Dashboard Literary Agents Success Story Interviews M.Ruth

Success Story Interview - M.Ruth

An Interview with M.Ruth (M_Ruth on QT) upon receiving an offer of representation from agent Jillian Schelzi of HG Literary.

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?: M.Ruth:
In the Age of Stillborns, no baby has been born alive for eighteen years. A young woman with a dangerous secret becomes the most hunted person in the world when she helps deliver a living newborn and is forced to flee across Canada with the baby and Everett “Rhett” Mason, the son of Stillborn Affair’s most powerful man.

SPUN is a speculative romance with crossover readership appeal, and my debut novel. It was inspired by my own fertility struggles and by a growing desire to bring tenderness and visibility to forms of reproductive grief and hope.
QT: How long have you been working on this book?: M.Ruth:
I originally had the idea for SPUN sometime during my undergraduate degree. Almost five years later, while packing to move into my first home, I found a rough outline and a few handwritten chapters in a notebook alongside old class notes. I copied everything into a Google document and started writing whenever I needed a break from “real life.” Soon, though, SPUN had completely consumed me and became what I defined as such!
QT: Was there ever a time you felt like giving up, and what helped you to stay on course?: M.Ruth:
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” – Anaïs Nin

This quote carried me through the querying process. For me, the hardest part was not writing SPUN - it was sharing it. In the beginning, I told myself it was simply a hobby project and a form of personal healing that would never see the light of publication. I would not even let my sister, the most supportive bean in the world, read my drafts.

But as I fell more deeply in love with the characters and ironed the themes of the novel, I started to feel I would be doing Chloe, Rhett, and potential readers a disservice by keeping it hidden and began slowly sharing it with betas. That said, every full manuscript request was still met with a mild out-of-body experience. I started jogging at odd hours so there would be fewer people around when the urge to scream suddenly hit me and it did, often!
QT: Is this your first book?: M.Ruth:
Yes, but most definitely not my last!
QT: Do you have any formal writing training?: M.Ruth:
Not in the fiction space! I have been writing professionally and academically in the environmental education and conservation communication sphere for almost a decade, which definitely helped me develop discipline and editing skills, but SPUN was my first real dive into fiction!
QT: Do you follow a writing routine or schedule?: M.Ruth:
I wish I could say I had a beautifully organized writing routine, but when I was drafting SPUN, I just wrote whenever I had a spare moment to do so. That often meant typing for fifteen hours straight on the weekends, waking up before daybreak to squeeze in half a chapter before work, and forgoing a lot of proper meals for one-handed snacks! Other times it meant jotting dialogue into my phone notes while jogging, sneaking into the bathroom at my favourite Irish Pub to work in a key detail, or leaving mid-way through visits with friends and family to make a break for my laptop (big thanks to Keke, who unwittingly inspired the Richard POV chapters, and sorry to Dee for the quick exit thereafter, I think you’d just made me a coffee).
QT: How many times did you re-write/edit your book?: M.Ruth:
I did five or six major rounds of revision where I looked at the manuscript as a whole, including a fairly massive overhaul after Jillian’s first read. On a chapter-by-chapter basis, dozens upon dozens of times. By the end, some chapters barely resembled their original versions anymore (and some I had cut completely)! Historically, it is the editing and cutting that has always come hardest to me in non-fiction writing but I found it surprisingly enjoyable with SPUN.
QT: Did you outline your book, or do you write from the hip?: M.Ruth:
I started with the outline for SPUN as a standalone novel that I’d drafted in that old notebook, but by the end I was very much writing by the hip (which I did not expect from myself, I am normally a planner)!

Details emerged; plot points I didn’t know were in my mind until they were on my page became prevalent. I can actually remember the exact moment (it was almost 2 AM on a work night - oops!), when I got to a major climax point and realized the book was ending there, and that there were two more to come. I started a second Google Doc titled something along the lines of “second and third book wtf” and don’t think I got much sleep at all that night!

I had always heard writers say that books “write themselves” to a certain degree and that characters make their own choices, but I never fully understood this until it happened to me. Suddenly the story was heading somewhere I had not originally planned (into a trilogy, at that), but it felt so right!
QT: How long have you been querying for this book? Other books?: M.Ruth:
I know I was incredibly fortunate in the querying process! Jillian was one of the agents I queried in my first round, and I was only querying for about a month before receiving her offer of representation.
QT: On what criteria did you select the agents you queried?: M.Ruth:
I looked for agents who seemed enthusiastic about other books in my genre and open to manuscripts for my target audience (Upper YA/New Adult). I also paid close attention to each agent’s career progression, age, location, and even personal anecdotes from their bios, because if I was going to do this, I wanted to find an agent I would mesh with on a personal level and for the long term!
QT: Did you tailor each query to the specific agent, and if so, how?: M.Ruth:
Definitely. I read each agent’s website bios, interviews, and #MSWL carefully, and tried to reference aspects of their personal and professional interests that were genuinely connected to SPUN. I wanted my queries to feel personal, as I wanted them to connect with ME, not just my story.
QT: What advice would you give other writers seeking agents?: M.Ruth:
The advice I would give is somewhat counter-intuitive to what worked for me which I think goes to show the convoluted nature of querying!

If it's your first time querying, I might suggest starting with agents who are good fits rather than immediately querying your absolute dream agents (while still respecting genre and wishlist compatibility, of course). Looking back, even a few weeks after sending my first queries (to my subjectively top agents), there was so much I would have changed about my letter and approach.

Ironically, though, Jillian was the fifth agent I queried, and she requested my full manuscript before I had even fully revised my original package (A.K.A before rejections started rolling in). My second piece of advice stems from this, which is to query in small batches. It gives you the chance to refine, but it also makes the logistics much easier if you receive an offer. By the time I met with Jillian, I had three full requests and about twenty unopened queries still out. Keeping track of nudges, deadlines, and withdrawals was time-consuming.

I also noticed, in hindsight, that I had the best response rates from newer agents and agents who had recently reopened to submissions.

Success Story Interview - M.Ruth

Query Letter: