Successful Queries: Ali Lake and “The Fountain,” by Casey Scieszka

Welcome back to the Successful Queries series. In this installment, find a query letter to Ali Lake for Casey Scieszka's debut novel, The Fountain.

Casey Scieszka is a born and raised Brooklynite who has lived in Beijing, San Francisco, Fez, and Timbuktu where she was a Fulbright Scholar. In 2013 she and her husband, artist Steven Weinberg, moved to the Catskill Mountains and opened the Spruceton Inn: a Catskills Bed & Bar, which runs an annual Artist Residency hosting world-renowned painters, bestselling authors, and Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalists.

Dear Mel Flashman,

My name is Casey Scieszka. I’m seeking representation for my 75,000 word magical realism novel Fountain of Eternal Youth LLC about a suicidal immortal who returns home to the Catskill Mountains to figure out how to die, but her entanglement with her brother's LLC’s quest to “disrupt death” shows her what’s worth truly living for instead.

We met at Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter event upstate at Brunette Wine Bar after she was an Artist Resident at my small hotel the Spruceton Inn. I see you’re interested in questions around the business of medicine and mortality like Anne Boyer’s devastating The Undying, and I read you’re looking for more stories that delve into the meaning of life, family, and identity.

After a harrowing incident, 214 year old Vera Van Vulkenburgh breaks a family promise and returns to the Catskills to find the source of her immortality, reverse it, and finally die. Between work as a Park Ranger, fly fishing, and helping her NYC-transplant landlords build a cidery on her 1800s childhood farmstead, forever-twenty-three Vera finds herself almost happy as the town “newcomer”. Everything changes when her charming brother arrives with his new girlfriend, a brilliant scientist also secretly from the area. A reluctant Vera covertly joins forces with their company Fountain of Eternal Youth LLC. But as their quest to “disrupt death” gains momentum and going public with their true identities grows nearer, lies mount, and tensions between the three of them and the outside world strain. Nearly buckling under centuries as a “young” woman on the run, Vera makes increasingly questionable choices as she struggles to decide whether anyone, immortal or not, deserves the power to change the world quite literally forever. It's about the nuances of small town life, what it means to be a local, the perils of “progress”, and deciding what's worth living for whether or not you can actually die.

Fans of dark and fantastical yet firmly real novels like Kevin Wilson’s Nothing To See Here, Audrey Niffenegger’s Time Traveler’s Wife, and Melissa Broder’s The Pisces will hopefully find something to enjoy here.

A born and raised Brooklynite, I wrote an illustrated YA travelogue with my husband, To Timbuktu: Nine Countries, Two People, One True Story, which PW called “impressively witty, perceptive, and candid” in a starred review. In 2013 we moved to a small town in the mountains of upstate New York where I opened and still operate the Spruceton Inn: a Catskills Bed & Bar.

My first ten pages are below. Thank you so much for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Casey Scieszka

Bookshop | Amazon

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Casey’s query was directed to my at-the-time boss, Mel Flashman, when I came across it as an assistant triaging her queries. The first paragraph was concise (always appreciated by busy readers) and managed to contain all the key details (name, word count, genre, title) and a hooky pitch. A suicidal immortal is such a surprising and intriguing idea, especially when paired with her brother on a quest to “disrupt death.” The contrast between the motivations of these characters immediately generates tension (good for plot!) and both concepts beg the question “What does that mean?”—of course I need to read on to find out. Finally, this first paragraph even includes a main theme of the book (What’s worth living for?) and signals that it’s going to be a heartwarming read—which counts as a positive for me. A lot of work done in 57 words!

Casey’s second paragraph made a smart personal connection to Mel via her existing client and also connected her book to a current book Mel represented. It showed that Casey was canny and tailored her pitch for her audience—which worked! I knew Mel would want to prioritize considering this project. 

Casey’s third paragraph gets into the meat of the story and contains all the key things to know. It starts out with the inciting incident and resultant goal of our main character. It shares an early twist (Vera’s brother’s arrival at the helm of the death-disrupting LLC) and sets up the tensions of the latter half of the book. Crucially, it doesn’t give too much away—just like I like it! I’m enticed to read more to find out what happens. Throughout, tidbits about Vera confirm my impression that she’s an interesting character in an interesting situation grappling with an interesting question—that’s the stuff book club picks are made of. Finally, as an NYC resident, I was excited by the setting of the Catskills, somewhere I love to hike!

Casey’s comps were all books I’d read and enjoyed—two very timely popular picks that positioned it in the “magical realism” genre which was performing so well at the time, and one slightly older book that was near to my heart and wildly popular when it was published. All smart picks positioning her book as a good fit for the market, and for me personally. 

Casey’s bio gave her publishing creds to date and a little bit about herself—short and sweet and all I need. She was clearly a cool woman!

Altogether, this sounded like an exciting premise, Casey seemed very smart from the construction of her query alone, and I wanted to read more! And add to that, I knew that this would be a priority read for my boss because of the connections Casey had cited to her clients and her titles—so I hopped on it! When Mel ultimately passed due to being too busy with prior commitments, I was able to reach out and ask if Casey would consider being represented by me instead. The rest is history!

The hardest part of the query process for me was distilling the essence of my manuscript down to a bitesized and intriguing paragraph. Later on in the process, through all the revisions and discussions and marketing & publicity pitches, it’s so much easier because you simply know it better. But that first stab at it? Ooof. It’s a doozy!

The more fun part for me was making each query letter as specific as possible to individual agents—and their assistants who I knew would probably be the first line of defense! Practically speaking, this meant reading more work by their clients than just the original title that brought me to them, plus some basic internet sleuthing. Online interviews were especially helpful because I could learn a little more about their interests (especially those beyond their manuscript wish lists) and their thoughts on the industry in general.

I’m so grateful to have found Ali in the somewhat sideways way that I did!

_____________________________________

Ali Lake grew up in Palo Alto, California and, before pursuing higher education, danced ballet professionally. She studied English and French Literature at Columbia University, during which time she interned selling English-language rights for French publisher Présence Africaine Éditions and as a manuscript editor for O’Connor Literary Agency. 

She graduated summa cum laude in 2017, winning the Barrat Brown Memorial Prize for excellence in critical writing. In 2018, she joined ICM Partners (now part of Creative Artists Agency) performing royalty, sales, and contract analysis to support agent negotiations and inform agency business decisions. In 2020, she joined Janklow & Nesbit Associates supporting senior literary agents Mel Flashman and Emma Parry, while building her own list of fiction, nonfiction, and young adult novels. In June 2023, she joined O’Connor Literary Agency as a literary agent. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.