Success Story Interview - Laura Kohler

An Interview with Laura Kohler (slowlaurus on QT) upon receiving an offer of representation from agent Victoria Doherty-Munro of Writers House.

12/29/2025

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

Laura Kohler:
My querying journey is a little twisty: I queried Victoria with LIVER, a near-future speculative literary story where an autistic MC is forced to choose between love, money, or unmasking. I then received an offer for my speculative rom-com, PRESENT PERFECT, featuring a disaster bisexual who can change her future, but every time she does, she risks losing her present relationship. Victoria kindly switched to reading the rom-com and offered rep.
Both books were inspired by self-discovery, and were written about my feelings about being queer and autistic, respectively.

QT: How long have you been writing?

Laura Kohler:
Since I was a kid! My fifth grade teacher commented on my report card that I wanted to be a writer.

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

Laura Kohler:
About two years per book.

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

Laura Kohler:
Yes. All the time. Querying is hell. But there’s no way forward except through.

QT: Is this your first book?

Laura Kohler:
My second and fourth.

QT: Do you have any formal writing training?

Laura Kohler:
No, but I work as a freelance copy-editor and have training there.

QT: Do you follow a writing routine or schedule?

Laura Kohler:
No. I’m a mom and I write when I can squeeze it in. Often, on my phone on the bus to pick up my kids.

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

Laura Kohler:
Several, after beta feedback, and one R&R for LIVER.

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

Laura Kohler:
I write a few core scenes, so that I have the beginning, middle, and end, and then flesh it out.

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

Laura Kohler:
PRESENT PERFECT I queried very slowly since 2022, and LIVER just since September.

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

Laura Kohler:
Sixty-ish?

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

Laura Kohler:
I used QT to find a list of agents who wanted rom-coms/literary and then looked at their profiles on agency websites and MSWL to determine if they were a good fit.

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

Laura Kohler:
Find a supportive writing group of people also querying. Don’t go at it alone!

Query Letter:

Dear Victoria Doherty-Munro,

I’m pleased to present my adult contemporary rom-com, PRESENT PERFECT. An authentic take on what it means to be a bi woman in a relationship with a man, it’s loosely based on my own experiences.

“To give herself the perfect present, Iris must fix her past.”

Iris Adams keeps waking up in her past—her third birthday, a shitty date she went on in college, those nine months she was in utero. It’s her own fault for agreeing to take part in that stupid time travel experiment, but the Institute offered an incentive perennially broke Iris couldn’t refuse: cold hard cash. Only now, the decisions she makes in the past are affecting her present, and she has no idea how to control it. It’s not all bad, though: she’s got a kickass new wardrobe, her mom’s more accepting of her disaster bisexual “lifestyle choices”—insert eye roll—and she’s somehow acquired friends. Good ones.

The hazards of her time-hopping become clear when a change in the past almost kills her. She’s saved by Josh, a handsome, funny stranger who doesn’t belong in her past—but then, neither did nearly dying. He turns up again in her present, older but even hotter, and they reconnect for the most memorable date of her life, complete with stolen kisses during a wild, action-movie-style shootout. Smitten by his cool confidence and over-the-top good looks, she willfully ignores signs he’s harboring a dangerous secret about why they keep meeting.

But now that she has the present she wants—her friends, her generous salary, and, vitally, the man of her dreams—every dip into the past risks a change that would mean waking up to a future without Josh. As she unravels the mystery of his past and his connection to her, their bond grows stronger than she ever imagined. To hold onto the one person she never knew she needed, but now can’t live without, Iris will have to make one final trip into the past—to ensure this present is the one that sticks.

PRESENT PERFECT is a 77,000-word contemporary romantic comedy with a speculative twist. It combines the unabashedly queer, voicey timey-wimeyness of Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop, the celebration of bisexuality and interracial relationships of Talia Hibbert’s Take a Hint, Dani Brown, and the exploration of the effects of time travel on relationship dynamics of Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, and will appeal to fans of quirky queer romances.