Success Story Interview - Angela (Angie) Keith

An Interview with Angela (Angie) Keith (AngK1231 on QT) upon receiving an offer of representation from agent Chris Kepner of The Kepner Agency.

05/26/2026

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

Angela (Angie) Keith:
I sure can! The book is about two sisters in a rural Maine town who commit a murder in the 1940s and cover it up for the next 50-plus years. The story opens with them as old women and works backward, flashing back and forth in time until the major reveal at the end. Fifteen years ago, I once lived in that rural Maine town, and driving around one day with my former husband, we came across a beautiful old farmhouse sitting on a hill, and I asked him about it. He said that the two "girls" who lived there were in their late 80s, had never married or left the town, and were confied to one room of the house because of water damage. With that little spark, I latched onto the house and the idea of two sisters hiding themselves away, and ran with it! To be clear, the sisters who lived in the house I was inspired by were *not* murderers or criminals of any kind! They both passed away many years ago and, sadly, the house has also been torn down.

QT: How long have you been writing?

Angela (Angie) Keith:
Since I could pick up a pencil, as my grandmother liked to say. I have a very vivid memory of checking out a book in the library where I went to kindergarten and wanting to write stories that other people could check out in a book. Over the years, I've written steadily--stories, funny poems, children's books for friends, and, at long last, finished this novel.

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

Angela (Angie) Keith:
The idea came about fifteen years ago, and I toiled away on it here and there, starting and stopping, while working full-time and being a mom. I made concentrated effort three years ago to finish it.

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

Angela (Angie) Keith:
Oh, I've lost count of how many times I felt like giving up! Life happens--marriage, divorce, children, loss, grief, health problems--so many things can deter you, either for a year, a decade, or permanently--and that's all before you start querying! However, I've been gifted a very stubborn personality by the amazing women in my family, and I think that helped me never really give up on the novel, or on myself. The characters also never stopped banging around in my head, so it was either finish the book or schedule a lobotmy. ;)

QT: Is this your first book?

Angela (Angie) Keith:
My first *completed* book, yes! I have a handful of others started/drafted/outlined.

QT: Do you have any formal writing training?

Angela (Angie) Keith:
I do not. I've just always been a tenacious, scribbly little bookworm with a dream.

QT: Do you follow a writing routine or schedule?

Angela (Angie) Keith:
At this point, I'm still working full-time, so I write whenever I have a spare hour. Lunchtime at work, after my daughter has gone to bed, weekends, really whenever I can get a chance. I would love to have a set schedule, however. And some peace and quiet in which to implement it!

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

Angela (Angie) Keith:
HAH! Hang on, let me take off my shoe to keep counting...Just kidding. The draft I finally got a yes on was my fifth. After my third draft on my own, I got a rejection from an agent on word count, and I was just unable to cut it down myself, so I found a wonderful editor and we made two passes at the darn thing. I only kicked and screamed a little bit...

QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?

Angela (Angie) Keith:
*So many* amazing friends, family members, and random acquaintances took up the laboring oar on the SS Beta Reader, and I am so very grateful for each and every one of them!

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

Angela (Angie) Keith:
I definitely outlined, I needed to have a plan of where I was going. That being said, sometimes while I was writing, the story had other ideas and a great many paths diverged in the wood!

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

Angela (Angie) Keith:
I started querying two years ago, before I learned that word count was actually *really* important and I needed to do some major weeding on my manuscript! After hiring an editor and working dilligently on edits last year, I started querying again in January of this year.

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

Angela (Angie) Keith:
Many, many more than I was anticipating! Over 50, mostly because I had zero idea of what I was doing when I started. Along with the drafts of the manuscript, I also redrafted my query letter, but only twice.

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

Angela (Angie) Keith:
The QueryTracker site was so helpful--I would start searching by genre, and location (for example, historical fiction and US agents), and then look at websites to confirm or determine whether it was a match.

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

Angela (Angie) Keith:
Yes, maybe too much so at times, because I think my queries would get a little long--I'm nothing if not wordy, as clearly evidenced by this interview! I scoured agency websites, MS Wishlist, podcast interviews, social media, anything I could find to show the agent that I did the work and my book was in their wheelhouse. I was including stuff like sports team chatter and favorite road trip snacks--who knows what actually made it through, but it made me feel as though I did the best due diligence I could.

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

Angela (Angie) Keith:
Do. Not. Give. Up. Bang your head against the wall in frustration, complain to your therapist, or go to one of those axe-throwing places if you need to, but don't give up. Really research who's looking for what and be honest with yourself about what YOU are offering, and try not to take it personally when the fit looks perfect and they still say it's not right for their list (I would also suggest a stress ball for those responses). It will likely take longer than you would prefer, but eventually you will find your person. And, truly, use Query Tracker to the fullest extent you can--if you can afford the paid subscription, do it. There is so much helpful information that you will undoubtedly obsess over, but it's something to occupy yourself with during all the waiting. And there is so very much waiting.

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

Angela (Angie) Keith:
Absolutely!

Query Letter:

During a furious nor'easter in 1948, Evie and Dillie Watson shot a man and dumped his body into the raging Androscoggin River and then hid themselves away to protect their secret. Fifty-two years later, the now-elderly twins are the "town spooks" in their self-imposed exile, confined to a single room in their dilapidated hilltop farmhouse in rural Maine. Prickly Evie distrusts the world beyond their warped porch as she cares for sweet Dillie, bedridden and in the early stages of dementia.

But one winter afternoon, the notes of an old, familiar melody propel Evie into remembering people and places she's pretended for years to forget, and she is forced to confront the decades of events that led to the precarious conditions of her sister and their home. A few miles away, an irritable widower faces his own reckoning when his grandson is hired to fix the roof for the pair of spinsters who live on Watson Hill. Their lost lives converge, and long-buried secrets are revealed, pitching toward the determined act of retribution that turned the twins into recluses and the subject of schoolyard myth.

Told in dual narrative, my debut historical/upmarket novel THE WATSON GIRLS combines the evocative period setting of a PBS Masterpiece series with the commercial appeal of Taylor Jenkins Reid. The manuscript is complete at 104,000 words and has been professionally edited. I found the Kepner Agency in a QueryTracker search and am querying you because you like discovering new authors, and even though I worship at St. Fenway’s Cathedral and the Church of Our Lady at Foxboro, I firmly believe that Josh Allen has been absolutely robbed of a Superbowl more times than is fair. (Sorry about that Denver game, it was brutal.)

In 2018 and 2019, I published several biographical sketches of early Maine suffragists for the National Women's History Project/National American Woman Suffrage Association. When I'm not grumbling about the Red Sox or finding different ways to be a history nerd, I work as judicial assistant to the Chief Judge of the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maine. I was lucky enough to beat kidney cancer last year, and I also have a pre-teen daughter and a miniature husky at home, but only one of them actually listens to me.

Thank you very much for your time!