New Agent Alert: Stephen Barr of Writers House
Literary agent alerts (like this one with Stephen Barr of Writers House) are golden opportunities for new writers because each one is a literary agent who is likely building their client list.
About Stephen: Stephen landed at Writers House in 2008, became its biggest fan about four seconds later, started taking on his own clients in 2010. He spent the first 21 years of his life in Southern California and was inspired to become involved in publishing after seeing Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal of Terry Crabtree in Wonder Boys. He loves working with writers and editing their manuscripts to get them ready for submission. He was recently profiled in the New York Times.
He is seeking: "I'm a pretty omnivorous agent—I've got a permanent hankering for unexpected memoirs with itchy voices, narrative nonfiction that tackles hard-to-tackle issues, wry and rarely paranormal YA, laugh-until-you-squirt-milk-out-of-your-nose middle grade, sweet and wacky (but still logical) picture books from author/illustrators, and fiction that rewards the reader line-by-line and gets to know at least one character really, really well (recent favorites include Jeff In Venice, The Lazarus Project, Diary of a Bad Year, and Horns, which was awesome). I'm also willing to be a sucker for smart, unconventional thrillers, mysteries that bend reality, ghost stories that blow reality to hell, fictional or not-so-fictional portrayals of abnormal psychology, and humor that's more than just an infinitely repeated gag in sheep's clothing."
How to contact: Send a friendly, honest e-query, anchored by the first five or ten pages of the manuscript. Send submissions to sbarr[at]writershouse.com with the word "Query" in the subject line.
Chuck Sambuchino is a former editor with the Writer's Digest writing community and author of several books, including How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack and Create Your Writer Platform.