Dashboard Literary Agents Success Story Interviews Alison McMahan

Success Story Interview - Alison McMahan

An Interview with Alison McMahan (AlMcMahan on QT) upon receiving an offer of representation from agent Sandy Lu of Book Wyrm Literary Agency.

07/07/2025

QT: Can you tell us a little bit about the book for which you've found representation? What inspired you to write it?: Alison McMahan:
The book is a mystery/police procedural set in Long Beach, CA, in 1990, a time when Cambodian refugees were arriving en masse. Some brought their skills at guerrilla warfare, which helped them challenge the established Mexican and Chicano gangs for turf, leading to a decade of gang warfare.
One of these Cambodians is Thavary Keo. She fled the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia when she was a child and was fostered by a social worker and a cop in Long Beach. Now she's twenty-six, a beat cop in a city threatened by the escalating gang war. She’s driven to find out which gang was behind a drive-by shooting that killed an entire family, but she is just a rookie, one of the first hired to diversify the force. She's partnered with the only other LBPD minority officer, Mexican American Carlos Urrieta. They don’t trust each other, but both want to stop the gang war. The book gives each police officer their own perspective.

I was inspired by my experiences making two documentaries in Cambodia in 2004-2010. I was editing in Anaheim, CA, and would sometimes drive to Long Beach to pick up a Khmer interpreter who could help me make sure I didn't cut a bit of Khmer dialogue in the middle of a sentence. My interpreter was a refugee, and I wondered about his life. Thavary is loosely based on the lead figure in my documentaries, although I made the character female. The thematic question I ask about Thavary is, how does a Theravada Buddhist police officer reconcile using a gun as part of her job?
I went to high school in Anaheim for a year. Carlos Urrieta is partly inspired by the Chicano kids at my high school.
QT: How long have you been writing?: Alison McMahan:
I thought I was going to be a surgeon, then changed my mind senior year of high school and majored in drama with a concentration in playwriting. I knew it would mean a life of day jobs and writing, that is, a life of two jobs. It's not a choice for the faint of heart but I don't regret it. Luckily, I don't seem to need a lot of sleep.
QT: How long have you been working on this book?: Alison McMahan:
I started thinking about it while I was in post-production on Bare Hands, Wooden Limbs, the documentary about landmine survivors in Cambodia that was released in 2010 with a voiceover by Sam Waterston. But I wasn't able to really devote myself to the book until Covid and lockdown.
QT: Was there ever a time you felt like giving up, and what helped you to stay on course?: Alison McMahan:
I did give up on writing altogether. I'd had an agent that didn't work out, and then it seemed impossible to find another one. I was raising a couple of foster children and then I got ill. This book and two previous manuscripts had been widely rejected. It seemed better to let it go, to focus on my family, my teaching career, and my health.
Sandy Lu emailed me and asked me if the book was still available just as I was starting radiation treatments. She read the book twice, because I sent her an updated manuscript, each time with very close attention. Her notes were the most insightful I'd ever gotten. She asked me to pitch what the next book in the series would be, and her notes on just the pitch were incredible too. Her belief in the project changed everything. After she signed me she had me do three rewrites, and for the first time ever I felt like I was doing what I was meant to do.
QT: Is this your first book?: Alison McMahan:
I published two non-fiction (academic) books about film with Bloomsbury.
My first novel, a YA historical mystery, was published by a small traditional press that has since gone out of business. It is now out of print, but I plan to self publish it and continue the series.
I've written and published quite a few mystery short stories.
QT: Do you have any formal writing training?: Alison McMahan:
BFA Drama with a concentration in playwriting.
MFA Film Production, which led me to nonfiction filmmaking for many years but also writing screenplays. I took every course available and read every book on screenwriting, and studied hundreds of screenplays, wrote many, had some optioned.
When I retired from film production I decided to focus on fiction writing. I went to the Stonecoast Creative Writing Program at the University of Southern Maine for an MFA. When I realized I preferred writing mysteries I attended all the mystery conferences I would afford to attend: Sleuthfest, the California Crime Writer's Conference, Crimebake, Thrillerfest, etc.
QT: Do you follow a writing routine or schedule?: Alison McMahan:
I get up about 3:30 am, sometimes 2:30 or 4:30 am, and write until it's time to go to work, two to three hours. On weekends I can stretch that to four hours. Every now and then I get a full day to write, which means I get a good night's sleep :-)
QT: How many times did you re-write/edit your book?: Alison McMahan:
I can't count how many. I started with a couple of short stories about Thavary, just to see if there was a readership. Both of those stories did very well, so then I wrote the full manuscript, at least seven drafts before I started showing it to people. After each round of feedback and then each round of rejections I rewrote it again. And Sandy has already had me do three passes. I assume the editor at the publishing house will have me do more.
QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?: Alison McMahan:
Yes, mostly other writers, we read for each other. Then a couple of "test audience" readers and a sensitivity reader.
QT: Did you outline your book, or do you write from the hip?: Alison McMahan:
Plotter all the way. I once heard Jeffrey Deaver say his outlines run 80 pages long. Mine aren't that long, maybe half that. I do outlines and character profiles.
Like my manuscripts, the outline is a living thing. I change it as I go along.
QT: How long have you been querying for this book? Other books?: Alison McMahan:
I started sending partials out to contests and so on in 2017. I worked on other writing projects in between, more short stories, academic articles, work on the sequel for this one, and work on another unrelated novel.
QT: About how many query letters did you send out for this book?: Alison McMahan:
Seven or eight to agents and a few more directly to publishers that accept unagented. I prioritized pitching in person at conferences. I pitched it in person dozens of times.
QT: On what criteria did you select the agents you queried?: Alison McMahan:
I looked at other books written by writers they represent, talked to those writers when I could, to see if what I was offering fit in with their interests. I also looked up what they indicated were their interests in recent interviews, or I listened to them at conferences, their social media, and so on. I also looked for what they didn't have, that is, did they want books in this genre but lack a book with bicultural characters like mine?
QT: Did you tailor each query to the specific agent, and if so, how?: Alison McMahan:
As much as possible, yes. If someone referred me to them, I would start with that. If we had some interest in common, I would mention that.
In this case I just sent the query letter without personalization. I'd queried her with a different project the previous year, so she'd been on my radar as an agent for a long time. I just crossed my fingers that this one would appeal to her.
QT: What advice would you give other writers seeking agents?: Alison McMahan:
Don't give up.
But also, plan to go hybrid. Self-publish or publish things online and use those as a basis to expand your social media profile.
Starting with a good, up-to-date writer website. I let all that slide when I felt like giving up and now I have to scramble to start over with it all. Learn from that!
QT: Would you be willing to share your query with us?: Alison McMahan:
Here it is. This is the letter I sent in 2022. I would say some things differently now. Back in 2022 she read the partial, asked for the full, then I didn't hear from her for months, she got busy with the writers she already represented at the time. I never followed up - I should have. It was an incredible feeling to hear from her nearly two years later!

Success Story Interview - Alison McMahan

Query Letter: