Success Story Interview - Alicia Marie Evans

An Interview with Alicia Marie Evans (boneandflower on QT) upon receiving an offer of representation from agent V Ruiz of D4EO Literary Agency.

09/01/2026

QT: Can you tell us a little bit about the book for which you've found representation? What inspired you to write it?

Alicia Marie Evans:
Honestly, this book interrupted me.

I was in the middle of editing a completely different manuscript when WHAT’S DONE IN THE DARK showed up. I told myself I was only going to jot down a few notes, maybe sketch an outline, and then return to the book I was supposed to be working on. That was a lie. The notes kept growing until I had abandoned what I was doing and followed this story instead. It came quickly and felt urgent in a way I could not ignore.

The novel is set in 1962 Mississippi and centers on two brothers, Josiah and Paige Carter, who live in Promise Ridge, a thriving Black town along the Mississippi River. When Josiah begins hearing a strange hum in unplugged radios and Paige disappears at the riverbank, he discovers that something ancient in the water has been tied to his family for generations.

I did not begin with a carefully planned list of themes. I am naturally drawn to Black history, folklore, spirituality, ancestral memory, and the things families inherit whether they want them or not. Those things found their way into the book because they always find their way into my work.

QT: How long have you been writing?

Alicia Marie Evans:
I have been writing since I was about twelve. My first story was a vampire tale that I sold to my classmates chapter by chapter for twenty-five cents each, so apparently I was running a tiny publishing operation before I knew what one was.

I pursued writing seriously as a young adult, but eventually stopped for many years. I returned to fiction in 2025. So while writing has been part of my life for decades, this particular chapter of my career is very new.

QT: How long have you been working on this book?

Alicia Marie Evans:
I began writing it in November 2025 and finished the first draft in December, so about a month. That still sounds slightly ridiculous when I say it out loud, but the book came fast and did not give me much choice about keeping up with it. Several rounds of revision followed, but the heart of the novel arrived during that first intense month.

QT: Was there ever a time you felt like giving up, and what helped you to stay on course?

Alicia Marie Evans:
Yes. Absolutely.

I was receiving full-manuscript requests, which looked encouraging on paper, but then came long stretches of silence followed by rejections. Eventually, I convinced myself that the book was dead in the water, which is almost too on the nose for a novel about a hungry river, but there it is.

In January, I started writing another novel, SEDIMENT, and completed it in June. Beginning something new gave me somewhere to put all that nervous energy. More importantly, it reminded me that my entire future did not have to depend on what happened with one manuscript. By then, I had largely accepted that WHAT’S DONE IN THE DARK was not going anywhere. Then it became the book that brought me both publisher interest and an agent. Apparently, the book had not received the memo that I had given up on it.

QT: Is this your first book?

Alicia Marie Evans:
Yes. WHAT’S DONE IN THE DARK is my first completed novel. I did not exactly ease myself back into writing.

QT: Do you have any formal writing training?

Alicia Marie Evans:
No. I learned by reading obsessively, writing, revising, taking things apart, putting them back together, and paying attention to how the books I love accomplish what they do. No MFA or formal workshop pipeline. Just a lot of pages and a considerable amount of stubbornness.

QT: Do you follow a writing routine or schedule?

Alicia Marie Evans:
Not really. I work from home, and I wrote much of this book during my lunch breaks or whenever I happened to be sitting at my computer, which was often. WHAT’S DONE IN THE DARK had no respect for work-life balance.

Most of the writing happened in marathon sessions. I felt compelled by something almost outside of myself to get the story onto the page. It felt less like maintaining a routine and more like trying to keep up with the book until it finally let me sleep.

QT: How many times did you re-write/edit your book?

Alicia Marie Evans:
Several. I did not keep an exact count because, at some point, counting would have become its own form of suffering. I continued revising the manuscript while I queried, returning to it whenever I saw something that could be strengthened or made clearer.

QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?

Alicia Marie Evans:
My mom was my beta reader. She was the first person besides me to experience the book as a reader, and she had to endure a great many questions about whether things made sense.

QT: Did you outline your book, or do you write from the hip?

Alicia Marie Evans:
I am a mixture of both, although I mostly wrote the first draft of this book from the hip.

I need enough of a skeleton to give me a general direction, but I do not want every joint and rib mapped out before I begin. If I know too much, the story stops feeling alive to me. I want it to have room to surprise me.

Later in the process, once enough has happened that I can no longer trust my own memory, I outline more carefully to track what happens where and make sure the structure holds together. So I begin by winging it and become increasingly responsible as the situation demands.

QT: How long have you been querying for this book? Other books?

Alicia Marie Evans:
I began querying WHAT’S DONE IN THE DARK in December 2025 and signed with my agent in August 2026, so approximately nine months.

I began querying SEDIMENT in June 2026 while WHAT’S DONE IN THE DARK was still under consideration. By that point, I genuinely believed the first book was going nowhere, so I had already written the next one and sent it out into the world too.

QT: About how many query letters did you send out for this book?

Alicia Marie Evans:
Approximately thirty, which was considerably fewer than I expected it would take.

QT: On what criteria did you select the agents you queried?

Alicia Marie Evans:
I looked for agents who were interested in the things I actually write: literary and speculative horror, Southern Gothic fiction, historical settings, folklore, and underrepresented voices. I was not interested in bending the book into whatever happened to be popular on someone’s wish list that week.

I also wanted an agent who could understand WHAT’S DONE IN THE DARK as its own novel while recognizing that I intend to build a much larger body of work beyond it.

QT: Did you tailor each query to the specific agent, and if so, how?

Alicia Marie Evans:
I personalized queries when I had something genuine and specific to say. If an agent’s manuscript wish list, interviews, or stated interests connected directly to the book, I mentioned it. I did not force a personal connection where one did not exist.

The central pitch stayed the same, but I sometimes adjusted how I framed the novel. Depending on the agent, I might emphasize its literary horror, Southern Gothic, historical, or speculative elements. I never changed what the book was. I simply led with the part most likely to speak to that particular agent.

QT: What advice would you give other writers seeking agents?

Alicia Marie Evans:
Query the book.

Seriously. Do your research, make the manuscript as strong as you can, and then give it the opportunity to leave your computer. Do not reject yourself before an agent has the chance to say yes.

I had only recently returned to writing. I had no formal training. This was my first completed novel, and I sent approximately thirty queries. If I had listened to every voice telling me that I needed more experience, more credentials, more connections, more years, or more anything before I was allowed to try, none of this would have happened.

Also, keep writing while you wait. Full requests are exciting, but they are not promises. Rejections hurt, and silence will have you inventing entire prophecies about your career if you let it. The novel I believed was dead became the novel that brought me publisher interest and representation. Sometimes things are moving even when you cannot see them yet.

QT: Would you be willing to share your query with us?

Alicia Marie Evans:
Yes. Below is a version of the query I used.

Query Letter:

Dear XXX,

I’m seeking representation for WHAT’S DONE IN THE DARK, a 60,000-word adult horror novel set in Jim Crow-era 1962 Mississippi. Because you’re drawn to speculative and horror fiction with vivid worldbuilding, high-concept premises, and underrepresented voices, I thought this might be a strong fit for your list.

In Promise Ridge, a Black town carved along the Mississippi, Josiah Carter begins hearing a low hum where there should be none: in unplugged radios, beneath the floorboards, inside the walls of his family’s home, and sometimes in his own body. The sound arrives with the feeling that something in the river is listening. His older brother, Paige, has always moved through the world like a struck match, restless, volatile, dangerous in ways Josiah both fears and understands. As tensions sharpen between Promise Ridge and the white town across the river, Paige’s recklessness begins dragging old family history into the light.

Years earlier, Josiah’s grandfather killed a white boy and fed the body to the Mississippi. The river did not carry him away. It kept him. Since then, the Carter family has lived beneath the pressure of something uncanny in the water, something that remembers blood, keeps the dead, and does not forget the names of the living.

When another white boy vanishes and the hum grows louder, Josiah realizes the river is not merely haunted. It is alive. It has been moving beneath his family’s history for years, guarding violence, shaping silence, and waiting for its due. And when Paige’s actions threaten to bring the white men of Camberlin down on Promise Ridge, Josiah must decide whether to resist the force claiming his bloodline or let the river rise and answer the town’s buried violence with its own.

WHAT’S DONE IN THE DARK combines the historical Black horror of THE REFORMATORY with the unsettling, land-bound speculative edge of SORROWLAND. It may also appeal to readers drawn to the mythic Southern landscape and elemental dread of BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD.

I am a fiction writer based in New Jersey. My work lives at the crossroads of literary fiction, horror, and the speculative, with a particular interest in Black history, folklore, inheritance, and the things families and communities are forced to bury.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Alicia M. Evans