Successful Queries: Danya Kukafka and “Night Objects,” by Eli Raphael

Welcome back to the Successful Queries series. In this installment, find a query letter from Eli Raphael to her agent Danya Kukafka of Trellis Literary Management for Raphael's debut novel, Night Objects.

Eli Raphael grew up in Miami, Florida, and now lives in rural Washington State. This is her first novel.

Hi Danya,

I hope this message finds you well. I am currently looking for an agent to represent my debut novel, Bright Work, and Alli Hoff Kosik (The SSR Podcast) recommended that I reach out. Given your interest in dark coming-of-age and crime novels, I'm confident that my book has the distinct plot, voice, and spark you're looking for.

Written from the perspective of awkward, ambivalent Lenny Winter-a fifteen year old with a penchant for astronomy studying at an elite boarding school—my book explores parallel territory to Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep, Marisha Pess!'s Special Topics in Calamity Physics, and Netflix's Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal. After her mother's sudden death, Lenny's stepfather sends her away to Blanchard, where she is tapped for a secret society called the Pascalianum. Lenny finds herself drawn further and further into a dangerous world of affluence and exclusivity, but after a girl is raped at a Pascalianum party, Lenny must navigate class betrayal, love triangles, the violence of wealth — and a murder that threatens to expose Blanchard's dark underbelly.

A coming-of-age mystery with the modern sense of place found in Thoreau's Walden, Bright Work is an edgy, pointed novel with a big heart. It explores the gendered power dynamics of class, race, and adolescence; the transformative influence of grief; and the insidious nature of transactional relationships.

I recently earned my MFA from Temple University, where I was selected as the Creative Writing graduate program's Future Faculty Fellow. While earning my MFA, I worked closely with Liz Moore, Don Lee, and Kiley Reid, all of whom have read and offered feedback on my manuscript over the past two years.

I would love the opportunity to work with you to make Bright Work the best it possibly can be. I've attached the first twenty pages, as requested. If you're interested, I would love to send over the whole 110,000 word manuscript.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Warm regards,

Eli Raphael

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Eli's query caught my eye immediately. She followed the basic rules laid out by our submission guidelines, the format of the query was standard in structure, and it clearly spoke to the interests on my wishlist. Her query was formal, friendly, and personalized. She did particularly excellent work briefly and concisely distilling the plot alongside the thematic core of the book, so when I picked it up I knew exactly what kind of novel I was hoping to read—and then the manuscript itself delivered immediately on that promise. 

I queried Danya because her wishlist specifically asked for "dark coming-of-age," which felt exactly aligned with my book. I found Danya early in my querying process and hadn't yet come across that term, so it felt like a big lightbulb moment when I saw it on her QueryTracker page. Perhaps unsurprisingly, during our initial call, Danya seemed to intuitively understand exactly what I was trying to do with the book and where we could make edits to really knock the socks off of editors. This made signing with her a no-brainer.

There's a lot of chatter in online spaces about how to choose the "right" agent––editorial vs. hands off, senior and well-connected vs. young and hungry, etc.––and while different writers will weight these traits differently, my general opinion is that the right agent is the one who understands the heart of your book and can therefore sell the crap out of it. There's so much uncertainty in publishing, so having an agent who champions you in that way is helpful. 

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Danya Kukafka is a literary agent with Trellis Literary Management, and the author of the national bestseller Notes on an Execution, which won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 2023 and was named The New York Times Best Crime Novel of the Year. Notes on an Execution was an Indie Next Pick, a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards for fiction, and received a cover review in the New York Times Book Review. Her debut novel, Girl in Snow was also a national bestseller, an Indie Next Pick, and a B&N Discover pick. Both novels have been optioned for film and television, and her work has been published in more than 15 languages worldwide. At Trellis, she is looking for literary suspense, sophisticated thrillers, book club fiction, lightly speculative fiction, horror, experimental fiction, and upmarket fiction you can read in one gulp.