Falkin Literary
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Literary agent, Mark Falkin: Licensed in Texas, I’ve practiced entertainment and intellectual property law for 17 years, representing hundreds of artists (a platinum seller and Grammy® winners among them), entrepreneurs and businesses, shopping artistic projects, drafting and negotiating entertainment contracts, securing trademarks and copyrights, licensing and selling intellectual properties, establishing businesses, litigating disputes. I’ve completed 3 novels (and a chapbook of poems), with two more in rough draft stages. One, literary, is long, self-published and well-reviewed (Days of Grace). Another, an upmarket supernatural thriller, earned an agent at a venerable NYC agency (Howard Morhaim). The most recent is a near-future suspense tale called Contract City, published in hardcover by longstanding Baltimore indie Bancroft Press and in screen development with a production company in Los Angeles. My next novel, a literary apocalyptic story, The Late Bloomer, will publish Fall 2018 with Rare Bird Books imprint California Coldblood. And then there’s the ongoing and continual What I’m Working On Now.
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Your submission letter is a marvel |
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What I'm Looking ForActively building my client list, I’m looking for fiction, namely, novels with a literary bent in these general categories (in no order of preference): suspense; thriller; horror; dystopian; offbeat and quirky; humorous; YA (literary; realism; smart horror); smart, upmarket commercial "women's fiction"; and the catchall, that ineffable one called Literary.
You get the idea: whip-smart, fresh, commercial genre fiction, literary fiction, genre-bending or genre-blending. Full-voiced, dark, captivating, laugh-out-loud, unapologetic, transgressive. I want kinetic stories that gratify the Wernicke’s Area. If you’re, say, a Chuck Palahniuk, if you’re a Stephen King (or, hell, if you’re Joe Hill), if you’re Joyce Carol Oates, if you’re Stewart O’Nan, if you’re Daniel Woodrell, if you’re David Sedaris or Mamet, if you’re Bret Ellis, if you're Stephen Crane or Ambrose Bierce, if you're Douglas Coupland, if you’re later-day William Gibson, if you’re Annie Proulx, if you're Mark Danielewski, if you’re Ken Kesey, if you're Dave Eggers, if you're Junot Diaz, if you're Gillian Flynn, if you're a Katherine Dunn or a Karen Russell, if you're a Ben Fountain or a Merritt Tierce, well sir, you're just what I’m looking for. I’m looking for compelling, well-plotted, well-paced stories first, gosh-wow blank verse belletristic prose second. I simply want, as any reader would, a great story well-told. I'm keeping my eye out for more great stories written for men and boys. Where's the "important" accessible literary novel guys talk up to other guys because it's just that good? Really wanting to see standout comedy fiction. Madcap, screwball, buddy, whatever. Election, Where'd You Go, Bernadette, The Complete Works of David Sedaris. Birdcage-as-novel. The Hangover-as-novel. The Big Lebowski-as-novel with woman-as-The Dude. Really wanting to see horror like we've never seen that is so original and so well-written containing such narrative force that it changes the genre the way The Lottery did, the way Psycho did, the way Carrie did, the way Jaws did, the way Barker did, the way House of Leaves did. |
What I'm Not Looking ForNonfiction (generally speaking; if you've got a serious platform, I'd certainly like to see); Genre romance, erotica, sci-fi/fantasy, graphic novels, religious, big 'ol Epics, Clancy-esque terrorism plots, zombies, vampires, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it; Too-clever, Po-Mo, gimmicks, style-over-substance, books solely of the mind (those of you who think you're Pynchon, Vollmann or DeLillo: news item for you: you're not), books that sound written and not told, books written solely to impress your MFA class and arch literati who won't deign to entertain. I want the heart involved, an unputdownable, honest, resonant book that leaves a residue on me.
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SubmissionsE-mail your query plus two chapters (in the body of the e-mail, please) to:
mark.falkin [at] gmail.com Coda :: I do not care that you have no advanced arts degree. I do not care that this is your first book. I do care that it is finished, is as good as it can be and that you’re not living in denial: you’ve got chops and you know it, and it’s on display in this manuscript. Writer to writer: Make me jealous. Make me uneasy with envy. School me. Make me say, “Man, I wish I’d written that, could do that.” If you can't already tell by the whiz-bang web presence you are now experiencing, I do not care that you lack social media presence, feeling that writers ought to, you know, write, rather than tweet, facebook, blog, text, play around with technology instead of actually creating meaningful, toothsome composition. Does author and social commentator Sarah Vowell tweet or blog? No, she does not. Johnathan Franzen? Huh-uh. Brett Ellis? Now, that's another story. But he's . . . Bret Ellis. Are you Bret Ellis*? As a writer, I feel your pain. This business of getting an agent, of getting published, is a slog. I got my first agent doing exactly what you're doing now: researching viable agents and cold querying. Thus, I’ll try my best to get to your work soon. I try to respond, but sometimes I don't. And though I'm not trying to be one these power-tripping, snarky agents, no response means no, okay? There's just only so much time. The stuff I'm interested in leaps out at me. Good luck, and keep writing! *see above under What I'm Looking For |
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News, Clients, Bits & Bobs
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"Ghosts of Bergen County is a tough, compassionate book by a writer with a keen sense of what makes us human, and what makes us, at times, wish we weren't. As a novel, it's excellent; as a meditation on grief, it's stunningly perceptive."
Review of client Dana Cann's GHOSTS OF BERGEN COUNTY (Tin House) from NPR Books
Congratulations to client Louisa Luna on the sale of her new novel, TWO GIRLS DOWN, to Knopf Doubleday. Looking forward to further assisting and working this book up on to the world's shelves. William Vollmann says Louisa is "a real storyteller." Falkin Literary says an emphatic: "ditto." January 2018 we'll see TWO GIRLS DOWN on the shelves next to Brave New Girl and Crooked (Simon & Schuster).
Falkin Literary is pleased to be working with anti-hate activist, filmmaker, and memoirist Christian Picciolini. To help his book reach a wider audience, yes, but more so: to be joining his movement. Look out for his memoir Romantic Violence. Check out what he's doing to help win hearts and minds away from hate through hard won experience: Christian Picciolini
Happy to announce two new clients, both with work from the realm of nonfiction: Austin musician of renown, Jon Dee Graham, and New Zealand artist and designer, David Trubridge. Soon Jon’s bears and David’s ideas will enlighten your mind and put a smile on your face.
Excited to now be working with novelist Bill Hillmann. His novel, The Old Neighbordhood, was the 2014 Chicago Sun-Times' Novel of the Year, Irvine Welsh calling it "the real deal." Get this: the man ran 200 encierros (bull runs) in Spain during the summer of 2016, won the Chicago Golden Gloves boxing title, and is a formidable raconteur, having been on NPR's Snap Judgment and other broadcasts. Anticipating his follow up to The Old Neighborhood and his toros memoir greedily.
Welcoming Teffanie Thompson White who just won the Best YA award at the African American Literary Awards at the Schomburg in NYC for her novel DIRT. Dirt has now been optioned to Whydah Productions, the people behind Patriots Day. And she's getting her hands lit-soiled again as we speak. What she plants readers will reap.
Very pleased to now be working with monstrously talented 2016 NEA Literary Translation Fellow, Executive Director of Writers & Books in Rochester, NY, and novelist K.E. Semmel who's about to turn Beowulf on its head.
Matt Wixon, longtime sports writer with the Dallas Morning News . . . it's fourth down and we never punt. So glad to be working with you.
Client Robert McClure Smith's The Throne of the Third Heaven is a master class in what literary (Tartan noir?) mystery can look like. Rob was born in Scotland. His stories have appeared in Gettysburg Review, Manchester Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Barcelona Review, StoryQuarterly, J Journal and many other literary magazines, and he was a previous recipient of the Scotsman Orange Short Story Award. His critical monograph The Seductions of Emily Dickinson won the Elizabeth Agee Prize, and was a Choice Outstanding Academic Book. Smith teaches at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where he is the John and Elaine Fellowes Distinguished Professor of English.
Client Leonard Krishtalka's (Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Director of the Biodiversity Institute at the University of Kansas) new book, The Camel Driver, is an intrigue; a literary detective story steeped in science and history, putting Dan Brown to shame.
To the fold I welcome memoirist (The Kitchen Congregation; Macmillan/Picador USA), novelist and Houston Chronicle book reviewer, Nora Seton. Excited to see your titles on the shelves soon!
Congratulations to client Dana Cann for the April publication of his novel GHOSTS OF BERGEN COUNTY with Tin House Books!
Client Kristen Zimmer's book enjoyed the #1 spot at Amazon in the US and UK for multiple weeks after its release and has remained in the top 10 since (as of 6/2/14) in GRAVITY's genre. Well done, Kristen. THE GRAVITY BETWEEN US
Check out TGBU, now in audiobook: Listen
Library Journal names LESSON PLANS an Editor's Spring Pick
Reader's Digest features LESSON PLANS: 7 Great Books
Buy LESSON PLANS
Happy to announce client Suzanne Greenberg--Professor of English at Cal State and Drue Heinz Award winner--is publishing her novel LESSON PLANS with Prospect Park Books.
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Mark's a featured agent at this year's Writers League of Texas Agents & Editors Conference taking place June 30-July 2, 2017 in Austin.
A&E Conference interview: Scribe
Mark's appearing at the 2017 Permian Basin Writers' Workshop
September 15-17
Midland College, Midland, Texas
www.permianbasinwritersworkshop.com
Mark's appearing at the Johnson City Library Anniversary Writers' Conference, February 22, 2017
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Mark's appearing at the 2016 Permian Basin Writers' Workshop
September 16-18
Midland College, Midland, Texas
www.permianbasinwritersworkshop.org
Mark's attending the Texas Author Summit at the Texas Book Festival on Nov. 3, 2016
Mark's appearing at the 13th Annual Author Day at the San Marcos Public Library, November 6, 2016
Mark's appearing at the 2016 DFW Writers Conference
April 23-24th
Fort Worth Convention Center
dfwcon.org
Austin-based literary agent Mark Falkin to attend DFWCon
Mark's interview with Austin writer Sharon Bayliss
Falkin Literary is pleased to be working with anti-hate activist, filmmaker, and memoirist Christian Picciolini. To help his book reach a wider audience, yes, but more so: to be joining his movement. Look out for his memoir Romantic Violence. Check out what he's doing to help win hearts and minds away from hate through hard won experience: Christian Picciolini
Happy to announce two new clients, both with work from the realm of nonfiction: Austin musician of renown, Jon Dee Graham, and New Zealand artist and designer, David Trubridge. Soon Jon’s bears and David’s ideas will enlighten your mind and put a smile on your face.
Excited to now be working with novelist Bill Hillmann. His novel, The Old Neighbordhood, was the 2014 Chicago Sun-Times' Novel of the Year, Irvine Welsh calling it "the real deal." Get this: the man ran 200 encierros (bull runs) in Spain during the summer of 2016, won the Chicago Golden Gloves boxing title, and is a formidable raconteur, having been on NPR's Snap Judgment and other broadcasts. Anticipating his follow up to The Old Neighborhood and his toros memoir greedily.
Welcoming Teffanie Thompson White who just won the Best YA award at the African American Literary Awards at the Schomburg in NYC for her novel DIRT. Dirt has now been optioned to Whydah Productions, the people behind Patriots Day. And she's getting her hands lit-soiled again as we speak. What she plants readers will reap.
Very pleased to now be working with monstrously talented 2016 NEA Literary Translation Fellow, Executive Director of Writers & Books in Rochester, NY, and novelist K.E. Semmel who's about to turn Beowulf on its head.
Matt Wixon, longtime sports writer with the Dallas Morning News . . . it's fourth down and we never punt. So glad to be working with you.
Client Robert McClure Smith's The Throne of the Third Heaven is a master class in what literary (Tartan noir?) mystery can look like. Rob was born in Scotland. His stories have appeared in Gettysburg Review, Manchester Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Barcelona Review, StoryQuarterly, J Journal and many other literary magazines, and he was a previous recipient of the Scotsman Orange Short Story Award. His critical monograph The Seductions of Emily Dickinson won the Elizabeth Agee Prize, and was a Choice Outstanding Academic Book. Smith teaches at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where he is the John and Elaine Fellowes Distinguished Professor of English.
Client Leonard Krishtalka's (Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Director of the Biodiversity Institute at the University of Kansas) new book, The Camel Driver, is an intrigue; a literary detective story steeped in science and history, putting Dan Brown to shame.
To the fold I welcome memoirist (The Kitchen Congregation; Macmillan/Picador USA), novelist and Houston Chronicle book reviewer, Nora Seton. Excited to see your titles on the shelves soon!
Congratulations to client Dana Cann for the April publication of his novel GHOSTS OF BERGEN COUNTY with Tin House Books!
Client Kristen Zimmer's book enjoyed the #1 spot at Amazon in the US and UK for multiple weeks after its release and has remained in the top 10 since (as of 6/2/14) in GRAVITY's genre. Well done, Kristen. THE GRAVITY BETWEEN US
Check out TGBU, now in audiobook: Listen
Library Journal names LESSON PLANS an Editor's Spring Pick
Reader's Digest features LESSON PLANS: 7 Great Books
Buy LESSON PLANS
Happy to announce client Suzanne Greenberg--Professor of English at Cal State and Drue Heinz Award winner--is publishing her novel LESSON PLANS with Prospect Park Books.
--------------
Mark's a featured agent at this year's Writers League of Texas Agents & Editors Conference taking place June 30-July 2, 2017 in Austin.
A&E Conference interview: Scribe
Mark's appearing at the 2017 Permian Basin Writers' Workshop
September 15-17
Midland College, Midland, Texas
www.permianbasinwritersworkshop.com
Mark's appearing at the Johnson City Library Anniversary Writers' Conference, February 22, 2017
---------------
Mark's appearing at the 2016 Permian Basin Writers' Workshop
September 16-18
Midland College, Midland, Texas
www.permianbasinwritersworkshop.org
Mark's attending the Texas Author Summit at the Texas Book Festival on Nov. 3, 2016
Mark's appearing at the 13th Annual Author Day at the San Marcos Public Library, November 6, 2016
Mark's appearing at the 2016 DFW Writers Conference
April 23-24th
Fort Worth Convention Center
dfwcon.org
Austin-based literary agent Mark Falkin to attend DFWCon
Mark's interview with Austin writer Sharon Bayliss
