NOTE: This post is a condensed version of a
post originally published as a guest column on Chuck
Sambuchino’s Writer’s Digest blog
March 4, 2016.
By Janet Fisher
When I packed my bags and
drove to the 2012 Pacific Northwest Writers Association Conference in Seattle to
find an agent, I had been trying to get published for 33 years. During that
time I wrote 19 books. Over the first half of that period, four agents
represented me without success. For the second half I wandered in a wilderness
of rejections and bursts of hope. I kept writing books, honing my skills, trying
to find another agent.
My 18th book was a PNWA
literary contest finalist in 2004, my second contest finalist in two
consecutive years. I received lots of rave rejects but still no agent. My
optimism took a blow.
In 2006 my dad died, and I chose
to keep the family farm. Caught up in the turmoil of losing my father and
taking on his farm, I began to think I could quietly let the writing go. I
wouldn’t admit I was quitting. But who would even notice?
Then I became intrigued with
the fact that my great-great-grandmother came west over the Oregon Trail and
purchased this farm after her husband died. I decided to try one more book and write
her story.
I arrived at that 2012 PNWA
conference ready to pitch that book, but dreaded stepping into the crowded room
where authors would line up for their pitches. Agents and editors sat behind a
long table, each with a chair opposite for the person pitching. We had three
minutes—one minute to pitch, two minutes for conversation.
My book was nonfiction, but
most of my still-viable work was historical fiction. So I selected agents and
editors who accepted both.
It all went so efficiently I
pitched everyone on my list and still had time. As I pondered what to do next,
I saw New York agent Rita Rosenkranz at the long table. I had seen her at PNWA
conferences before and liked her, but she only accepted nonfiction.
It occurred to me that what I had this day
was nonfiction. I whispered to myself, “I need something—now. I can deal with
the fiction later.” I walked over to Rita’s line. After I gave my pitch, she asked
me to send her a proposal and three sample chapters.
I got seven requests for material that
day, but as the responses trickled in, only one came back with an offer of
representation. Rita Rosenkranz. In less than a year she cut a deal for my book
with Globe Pequot Press/TwoDot imprint. A
Place of Her Own was released in
2014.
But what about the fiction?
Would Rita send me back out to the wilderness again? She not only accepted the
fiction, she was delighted to represent it.
So now my historical novel, The Shifting Winds, is out. Same
editor. Same house. Same pioneer era as the first. Although the main characters
are fictional, a lot of real history wraps around their story.
My own story doesn’t end there. Rita is
shopping more books for me. More historical novels. All this, because I didn’t
give up, because I dared to walk into that dreaded pitching session—and because
of a moment’s decision in a crowded room.
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Janet Fisher’s love of history and
storytelling developed early when she heard
