Joe M. O'Connell: Hey author, Learn to write a really bad query letter now!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Hey author, Learn to write a really bad query letter now!

Literary agents are catching on that writers are slowly driving them insane via weird and wacky query letters.

5 comments:

tom verkozen said...: Hi Joe,
Loved your 'Evacuation Plan' ... and your merriment regarding dumb and dumber query letters. Maybe you can save us from death by worthless query letters as my writing partner and I are about to begin the query process on a hospice novel. Can you recommend a literary agent or two who might not fear death?
Austin rocks!; May 20, 2011 at 4:21 PM
Joe M. O'Connell said...: Tom, I don't know that I have recommendations of particular agents. My only advice would be to attend agents conferences in your area. They're the best way to pitch your book directly. In my neck of the woods, the Writers League of Texas has a conference every summer like this.

Good luck!--Joe; May 21, 2011 at 7:48 AM
Tom Verkozen said...: Thanks, Joe ... the SF writer conference slipped by ... damn ... so I'll search out some others.

A touch of persistence: We still hold the hope that if you thought of an agent or two with an interest in hospice ... maybe you might recommend? Would be lovely!

Tom; July 1, 2011 at 12:03 AM
Tom Verkozen said...: Joe,thank you for your response. The SF writers conference (is that different from an agents conference?)slipped by. I will take your advice and travel to the next 'quality' agent gathering ... any suggestions on that?

Any other thoughts?

Again, thanks ...

Tom; July 1, 2011 at 12:06 AM
Joe M. O'Connell said...: Tom, I wish I had a magic agent name for you, but I don't. With my book I found the whole topic of death to be a tough sell. I ended up selling it directly to a publisher.

The San Francisco conference is definitely the big one in your area, by the way!

Sorry I'm not more help.--Joe; July 1, 2011 at 10:01 AM

What they're saying...

"Tales alternately gentle, dramatic, surrealistic, that collectively affirm the beauty of being alive, even as they acknowledge that all of us face the necessity of making our own 'evacuation plan.' "
-- Brad Buchholz, Austin American-Statesman

" The chapters about Matt and the short stories demonstrate O’Connell’s ability to develop sympathetic, true-to-life characters using intriguing details and compelling dialogue. The stories remind us of those times when a brief encounter with a stranger left us wondering about that person’s past. In Evacuation Plan, O’Connell satisfies that curiosity. "
-- The Texas Observer

"It was very hard for me to put this book down. It carries us through the deepest meaning in life and most painful, most hopeful memories for a wide range of fascinating characters. Based in a hospice, this book could have easily resorted to cheap sensationalism, or whacked us upside the head with stereotypic melodrama, but instead it was respectful, honest, and tender. The characters will stay with you - you may even recognize some of them within your own life. "
-- Award-winning author Carmen Tafolla

"An excellent, thought-provoking diversion from our own inevitable plummet toward the grave, and we highly recommend it to you, the living."
-- Wayne Alan Brenner, The Austin Chronicle

"O’Connell has drawn some colourful and believable characters. The material relating to the hospice and terminal care rings true, all the way to reconciliation and forgiving."
-- Dr. Roger Woodruff, International Association for Hospice & Palliative Care

"The tales are nicely written, and some are quite compelling; “The Male Nurse,” for one, is a dreamlike reverie."
-- Texas Monthly

“Evacuation Plan: A Novel From The Hospice by Joe M. O'Connell is nothing short of remarkable … a novel that walks hand-in-hand with death and yet, somehow, the reader finishes the book feeling inspired to live.”
– The Paisano

"A wonderful blend of lives ordinary but with sometimes extraordinary elements. We all share these stories of life in some way, despite moments of harshness or unforgiving pain. There is always a common thread of humanity and ultimately forgiveness to be found, even if it's in the last moment of life."
-- Elaine Williams, author of A Journey Well Taken

"Reading Evacuation Plan is akin to unwrapping a series of small perfectly-chosen presents. Both human and humane, The book resembles a modern Spoon River Anthology with its vivid, touching glimpses into the lives of those in and around a hospice."
-- Tim McCanlies, screenwriter The Iron Giant, writer/director Secondhand Lions

"In Evacuation Plan Joe O'Connell does for the process of dying what Sherwood Anderson did for middle America in Winesburg, Ohio--he shows us in brief flashes the aching beauty of the grotesque, and shows us how extraordinary small lives and quiet deaths can be."
--John Blair, Drue Heinz Literature Prize winning author of American Standard

"Here's a book so rich with stories of the living, so filled with people's bountiful problems, as well as incidents of wry forgiveness, one realizes over and over the circling forces of life's completeness. It's not a sad tale nor a needless feel-good account but a balanced, sometimes comic, affirmation of what is here and what we all know is waiting."
-- Carolyn Osborn, award-winning short story writer

"The broken, the hopeful, the frustrated, the clueless, and the forgiving touch one another with words, remembrances, and hands. Inevitably, readers will quietly wonder about their own evacuation plan."
-- Will's Texana Monthly

O'Connell's protagonist skillfully navigates under the guise of a writer seeking raw materials for his craft in the stories of the dying, but mines and refines instead the stuff we're all made of. In this finely crafted novel, we come away with much more than the astute observation that many of the best stories begin at the end. But, then again, that notion is also worth a lot.
--Jesse Sublett, cancer survivor, rocker and author of Never the Same Again

"Joe O'Connell's Evacuation Plan--this Decameron of the hospice--encompasses a paradox. Death comes for everyone, but death is the only human universal because everyone dies, and witnesses dying, with private, unspeakable shame. Yet there are a few minutes left to speak. As people die, they tell stories which spawn new stories, which remind us that death is agony, a violent struggle, but so is living."
-- Debra Monroe, Flannery O'Connor Award winning author of Newfangled and Shambles

Joe M. O'Connell

Monday, June 21, 2010

Hey author, Learn to write a really bad query letter now!

5 comments:

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