Interview with

By Theresa Rizzo

Date: 

 

Bio: Cameron McClure joined the Donald Maass Literary Agency in 2004, and handles the agency's foreign and film rights as well as her own growing client list.  Prior to this she worked as an assistant agent for Curtis Brown. She represents mostly fiction, and is especially looking for projects that combine genre style plotting with literary quality writing.  She's also interested in seeing literary fiction, mystery and suspense, urban fantasy (fantasy and SF set on earth), and projects with multi-cultural, international, environmental, and GBLT themes. She's drawn to non-fiction that reads like fiction, and that explores subcultures or topics that haven't quite broken into the mainstream.

 

  1. Which categories do you currently acquire?  Which category is your favorite?

    Answer:  I represent mostly fiction, and like most readers, I’m not sure I have a favorite category.  I like mysteries and thrillers, science-fiction and fantasy (especially urban fantasy), and strongly plotted women’s fiction and literary fiction.  My favorite books are often difficult to categorize though: I love it when an author combines literary writing – writing that is very finely and thoughtfully crafted, and says something about the world we live in, or employs a fresh voice or is even experimental – with genre plotting.  I get a lot of joy from reading a beautiful or clever turn of phrase, but some literary novels are just too meandering and unfocused to keep my attention.  On the flip side, commercial or “genre” authors often know how to writer a page turner full of tension and narrative momentum, but if you read the sentences or paragraphs in isolation, they aren’t very inspiring, or well put together.  Books by Dennis Lehane and Jodi Picoult, Carolyn Parkhurst’s Dogs of Babel, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, Jonathan Lethem’s Gun With Occasional Music and Motherless Brooklyn, Joe Hill’s Heart Shaped Box, David Benioff’s City of Thieves, to name a few – these are some great reads for me because they manage to combine quality writing with lots of suspense, and in some case, wacky plot twists.

 

  1. In terms of submissions, what are you sick to death of and what would you like to see more of?

Answer: What I’m sick of is not a particular topic or category (though I admit to being prejudiced against pharmaceutical thrillers and books about cloning Jesus), what I’m sick to death of is authors trotting out the same old ideas in the same old ways.  Lets just assume there are no new ideas out there, so you have to assume that whatever you’re writing about, someone has already written about that before.  And with how many books are published each year (including self publishing) several someones have probably even published a book on that topic or phenomenon.  So author’s have got to find a way to make their ideas seem new and fresh and exciting, or twist it somehow, be it through sympathetic characters with heartrending conflicts, a unique voice, whatever. 

 

A mistake I see way too often is authors beginning their novels well before the story actually starts.  For example, there are a lot of people who write novels with a very average protagonist who doesn’t have much going on, and then, all of a sudden, something phenomenal happens to him or her.  The mistake here is that the author makes the reader wade through 20 or 50 pages where nothing happens, so that the reader is introduced to and convinced of the protagonist’s “ordinary” life.  And then, on page 50 or whatever, voila – finally something happens!  In that case, the author needs to turn page 50 into page 1.

 

  1. Do you accept unagented and/or email queries?

 

Answer: I do accept e-mail queries.  In our submission guidelines (on our website) we request a query letter and first five pages of the project copy pasted into the body of an e-mail (it is agency policy for us not to open attachments on e-queries).

 

  1. What length synopsis do you prefer to see with a partial?

 

Answer: I’m not a huge fan of synopses, so for me, the shorter the better.  Really, if you’ve written a good pitch letter (or query letter) then that’s usually all I need.  I prefer a synopsis to be just a page or two.

 

 

  1.  What are the compelling elements that you think are necessary for a good
     read?   What particularly grabs your attention?

    Answer: You’ve got to have a sympathetic protagonist or protagonists, and a compelling outside conflict (as well as an internal conflict for your main character).  Those are the bare bones.  I also like a strong sense of atmosphere, some sort of mystery or unknown element, and a fresh narrative voice.

 

 

  1. Does meeting an author face-to-face at a conference make a difference in your response time, the submission process, or the rejection process (ie. Form letter vs a few sentences of advice)?

 

Answer: Yes, I almost always write a personal letter to each person I’ve met at a conference, though on occasion, if I’m very busy and it’s either give personal responses or make an author wait a long time to hear from me, I’ll go with a form letter for the sake of speed.

 

 

  1. Besides the writing, the story and the talent, what are the most important elements you look for in an author, ie. contest wins, cooperativeness, affiliations to writers organizations, knowledge of publishing industry, promotability, etc?

 

 

Answer: The most important thing, storytelling aside, is that the author and I share a similar vision for the book.  It’s not going to work if I think you’ve written a horror novel, and you think you’ve written literary fiction.  Because our agency does so much editorial work with authors before we submit their projects, it’s also very important to me that we agree somewhat on revisions, and how to make the novel stronger.  After that I look for how well we get a long with each other, and how comfortable we are with each other.  Cooperativeness is nice, though that doesn’t mean an author shouldn’t fight for what they think is fair (or to keep a scene they really believe in).  Knowledge of publishing is helpful, but ultimately that’s what you have an agent for, so I don’t think it’s crucial.  Promotability is becoming more important for fiction writers, but it’s just the icing on the cake for me.

 

  1. What do you love most about your job?

 

Answer: The part where I get to read.  And the part where I think about books and how to make them better, and talk to other people who enjoy and value reading as much as I do about the books that I love.  Finding great writers in the query pile is a thrill, and it’s an even bigger thrill to sell those writers’ books.

 

  1. Do you have any pet peeves?

 

Answer: About my job?  Well, it does seem like EVERYBODY is writing a novel.  Which you would think would be a literary agent’s dream, but it’s not.  There’s something about blog culture that makes people think that everyone else ought to be interested in their lives, and the minutia of their lives, and that’s not always (or even usually) the case.  I’ve had this same argument with so many writers, where they defend their story by saying something like, “but that’s what really happened,” or “that’s what happens in real life!”  But fiction is not like real life.  Fiction has to be better.

 

  1. What’s your favorite genre/type of:
    1. Book:
    2. Food:
    3. Music:
    4. Movie:
    5. Hobbie:

 

  1. What are you addicted to?

 

Answer: Pandora.com

 

  1. What have you always wanted to do?

 

Answer:

 

 

  1. Do you have a favorite quote?

 

Answer: