Agent Spotlight Series: Maggie Cooper

Maggie: Before I was an agent, I was a high school and middle school English teacher—and while I loved working with kids, during my MFA I discovered that I also love working with adult writers. As it turns out, hustling my way into publishing in my late 20s turned out to be great practice for the hustle involved in being an agent, and my prior experiences, both in the classroom and my MFA program, have proved enormously formative to my work. During my pivot to publishing, I also had the chance to work as a bookseller—an experience that I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone interested in the business of books. 

Maggie: Once a writer and I choose to work together, I’ll typically write an editorial letter, looking closely at the manuscript, pointing out strengths and offering the writer a whole series of questions to guide their revision. These letters are usually several pages long—and sometimes longer—so once the writer has a chance to read and think, we’ll set up a phone call to talk through their thoughts and possible changes to the manuscript. I’ve been telling writers that they should think of my notes not as a set of instructions, but as something more like a treasure map—I can point out landmarks and offer impressions, but 90% of the time, it’s through their digging that they are able to identify what the book really needs.  

It’s important to me, too, to have a conversation about expectations early in the relationship—what are the writer’s hopes for this project? How do they prefer to communicate? What do they and I envision in terms of timeline and editorial process? Often this happens even before we decide to work together, but if it doesn’t, these are things I want to know sooner rather than later.

Maggie: I am beyond delighted by the recent blossoming of queer romance in mainstream publishing spaces (thank you, Red, White, and Royal Blue!), and I’m looking forward to continuing to see more and more queer characters at the center of stories in which queerness is a source of joy—both in romance and in fiction more broadly.  

Maggie: Writing an excellent synopsis is not easy! Your goals should be (1) to tell your reader what the book is about in just enough (but not too much) detail, (2) capture the tone of the project, and (3) make your reader want to read the book. All this means that you need to be clear, evocative, and inviting—it’s a tall order. One common difficulty I see writers encountering is getting bogged down with too much information: remember, we don’t need to be introduced to every character or know every twist and turn in the plot. However, on the flip side, your synopsis should not just cover the book’s set-up; as an agent, I need to know what the main conflict of the book is going to be, and while you certainly don’t need to tell me everything that’s going to happen, I personally don’t mind spoilers if they are going to help me to get a sense of the manuscript. 

In addition to all the great resources specific to writing queries, you might look to book reviews as a guide in thinking about synopsis-writing; the good people at outlets like Kirkus and PW pack a huge amount into just one or two paragraphs, and we all can learn from them.

Maggie: I have been working with the amazing Boston-based nonprofit GrubStreet since 2014—first, attending workshops there before pursuing my MFA, and then teaching classes. I’m looking forward to their annual Muse & the Marketplace event, which has gone virtual for 2021, and offers writers a great opportunity to hone their craft, learn more about publishing, and connect with agents and editors. Grub also runs regular classes about querying—and offers some great scholarships for writers whose resources may be limited.

Maggie: How about a few? I devoured Rodham, Curtis Sittenfeld’s brilliant alternate biography of how Hillary’s life might have gone had she not married Bill—which has so many smart things to say about ambition, feminism, politics, and the ways we do and don’t live up to our ideals. And while it may not be explicitly about a person we already know, Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age renders an equally expert portrait of characters that I recognized in all their hopes and flaws and missteps. In terms of style, both Sittenfeld’s and Reid’s writing reminds me of why I love novels—both books are great fun to read, even while they’re asking us to look at truths that might make us uncomfortable.  

More books! If you love Carmen Maria Machado’s writing the way I do, you have to read Lindsay Drager’s heartbreaking, playful, gorgeous, evocative work, most recently The Archive of Alternate Endings. On the romcom side, I can’t wait for Meryl Wilsner’s follow-up to Something to Talk About, which was a glorious queer coworkers-to-lovers slow burn. 

Finally, I’m a nerd for craft books—recently, Jane Alison’s Meander, Spiral, Explode challenged me to think about plot in new ways that I think would be particularly useful for literary writers, and Matthew Salesses’ Craft in the Real World is at the top of my TBR list! 

Maggie: I am a very enthusiastic home cook and baker, so if you follow me on Twitter, you can expect recipe recommendations and lots of food content alongside the books. This also means that if you’re going to describe cooking and eating in your novel, you have to get it right—I once convinced one of my writers to rewrite a scene because I was so distracted by my worry that the characters’ pancakes were going to get cold that I couldn’t focus on the conversation they were having! 

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