Nathan Bransford at Books Inc.

Nathan Bransford, Nathan’s blogging robot and Melissa Manlove

If you’ve Googled anything about publishing/querying/agents ever, you will have no doubt stumbled upon Nathan Bransford’s blog. He is an agent with Curtis Brown and is known around the blogosphere for his witty, insightful and enjoyable posts. I’ll be the first to say that he puts many agent blogs to shame, including this one.

His Blogger-powered treasure trove is bursting with insights for unpublished writers, and his comprehensive FAQ sections answers 99.99% of questions that most fledgling writers ask agents over and over and over. I’m unashamed to say that I refer people to it often. If you’re just getting into publishing and are working hard to inform yourself, make sure to stop by.

It’s no wonder, then, that Nathan’s Books Inc. event this past weekend — Secrets of a Literary Agent — was packed with eager writers of all stripes, from first-time novelists to the already-agented and published. The guest of honor spoke about query letters, held a contest for queries written on the fly and led a very cool agent/editor panel with special guests Jennifer Laughran, my co-worker at Andrea Brown, and Melissa Manlove, associate editor at Chronicle Books.

I won’t go into too much of what was said here because I want to use some of the questions raised and answered as fodder for future posts (posts I’ll write in a futile effort to bulk up my own blog), but it is safe to say that if you ever have a chance to do a workshop with Nathan, he’s really a joy and an asset to the blogging and agent communities. Other than that, it was great to meet with and field questions from writers. A lovely event overall.

If you are local, do check out other WordPlay programs, like this one, at Books Inc. locations. They are a fascinating opportunity to have an in-depth peek at various aspects of publishing. The next event is a workshop with adult author Barry Eisler called The Art of the Thriller! Check out the WordPlay page by clicking here.

In response to a request for their most serious “publishing face.” Nathan rose to the occasion while Melissa, well… Let’s just say Melissa’s serious “publishing face” needs some serious revision.

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