this long email about why I'm wrong, right? Like, I'm just making suggestions, so somewhere in the middle where you're really thoughtfully considering them. So, I don't know. I guess, once they've kind of hit their sweet spot, yeah, just encouraging them in that and sending that stuff out. But, also, I mean, always encouraging them to try new things, if they haven't hit that point yet.
Mary: I think getting...you describing how you get feedback from editors and kind of hitting the timing of the market, and maybe a hole opens up over here that you wanna exploit, or, you know, an opportunity over here, I think that really plays into it and I think it's inspiring for writers who don't yet have an agent, who don't yet have an editorial relationship or somebody who can sort of broker them to different houses, to know that it really is very collaborative and it's not as...I feel like one of the comments that I hear a lot, teaching about writing, is, "I feel like I'm writing for the agent. I feel like I'm writing for the publisher. Like, when do I get to write for the picture book reader, the actual kid that I wanna reach out to with my work?" And it's really nice to hear that there is, you know, there is collaboration and there is kind of give and take, and that it's a process once you're able to connect with someone like yourself and start working together.
Rachel: No, definitely. And I heard a great talk at the New England SCBWI, just, I think, earlier this spring, from Chad Beckerman, who's an agent now, but he used to be a designer at Greenwillow years ago when I was at Harper. And it's funny because, so I've known him since, like, he was super young and we used to just, like, eat lunch together, and now he's, like, this big shot agent. So, it's really impressive. He gave a really great talk about encouraging his illustrators. What he has them do is write, like, 100 things that they like to draw, and to really design that list and make it their own and really show their personality. And I think that's something I'd like to start doing with my writers, is writing about what you love, because that does show through at the end rather than if you feel that you're writing for the agent, writing for the editor, you should always be writing the kind of books you want.
Having said that, I do feel that my clients who are the most successful are the ones that understand that, at the end of the day, like, as harsh as this sounds, it is a business. So, the people though who are able to not just totally sell out, but not just only write about what they're writing about without knowledge of what's going on around them, but the people who are able to say, like, "Okay, this is a business. This is how it works. These are my strengths and this is what I can offer," right?
So, I feel like, someone Sudipta, she really has got these great character-driven rhyme stories, very funny, able to write great dialogue. So, she's teaming up with Mike Ciccotello, who's one of my illustrators, and they're working on a graphic novel called, "Cheese and Quackers," which is super cute. And someone, like I have a client, Todd Tarpley, who, he loves rhyme, he loves humor and this seems to be a trend with my clients, obviously, but he loves rhyme, he loves humor, but he also loves the kind of sweet, schmaltzy, like, baby books. He loves, loves babies and his kids are in their 20s now and I just, like, he's not creepy, but he's that guy at the park who would be like, "Oh, can I hold your baby?" He's great. So, he's done well in that.
So, he recently sold...and this is a book we have had out on submission for years called, "Love is a Kiss." It's had different titles. It's been a rhyme, it's been a verse. He's someone that started in...I mean, it's been in prose and verse, he started in prose and then he ended up switching it, I told him to switch it to verse, which is what we did with the "Library Books Are Not for Eating." Yeah. So, after much time, you know, just then all of a sudden, they'll be like, "Oh, we should actually send it to this person," and then she bought it, [inaudible 00:48:38] Sterling, where he's had some other books. So again, he's doing what he loves within the realm of what he knows he can sell, if that makes sense.
Mary: No, I think that's a perfect view of how you work, how you work with writers, as well as some inspiring words. So, that closes out our Q and A. I wanna be very cognizant of your valuable time. Thank you so much for joining us.
Rachel: No, thank you for having me. This is great.
Mary: And we've really appreciated all of your insight. Thank you. Have a wonderful day.
Rachel: Thanks, you too. Bye-bye.
Mary: Bye. Thank you so much for listening. This has been "The Good Story Podcast" with your host, Mary Kole. I wanna give a huge shoutout to everyone at The Good Story Company. You can find us online at goodstorycompany.com, and the team is Amy Holland, Amy Wilson, Jenna Van Rooy, Kate Elsinger, Kathy Martinolich, Kristen Overman, Michal Leah, Rhiannon Richardson and Steve Reiss. Also a shoutout to our Patreon supporters and to everyone listening out there, here's to a good story.
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