Dashboard Literary Agents Success Story Interviews Danielle Barr

Success Story Interview - Danielle Barr

An Interview with Danielle Barr (Ddbarr on QT) upon receiving an offer of representation from agent Iris Blasi of Arc Literary Management.

04/21/2025

QT: Can you tell us a little bit about the book for which you've found representation? What inspired you to write it?: Danielle Barr:
NOTHINGBERGERS is a dual timeline, dual POV literary family saga that explores generational trauma, set in rural Appalachia. It follows Cletus, a sex worker floundering in her small hometown after her mother's mysterious suicide, and Law, a teenager plucked from obscurity to become an outlaw country superstar in the nationalist rennaisance that followed 9/11. The concept grew out of the first line, which I wrote in my Notes app and became so smitten with I constructed a whole plot around. I was interested in writing something super voicey and true to my experience of living in Appalachia- that is to say, that doesn't shy away from its eccentricities and problems, but also doesn't Other it, with the entire world outside of that region being "right" or "normal", and only the backwoods being "backward".
QT: How long have you been writing?: Danielle Barr:
My entire life, but with big breaks. Living abroad in my early twenties, I did some travel writing, and rode the first wave of mommy bloggers to some success, but had given up writing fiction when my first child was born in 2015. After my fourth child was born in 2023, I decided I was still years away from the baby being old enough for me to "have time", so my only option was to just start writing again regardless. I started with short stories and experienced a few contest wins and publications in quick enough succession that I got hooked- and the rest, as they say, is history.
QT: How long have you been working on this book?: Danielle Barr:
I wrote the first chapter in an afternoon in July 2024, and then set it aside while I unraveled where the story was going to go mentally. Finally, in September, in something of a fever dream, everything boiled over and I wrote the entirety of the rest of the manuscript. I was completely exhausted by the end of the month, but NOTHINGBERGERS was complete.
QT: Was there ever a time you felt like giving up, and what helped you to stay on course?: Danielle Barr:
Absolutely. My first novel got somewhere around 8 full requests, and I learned from that experience that the number of requests doesn't necessarily correlate to success. So even when NOTHINGBERGERS started to rack up requests- my very first query response for this manuscript was a full, and ultimately I ended up with 20+ requests- I had already started preparing myself that they could all go nowhere. All of the agents who requested additional pages from me were so wonderful and generous with their feedback, but as I noticed there wasn't a common thread in the rejections, I felt a little lost.
It was really a matter of waiting for the person who saw the heart of what I was trying to do and loved it as enthusiastically as I did. When I met my agent and heard her talk about NOTHINGBERGERS, I knew I never could have been happy with a representative who didn't feel about my work the way she does.
QT: Is this your first book?: Danielle Barr:
It's my second. My first, MOON PEOPLE, is much quieter literary fiction about the family left behind when a NASA mission goes wrong and their astronaut father is left to die on the moon. I've learned and grown so much as a writer just in the year since I wrote it that I can clearly see a whole host of revisions it needs, but I'm still hopeful that one day it will be the right time for my sad girl space novel.
QT: Do you have any formal writing training?: Danielle Barr:
I won a writing contest on Reedsy, the prize for which included tuition to Tom Bromley's Reedsy novel writing course. To be honest, I almost didn't even take the course because I wasn't sure I had a story big enough for a novel inside me! I made myself complete the course, and 90 days later, MOON PEOPLE was written. That course is the only training I have, aside from all of the papers I wrote in undergrad and my (unrelated) master's program.
QT: Do you follow a writing routine or schedule?: Danielle Barr:
I have four kids, the oldest being nine and the youngest one while I wrote this book, so writing happened whenever I could snatch moments away. I also don't write well when I'm forcing it, so I tend to only do it when inspiration strikes. I incubate ideas for a long while, writing sentences I like the sound of here and there or jotting down notes for details I want to include, scenes that I think could be good, until it all builds to a fever pitch in my head and I have to put it into the story. Generally when I'm deep into a manuscript I shoot for 1,000 words a day- a holdover from the Reedsy course word count goals- but aside from that I can go long stretches of time writing nothing. There were four months in between finishing my first novel and starting my second that I didn't write a word, and I've only written two short stories since finishing NOTHINGBERGERS in September. But my next novel is in its infancy in my brain, so it's only a matter of time until it bubbles over- hopefully once NOTHINGBERGERS goes on submission!
QT: How many times did you re-write/edit your book?: Danielle Barr:
Only once. I write sentences in my head, usually while I'm driving or doing chores, and tweak them until I think they're perfect- and I only know when I've reached that point because I get very nervous then about forgetting the exact sequence of words that I have to pull over and write them out. Then, things snowball pretty quickly and there will be a chain reaction of a few pages of supporting sentences conceived in much the same way, and then silence until the process repeats itself for whatever comes next (because of this, it's fair to say much of NOTHINGBERGERS was written while I was pulled over in a parking lot or on the side of some very rural road in a bit of a panic). Because I edit so thoroughly in my head before I commit words to paper, once they make it into the document they're pretty much how I want them and close to their final form. I'm working on a few minor revisions for my agent now, but on a line level, there's not much that will be changed.
QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?: Danielle Barr:
I didn't. For my first novel, I hired a wonderful developmental editor, Dana Boyer, who gave me some really great feedback, and even though she didn't review my second novel, I kept her advice close throughout writing NOTHINGBERGERS and made sure I hadn't fallen into any of the same pitfalls. And it was some of the places I had paid particular attention to her notes on my writing that agents noticed and commented on.
QT: Did you outline your book, or do you write from the hip?: Danielle Barr:
It wasn't until the book was nearing completion that I started plugging scenes into an outline to make sure all the puzzle pieces fit together correctly. Before that, I just threw scenes that I thought developed the themes and characters and moved toward the ending- or that I thought were absurd and arresting- I had in mind into the document.
QT: How long have you been querying for this book? Other books?: Danielle Barr:
I finished my first novel on April 4, 2024 and started querying that May. I started querying NOTHINGBERGERS at the end of September 2024. I signed with my agent on April 4, 2025- exactly one year after writing THE END for the first time.
QT: On what criteria did you select the agents you queried?: Danielle Barr:
I included agents looking for literary, upmarket, and book club fiction, as well as family sagas. What I ultimately found, however, was that while I got a lot of requests from agents seeking upmarket, it was apparent early on that it was the literary fiction agents I was making the most progress with, and this pattern helped me further refine my list. Also, for this manuscript, it wasn't just finding agents who were open and looking for literary fiction, but paying particular attention to anti-MSWLs from Manuscript Wishlist/their social media in order to be respectful of agents' boundaries, because there's a decent amount of potential triggers in NOTHINGBERGERS.
QT: Did you tailor each query to the specific agent, and if so, how?: Danielle Barr:
No, with one notable exception: if I had queried the agent with my first book and received a request or a personalized rejection, I made sure to reference that and what I learned/improved on in this manuscript based on their feedback. It's amazing how many made requests with notes along the lines of "I'm so happy to hear from you again!"
QT: What advice would you give other writers seeking agents?: Danielle Barr:
I was significantly more assertive querying my second manuscript, and it paid off. When an excerpt from NOTHINGBERGERS earned third place in the Leopold Bloom Prize for Innovative Narration, I nudged everyone who hadn't rejected me yet- even those whose "if you haven't heard back in x weeks, it's a pass" timelines has elapsed. Funny enough, it was those agents who I should have already considered a pass who ended up being much more likely to offer. Agents get busy and fall behind just like anyone. So, I wasn't shy about sending nudges when I had news to share.

Success Story Interview - Danielle Barr

Query Letter: