Erin's Third Act
Newsletter (Digital)
I’ve worn many hats: writer, editor, journalist, literary agent. Each role has taught me something different about the power of story, voice, self-perseverance, persistence, community and fostering relationships. And now, in what I’m calling my "third act," I’m embracing a new identity: teacher and communicator.
Substack is where I hope to bring it all together, to share what I’ve learned, what I’m still learning, and to connect with others who care deeply about the written word. I’ll be writing about the publishing industry, the craft of writing, and the books that have shaped my journey. Some I’ve read, others I’ve edited or sold, all of them meaningful in their own way.
This is a mix of personal anecdotes, stories, photos of my garden and travels as well as stories from publishing, writing advice and more. Source
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| Language | English |
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Recent Articles
Search ArticlesThe History of Literary Agents
Literary agents didn’t exist in the dawn of publishing. For years writers could go directly to the publisher and make a deal. Things have changed over the course of the centuries in publishing and going directly to a big five (and a few larger independents) means ending up in the dreaded slush pile. An agent is necessary. However, agents have been under fire lately for various reasons and I’ve read several posts on how we are becoming obsolete. I completely disagree.
Jane Jacobs
We’re rewatching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel again which is a lot of fun. There is a scene where Midge goes to Washington Square Park and finds activist Jane Jacobs holding a rally. It reminded me of Jane Jacobs and her amazing fight to save New York City from urban planners. The character fighting for the park was a real person and she was amazing.
The English Language
I’m taking a break from my usual fare to admire the English language. I’ve been reading quite a few things lately from both sides of the pond, including classics and recently pubbed books. I’ve noticed that words appear in the new works that didn’t even exist a few years (or centuries) ago. I’ve always been fascinated with English, because it’s not static. It’s chaotic and changing before our eyes.
Lynn Margulis
You may not have heard of Lynn Margulis, but you may have studied her discoveries in your biology classes and you most certainly may have heard of her first husband: Carl Sagan. While Sagan was a brilliant astrophysicist known the world over, Margulis was equally as brilliant and one of the most consequential biologist of her time. She was revolutionary in her thoughts, research and discoveries which were not not well received by her peers at the time. However, she was outspoken and determined.
QUERY WORKSHOP
Today I’m focusing on rom-coms for my query workshop. I’m a big, big fan of rom-coms. Love the meet cute, the hijinks, the humor and the romance, of course. This is one of the most popular subsets of the romance genre for both readers and writers which is not a surprise. What is surprising is how hard it is to write a query letter, log line, or synopsis for a rom-com. I’ve seen so many talented writers struggle with a good pitch.
ENID BLYTON
This one is personal. I’ve talked about Enid Blyton and my love of her children’s books a few times here but today I’m focusing on her as a writer. In case you don’t know, I devoured Enid Blyton as a child growing up in the Bahamas. I read her books everywhere, at home, on the beach, in the boat, at school, in the car, it didn’t matter. I had my nose in one of her books constantly.
The $2.5 Million Question
Here is what happened, for anyone who missed the week (although I doubt there are many!). A debut crime novel went to a fourteen-way auction. Fourteen editors, competing hard enough that Minotaur, an imprint of Macmillan, walked away with a two-book deal worth something in the neighborhood of two and a half million dollars.
Anne Desclos
In 1994, an 86-year-old woman sat down with a journalist named John de St. Jorre and admitted something she had spent four decades denying. She was Pauline Réage. She had written Story of O. Her real name was Anne Desclos, though by then most of literary Paris knew her as Dominique Aury, the formidable editor and critic who had spent twenty-five years at the Nouvelle Revue Française, who sat on the jury for the Prix Femina, who had translated Virginia Woolf and T. S.
Subrights Demystified (Part One - Translation)
After reading hundreds of publishing contracts over the course of my career, I can tell you exactly which page most authors stop actually reading. It’s the page with the advance on it. Everything after that, the thirty-odd pages of “throughout the universe, in perpetuity, in all media now known or hereafter devised,” gets the same treatment as a software update agreement: scroll, scroll, click accept, forget it exists. It’s understandable.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
You may have read Charlotte Perkins Gilman in a high school anthology, through a short story about a woman locked in a room with awful wallpaper. It is a good story to be remembered by. It is also a strange kind of trap, because The Yellow Wallpaper has become so completely Gilman’s calling card that almost everything else she wrote, and there was an enormous amount, has been allowed to slide out of print and out of memory.