Dashboard Literary Agents Success Story Interviews April McCloud

Success Story Interview - April McCloud

An Interview with April McCloud (dragon7669 on QT) upon receiving an offer of representation from agent Marisa Corvisiero of Corvisiero Literary Agency.

05/23/2024

QT: Can you tell us a little bit about the book for which you've found representation? What inspired you to write it?: April McCloud:
Death by Doorbell is an own voices work about a young girl whose dreams for the future are derailed once she's diagnosed with a rare, congenital--and potentially fatal--heart disease. This is based on my own trials with my heart condition LQTS2, which dragged me into the world of being Totally and Permanently Disabled. I wanted to write it because, as a librarian and educator, I know how rare it is to find books that depict young people who are very ill. Heart disease in assigned female at birth/femme-presenting people is also a very small minority, that tends to be a bit taboo and uncomfortable when it comes up in conversation. My hope with this work was to face the stigma head on by having a protagonist who learns to love her body and journey, in the end.
QT: How long have you been writing?: April McCloud:
Ever since I was a teenager. I started by writing down the adventures that had occurred in games of D&D I'd role played--eventually, I got to the end of those stories and had to start creating my own. That was when I started to believe I could actually be a "real" writer.
QT: How long have you been working on this book?: April McCloud:
I set up the structure and drafted the book pretty quickly, probably in a couple months. Then I brought in a chapter a week to my writing group, for feedback and began going through it to look for opportunities to develop it further.
QT: Was there ever a time you felt like giving up, and what helped you to stay on course?: April McCloud:
I had honestly given up on publishing. I would go through fits and starts with querying for years (probably more than a decade?), but would stop when I felt I needed to protect my writer's soul. Meeting my best friend and writing partner helped me to change my thinking about publishing. We started putting out tons of queries for novels and Submittables for shorts, focusing on getting a high enough volume that no particular rejection felt personal or was even that memorable--this was how my debut got chosen by Rebel Satori Press, actually. I had put it through on Submittable as an unagented submission and promptly forgot about it. I was totally caught off guard when the offer for it came through. My querying was a bit of a different story, however (see later answer).
QT: Is this your first book?: April McCloud:
Not even close. My first books were the equivalent of training wheels--I was learning how to play with craft and I eventually rewrote that first book; starting it over from scratch was the best thing I did. I learned so much from that. I became a much stronger writer and then started other books where I'd test out specific aspects of craft, such as different POVs, story structures, tenses... Death by Doorbell probably falls somewhere around the 10th book I've written, give or take. Bonus is I now that I have an agent, she has a list of books that she can sell, rather than just one.
QT: Do you have any formal writing training?: April McCloud:
Yes, though it's recent that I've been engaging in deep craft study. I was formerly just writing and reading craft books on my own, and took a couple one off creative writing classes. As I'm writing this, I'm in Iowa City taking a summer session of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. It has been positively transformative. I was also selected for a week-long workshop at Yale, which takes place in June. I started an MA in English with a focus on creative writing last year, but have not gotten very far into the program, due to costs.
QT: How many times did you re-write/edit your book?: April McCloud:
This book was very straightforward but I went in with a very well defined structure, plot, and character arc. Taking it through my writing group, it was mostly about tweaking the scenes to make the emotional resonance stronger.
QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?: April McCloud:
I have an alpha reader who I bounce ideas off and my writing group acts as a chapter by chapter beta read. After that I sometimes find betas with fresh eyes who do a fast read, but with specific "fast read" questions posed up front. I find that asking your readers to focus their feedback with intentionality gets much better results.
QT: Did you outline your book, or do you write from the hip?: April McCloud:
Save the cat beat sheet, all the way!
QT: How long have you been querying for this book? Other books?: April McCloud:
Over a decade, on and off.
QT: About how many query letters did you send out for this book?: April McCloud:
This book is an outlier because I was not actually actively querying it. I'd been querying my debut novel before it was picked up by an indie press. Knowing it was coming out soon, I'd put querying on the back burner. But my writing partner convinced me to participate in an informal pitch party, saying it was low stakes because agents weren't likely to attend. However, my mood board and pitches for two of my books were liked by my future agent, Ciara, so I sent her a query.
QT: On what criteria did you select the agents you queried?: April McCloud:
My dream for an agent/agency (that I didn't even realize I had) was to find someone deeply invested in repping marginalized voices. I knew Ciara was a new agent and I was hesitant because I didn't have any marketing knowledge to bring to the table--I didn't know if it was a great idea for someone like me to have an agent that was also learning. However, Ciara put up a post on Twitter about her vision for equity in publishing and her commitment to finding marginalized voices to represent. I was really moved by the sentiment and felt confident that I wanted to be with Ciara, and CLA since they had hired and promoted someone like Ciara. In terms of transparency and communication, I have also landed a dream agent, because Ciara is incredibly open to talking about all aspects of the industry as well as career and manuscript development.
QT: What advice would you give other writers seeking agents?: April McCloud:
Keep writing and do whatever you need to protect your writer's soul.

Success Story Interview - April McCloud

Query Letter: