Falkin Literary
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A Little Something AboutLiterary agent, Mark Falkin: Licensed in Texas, I’ve practiced entertainment, intellectual property, and civil rights law for 20+ years, representing hundreds of artists (a platinum seller and Grammy® winners among them, e.g., Toadies, Grupo Fantasma, Brownout, Antibalas, Chomsky, Richard Swift, Vallejo), entrepreneurs and businesses, shopping artistic projects, drafting and negotiating entertainment contracts, securing trademarks and copyrights, licensing and selling intellectual properties, establishing businesses, litigating disputes. While I do maintain my Bar card--having worked too hard to attain it and bearing too many battle scars from practicing with it to bear not to--I am a full-time literary agent representing fiction and nonfiction, leaning toward upmarket thrillers like client Louisa Luna’s Alice Vega Novels (Doubleday), Meagan Jennett's You Know Her (MCD/FSG), and Dana Cann’s The Ghosts of Bergen County (Tin House); literary gems like Brittany Ackerman's The Brittanys (Vintage), Ery Shin's Spring on the Peninsula (Astra House), Mark Dunn's Ella Minnow Pea (Anchor Books), and Christian TeBordo's The Mammoth Arms; crime like Peter Farris's The Devil Himself (Arcade); horror like Gemma Amor's The Folly (Polis Books); and award-winning YA like Teffanie Thompson's Dirt. In nonfiction, I prefer to work with big idea books written by people with big ideas like client and peace activist Christian Picciolini’s memoir White American Youth and Breaking Hate (Hachette Books), political columnist David Masciotra's Exurbia Now (Melville House), film legend John Milius's autobiography Hollywood Renegade (Permuted Press), filmmaker Laurent Bouzereau's West Side Story: The Making of the Steven Spielberg Film (Abrams) and Spielberg: The First Ten Years (Insight Editions), talk radio legend Randi Rhodes' s Damn Near Famous, scholar/poet/Renaissance woman Kristina Marie Darling's The Sorrow Loan, sexpert podcasters Amy Baldwin's and April Lampert's Shameless Sex (BenBella), screen critic Kristen Lopez's But Have You Read the Book? (TCM/Running Press), and Whitney Houston's bodyguard (yes, that one) David Robert's memoir Protecting Whitney.
As a writer, I’ve completed 4 novels (and, yes, the obligatory chapbook of poems), with two more in draft stages. One, literary, is long, self-published and well-reviewed (Days of Grace). Another, a supernatural thriller called Rare Wounds, was represented by NYC agency Howard Morhaim. In 2015, the near-future thriller about the Tulsa Race Massacre, Contract City, was published in hardcover by longstanding Baltimore indie Bancroft Press and saw Hollywood interest and screenplay adaptation. The most recent is a literary apocalyptic horror, The Late Bloomer, which published in the Fall of 2018 with Rare Bird Books imprint California Coldblood Books, earning a starred review from Kirkus Reviews which named it one of the Best Books of the Year (and also has seen Hollywood interest). And then there’s the ongoing and continual What I’m Working On Now. As a human, I live in Austin, Texas** with my wife of 24 years and two daughters. |
Mark . . . Your submission letter is a marvel |
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What I'm Looking ForA story I haven't heard, told well, that surprises.
Actively building my client list, I’m looking for fiction, namely, novels in these general categories (in no order of preference): commercial fiction; suspense; thriller; horror; dystopian; offbeat and quirky; humorous; young adult; book club fiction; and the catchall, 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. Novels need to be novel; they need to be something new. To at least attempt it, to take risks. 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 TC Boyle or Ken Kesey, if you're Dave Eggers, if you're Junot Diaz, if you're Gillian Flynn, if you're Dan Chaon, if you're a Katherine Dunn or a Karen Russell, if you're a Ben Fountain or Merritt Tierce or Ottessa Moshfegh or Grady Hendrix or Tommy Orange, 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 a distant second. I simply want, as any reader would, a great story well-told with writing that's alive on the page, lines and passages of prose that at times demand to be read out loud. While I certainly want books that appeal to all readers, and while most of my clients are women and I see no reason why that will change given the marketplace, I am keeping an eye out for more great stories written primarily for men and boys. Where's the "important" accessible literary novel guys talk up to other guys because it's just that good--Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, The Throwback Special, Less, Crazy Heart, No Country for Old Men? I want to work with guys who actually talk up books (besides the nonfiction Father's Day gift great naval battles stuff) to other guys. Call it Dude-Lit? Really wanting to see: Native American fiction in the Stephen Graham Jones or Tommy Orange orbit; Standout comedy fiction- madcap, screwball, buddy, literary, dramedy, satire, farce, whatever. Election. The Complete Works of David Sedaris. Birdcage-as-novel. The Hangover-as-novel. The Big Lebowski-as-novel with woman-as-The Dude. Bachelder's The Throwback Special comes immediately to mind (again). Beatty's The Sellout. Where'd You Go, Bernadette. This Is Where I Leave You. Really wanting to see horror like we've never seen; horror so original and so well-written, containing such narrative force that it changes the genre the way The War of the Worlds did, the way The Lottery did, the way Psycho did, the way The Exorcist did, the way Jaws did, the way The Shining did, the way Books of Blood did, the way House of Leaves did, the way World War Z did, the way Ill Will did. Nonfiction - If you've got a serious platform, I'd certainly like to see your proposal, e.g., Christian Picciolini, John Milius, David Masciotra, Laurent Bouzereau, Amy Baldwin & April Lampert (Shameless Sex), Randi Rhodes. I'd really like to see a sports memoir in the soccer space and equally, an arts memoir: rock, hip-hop, filmmakers, stand-up comics. If your memoir is 1.) unlike anything else out there, 2.) it might actually change the culture, and 3.) you know there's a huge readership for it (it isn't niche, it isn't regional), I'd like to see it, see: Picciolini's White American Youth, Milius's Hollywood Renegade, Avery's Sonata, Guerriero's Big Haired Lipstick Lesbian, Darling's The Sorrow Loan; Coates's Between the World and Me. Would maim/kill for dazzling narrative nonfiction on par with Capuzzo's Close to Shore , Eggers's Zeitoun, Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit, Erik Larson, Anthony Bourdain. For all submissions, ask yourself: "Would an acquisitions editor stake her or his job on my book?" Because that's what you're asking them to do (and it's what I'm asking them to do on your behalf). Editors have to take your book upstairs to their bosses, their team, their marketing, publicity, and salespeople, and say to them all: "I really believe in this book. It will sell many copies and has something to say and says it well. I stake my reputation as an editor on it." Add to this the Great Resignation going on in publishing, chiefly among acquiring editors, there is even less margin for error. Editorial departments are stretched too thin to be tolerant of work that isn't ready for The Show. Now: is your book ready for that scrutiny? witty without being arch, wise without pretension, emotional without sentiment, principled without pedantry |
What I'm Not Looking ForAn accolade per Publisher's Weekly describing a recent Pulitzer winner for fiction: "In lieu of plot,..." This is what I'm not looking for, captivating as the prose may be. I'm sure it is. Also, what I'm not looking for:
Genre romance, erotica, genre science fiction, genre fantasy, graphic novels (love them, but), religious, big 'ol Epics, Clancy-esque terrorism plots, looong historical fiction, zombies (typical), vampires (typical), end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it (typical); Too-Clever, Po-Mo, gimmicks, style-over-substance, experimental to the point of incoherence, high brow (you think you're Pynchon, Vollmann, DeLillo, Bolaño) with no cranking, toothsome story to keep the pages turning, stilted books that sound written and not told, books that follow the rules because, books written to impress your MFA class and literati who won't deign to entertain. I want the heart involved, an unputdownable honest resonant book that leaves a residue on me. Tips: Don't send fiction: - beginning as our protagonist wakes up to an alarm clock; - featuring Satan as a main character; - concerning America after the second civil war; - more concerned with ideology, protest, and social justice than the story proffering same; or, - that's been done so. many. times. before. Avoid: Conclusory, self-serving superlatives about your work (let the work speak for itself); saying it'll make a great movie; sending a link to your work instead of your work; the temptation to include copyright notice in the email subject line or next to the title in the manuscript because (it's amateur hour) a title cannot be protected by copyright. If you're pitching a debut novel, anything over 100,000 words will be tough for me to get excited about, but there are always exceptions. This isn't because I don't like long books. This is because acquiring editors typically don't want to take on a long book from a new author. Take a look at Stephen King's first book, Carrie. Short, for him. Listen, the first novel I wrote was 237,000 words long. I stood behind it, then. I still do believe in that book, as an artifact, as record. But ask me if it sold. A: It did not. 
Fake Interviewer: So, Mark, top of your head, what are some fairly recently published books that have knocked you out?
Mark: There There, Ill Will, Love Me Back, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, The Descendants, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, The Underground Railroad, The Throwback Special, AJ Fikry, Slade House, The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires. FI: What about older books? Mark: Woodrell's Winter's Bone; Proulx's story Brokeback Mountain; O'Nan's A Prayer for the Dying; Dunn's Geek Love ; McGuane's Ninety-Two in the Shade; Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, McCarthy's No Country for Old Men; Cunningham's The Hours, Larson's Isaac's Storm, Cobb's Crazy Heart. FI: And the classics? Mark: Oh...let's say Gatsby, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, Revolutionary Road, Close Range: Wyoming Stories, In Cold Blood, Updike's Rabbit at Rest. (Yes, I am aware: mostly males...it doesn't please me to say.) FI: No Faulkner? No Big Russians? Henry James?? Mark: Not really. I admire and respect them, but don't read much of them. FI: Papa H? Mark: Whenever I think he feels outdated, he knocks me out. FI: What's the book you've re-read the most? Mark: Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan. A holidays tradition for me. FI: King 'Constant Reader' badge? Mark: Embroidered on my underwear. |
SubmissionsNo attachments.
E-mail your query plus the first chapter or so (in the body of the e-mail, please) to: mark[dot]falkin [at] gmail[dot]com Please identify the genre and provide the word count. For nonfiction, please send a query before a full proposal. Only one book/proposal at a time, please. There's a better chance we'll catch your query if submitted Monday-Noon Friday. We can't respond to all queries, but we will if you and your work appear to be a fit. We cannot open attachments unless specifically requested. |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Coda :: I do not care that you have no advanced arts degree. I do not care what your pigment melanin levels are, what kind of genitals you possess, where you're from, what god you may or may not believe in, what your politics are, or who you love. 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. It's subjective as hell, and sometimes I get it flat wrong. As an agent I live for that put-the-feet-up-on-the-desk moment when I smile and utter to myself, "Oh, this is good" and I put everything else aside for the day. Good luck, and keep writing! *See above under What I'm Looking For **In that we now live in the Digital Age, very successful agents live and work outside of NYC Falkin Literary's film/TV co-agents: Grandview APA UTA ICM WME Lucy Stille Falkin Literary's foreign co-agents: Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Latin America/Sandra Bruna Agencia Literaria Hungary/Lex Copyright Office Turkey/Akcali Agency Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand/Maxima Creative Agency Falkin Literary on social media: Twitter @MarkFalkin |
News, Clients, Bits & Bobs
client publishers, distributors, and studios include
Exciting things brewing with Teffanie's follow-up to her award-winning YA novel DIRT. Wish we could share...alas. Not yet.
Congrats Gemma!
Falkin Literary is pleased to announce screenwriter (e.g., PALMER, directed by Fisher Stevens, staring Justin Timberlake & Alisha Wainwright) Cheryl Guerriero’s novel GIRL ON POINT will soon be an audiobook with Blackstone.
We're working with journalist, writer and editor Christie Smythe on getting her nonfiction book concerning "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli, SMIRK, onto bookshelves. Smythe has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University, where she also completed a Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Business and Economics Journalism. In her 17-year career, she has covered tourism for The Cape Cod Times in Hyannis, Massachusetts; real estate for The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, and white collar crime and business disputes for Bloomberg News in New York.
Falkin Literary is now working with Matthew F. Jones, the author of six critically acclaimed novels and a number of screenplays. His novels have been widely translated and several times have been named on best novels of the year lists. Single Shot was re-released as a Mulholland Classic. Three of his novels, A Single Shot, Deepwater, and Boot Tracks, have been made into major motion pictures starring Sam Rockwell, William H. Macy, Willem Dafoe, Lucas Black, Peter Coyote, Mía Maestro, and Kelly Reilly. He has taught creative writing at Randolph Macon , Lynchburg College and the University of Virginia. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Pleased to announce that political columnist, lecturer, cultural critic, and author of I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters, David Masciotra will be publishing his next book with Melville House.
Horror novelist and screenwriter Matt Serafini joins the fold. We’re working to get his new novel FEEDERS—a creepypastaesque, Ctrl+Alt+Del culture sendup where Palahniukian transgression links up with Eggers’s The Circle, Ellis’s American Psycho, Diablo Cody’s Jennifer’s Body, and Grady Hendrix's My Best Friend’s Exorcism—onto shelves near you… and then we’ll wait and listen gleefully in the dark for your shudders and the sounds of you throwing the book across the room and then your hurried footfalls as you run to pick it up again. Social Media Psycho.
Falkin Literary is pleased to be working with Welshman and ex-Scotland Yard police officer David Roberts and his book, Protecting Whitney: Memoir of a Bodyguard, which tells of his professional relationship with, and reveals previously untold aspects of, the late pop music superstar Whitney Houston’s rise and fall, as seen from his unique position as her personal bodyguard (yes, that one) from 1988 to 1995.
Pleased to be working with an anonymous Ph. D.’d university professor, former slam poet, and recovering heroin addict on bringing her harrowing gritty unsentimental memoir, Dope Fiend, to market. In the vein of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces and Bill Clegg’s Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man, according to her, Dope Fiend is “my story of twenty years as a high functioning heroin addict. Though I finally realized, thanks to the fentanyl epidemic, that my addiction was killing me . . . . I had accepted my addiction and relished all of the activities associated with using. However, my life became too dangerous; I had to get clean. Though I have survived rape and violent assault, getting clean would be the biggest fight of my life.” Tonally, her memoir is perhaps Bukowski meets Jesus' Son.
Excited to be working with Andrea on bringing her debut novel to market. Andrea Avery is the author of Sonata: A Memoir of Pain and the Piano (Pegasus Books), of which Elizabeth Gilbert said, "Andrea writes like a clever, cunning, confident angel. She's a natural, and her realness and grace are lovely to behold." Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Ploughshares, Barrelhouse, The Oxford American, CRAFT Literary, Real Simple, and the Washington Post, among other places. She holds a BA (music), MFA, and Ed.D, all from Arizona State University. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where she works as an educational designer.
Falkin Literary is happy to be working with top-rated podcasters Amy Baldwin and April Lampert. Their sex positivity, openness, frankness, self-deprecation, personal candor, and humor will have you rethinking what you think you know about yourself as a sexual being. All we can say is: Join the Shameless Sex revolution!
Megan Peck Shub is a producer at Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the Emmy-winning HBO comedy series. Previously she produced Finding Your Roots with Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. on PBS. Her work has appeared in the Missouri Review, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, New York Magazine, the Independent, Parents, and Romper. She lives in New York, but she's a native Floridian and she will never let you forget it. Falkin Literary finds her debut novel hard to forget.
Prolific and talented IndieWire film and television critic Kristen Lopez joins the Falkin Literary fold. Do not get into a movie trivia battle of wits with her, especially films during Hollywood's Golden Age. You will lose.
Since 1989, Todd Schowalter has been a nationally distributed cartoonist, where his work has appeared on television and in newspapers, magazines, books, advertisements, and on greeting cards worldwide. In 1993, Todd expanded into animation when Hanna-Barbera (now Cartoon Network) optioned his comic strip Danny’s Dream Machine. Since then he has created several animated features including: Ghost Dog, The Comic Strip, Manner Moose, Mafia Mom, Dave & Jen, Mystic Planet, Leo & The Legend and The InterPETS.
Honored to call Laurent Bouzereau a client and to have played a small part in seeing these books make their way to shelves.
And from Laurent there's yet more to come...
And from Laurent there's yet more to come...
November 2021
from Abrams Books
from Abrams Books
November 2022
from Insight Editions
from Insight Editions
Coming May 2022
from Arcade CrimeWise
from Arcade CrimeWise
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October 2021
from Tantor Audio
from Tantor Audio
Pleased to be representing California-based writer Anto Ljoljic and his sublime as it is raw literary crime novel WE BUILT THIS COUNTRY.
September 2021
from Penguin Random House Audio .
from Penguin Random House Audio .
Coming March 2022
from Doubleday
from Doubleday
Excited to see Meagan Jennett's literary horror BRAAM on its way to publication with one of the coolest and most uncompromising Big 5 publisher imprints going, MCD x FSG.
Happy to announce that Peter Farris's southern noir thriller, GHOST IN THE FIELDS, published in France to great acclaim (Le Prix 813 Best Foreign Novel, Le Gran Prix du Roman Noir, shortlisted for 2018 Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, finalist for Le Prix SNCF du Polar 2020), will publish in the US with Arcade Crime, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., distributed by Simon & Schuster. Fans of Woodrell and C McCarthy rejoice.
Coming June 2021
from Vintage
from Vintage
Vega's Back: in Paperback 6 April 2021
from Penguin Random House/Vintage Crime
from Penguin Random House/Vintage Crime
Falkin Literary is pleased to announce that we’ll be working with lawyer and journalist Seema Iyer to bring her novel—a humorous contemporary retelling of the Hindu epic Ramayana, inspired by her (third) career as an Indian Classical dancer, THE PRINCE OF AYODHYA, INC.—to shelves. Seema has anchored Court TV, been a legal analyst and commentator on CNN, FOX, HLN, MSNBC, NBC, solo anchored and executive produced MSNBC.com’s live weekly program, The Docket, and is currently the chief legal correspondent for Fox46 News in Charlotte, NC.
Falkin Literary is happy to announce that we're working with Sharon Gai, Director of Global Key Accounts at Alibaba, one of the world's largest retailers and e-commerce companies, in bringing her nonfiction e-commerce business book to market.
Happy to say FalkinLit is now working with Mark Dunn, playwright and author of the classic ELLA MINNOW PEA. Can a progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable translate well to audiobook? We're going to find out.
UPDATE: Yep. To be published by Penguin Random House Audio late 2021.
UPDATE: Yep. To be published by Penguin Random House Audio late 2021.
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The German and UK/Australia/NZ editions of THE JANES out this spring
Falkin Literary is pleased to say that we're now working to get Meagan Jennett's sublimely scary literary feminist horror novel, BRAAM, onto bookshelves and into headphones. Meagan is an escaped bartender who traded in crafting cocktails for crafting her own tales. She’s a graduate of The University of Glasgow’s MLitt program, where she will be returning in the fall to begin her Doctorate of Fine Arts. She has work published in From Glasgow to Saturn, Honey & Lime Lit, and Skirting Around Magazine. Meagan currently lives in her hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia.
Falkin Literary likes horror to a frightening degree, so we’re pleased to be working with Gemma Amor, a Bram Stoker Award®-nominated author based in Bristol, UK. Gemma’s also a podcaster, voice actor, and illustrator who is regularly featured on the multi-million downloaded The NoSleep Podcast for which she wrote two scripts for their 2020 European tour, culminating in a sell-out at the Rival theatre in Stockholm. Additionally, she co-created a comedy horror fiction podcast called Calling Darkness, starring Kate Siegel from Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House.
We’re pleased to be working with Edward Schwarzschild, the author of In Security (Excelsior Editions/SUNY Press), Responsible Men and The Family Diamond (both published by Algonquin Books). His stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Guardian, The Believer, The Washington Post, Tin House, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Yale Journal of Criticism, and elsewhere. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford, he’s also been a NYFA Fellow in Fiction, a Fulbright Scholar in Spain, and, most recently, a Fiction Meets Science Writer-in-Residence at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg in Delmenhorst, Germany. Ed is currently the Director of Creative Writing and a Fellow of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany, SUNY.
Falkin Literary is pleased to announce that client, film legend, and lightning rod John Milius’s autobiography will be published by Post Hill Press imprint Permuted Press, as acquired by Adam Bellow. Writing and directing many seminal films of the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s (e.g., Dirty Harry, Red Dawn, Conan the Barbarian, Clear and Present Danger), Milius was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for Apocalypse Now (1979) and was a central figure of the so-called ‘New Hollywood’ with the likes of Lucas, Coppola, Spielberg, and Scorsese.
Falkin Literary is pleased to be working with novelist Peter Farris. Peter’s novel Ghost in the Fields (aka Le Diable En Personne), published in France to great acclaim, winning the prestigious Le Prix 813 for Best Foreign Novel, Le Gran Prix du Roman Noir Etranger at the Beaune International Film Festival, shortlisted for the 2018 Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and named a finalist for Le Prix SNCF du Polar 2020. The novel received starred reviews in Rolling Stone, Hebdo and Le Parisien, and was named one of the best mysteries of the year by ELLE and L'OBS Magazine. Also published in France by Éditions Gallmeister, his novel The Clay Eaters debuted at #14 on the Palmarès Livres Hebdo des libraires 2019 and was recently shortlisted for le prix Libr'à Nous 2020. A graduate of Yale University, Peter lives in Cobb County, Georgia.
Stoked to be working with horror scribe John F.D. Taff, a Bram Stoker Award®-Nominated author with more than 30 years’ experience, 90+ short stories and five novels in print. His first fiction collection, Little Deaths, was named the best horror collection of 2012 by HorrorTalk. Jack Ketchum called his novella collection, The End in All Beginnings, “one of the best novella collections I’ve read.” His fiction collection, Little Black Spots, is available from Grey Matter Press. Look for more of his work in anthologies such as Cutting Block Book’s Single Slices, Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, The Beauty of Death, Shadows Over Main Street 2 and Behold: Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders, and in November 2021, Dark Stars: New Tales of Darkest Horror, published by Macmillan imprint Tor Nightfire. John lives in the wilds of Illinois.
Muchos congratulations to Kristen Zimmer for her 2-book deal with Hachette UK imprint Bookouture. Fans of her bestselling The Gravity Between Us (USA, UK/Commonwealth, Thailand) rejoice! See? 2020 doesn't suck ~so~ bad after all.
Falkin Literary is excited to be working with Carol Guess. Carol is the author of twenty books of poetry and prose. A frequent collaborator, she writes across genres and illuminates historically marginalized material. In 2014 she was awarded the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement by Columbia University. She teaches at Western Washington University.
Rochelle Hurt is the author of In Which I Play the Runaway (Barrow Street, 2016), which won the Barrow Street Poetry Prize, and The Rusted City: A Novel in Poems (White Pine, 2014). Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Ninth Letter, Pleiades, Black Warrior Review, and elsewhere. Her work has been included in the Best New Poets anthology and she's been awarded prizes and fellowships from Crab Orchard Review, Arts & Letters, Hunger Mountain, Poetry International, Vermont Studio Center, Jentel, and Yaddo. She lives in Orlando and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Central Florida.
Looking forward to working with brilliant writer of experimental fiction, Christian TeBordo, on bringing his next book to shelves. A Professor of English and Creative Writing at Roosevelt University and author of Ghost Engine, Toughlahoma, The Awful Possibilities, et al, Christian’s got a dedicated following. Literary critic, Daniel Green, says about his work: “criticism still needs to catch up to the variety of non-realist practices found in adventurous fiction in the early 21st century”.
Falkin Literary is pleased to announce that we’ll be steering to shelves screenwriter (e.g., PALMER, directed by Fisher Stevens, staring Justin Timberlake & Alisha Wainwright) Cheryl Guerriero’s memoir, the subject matter of which earned her an appearance on Oprah once upon a time. And Cheryl's got some other screen-things in the works which cannot yet even be talked about . . .
Falkin Literary is looking forward to bringing to bookstores film legend and lightning rod John Milius’s autobiography, Hollywood Renegade. Writing and directing many seminal films of the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s (e.g., Dirty Harry, Red Dawn, Conan the Barbarian, Clear and Present Danger), Milius was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for Apocalypse Now (1979) and was a central figure of the so-called ‘New Hollywood’ with the likes of Lucas, Coppola, Spielberg, and Scorsese.
Falkin Literary is delighted to be working with Charlie Green and his hilariously trenchant satire, THE SHAH OF TEXAS. Vonnegut, Saunders, Catch 22, Dr. Strangelove, Paul Beatty, and Tristram Shandy (?!) fans will absolutely flock to this book. Charlie earned a PhD in English and is a Senior Lecturer at Cornell University, where he teaches creative writing. His stories and poems have appeared in The Missouri Review, The New England Review, Cairn, Center, and The Southeast Review.
Falkin Literary is pleased to be working with author, cultural critic, political commentator, lecturer, and Salon columnist, David Masciotra, on his nonfiction book, BLUES FROM THE FRONT PORCH: The Left and Small Town America, part manifesto and part memoir, offering an intimate, journalistic, and analytical examination of small town America. He is the author of Mellencamp: American Troubadour (University Press of Kentucky), Metallica’s Metallica (Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series), Working on a Dream: The Progressive Political Vision of Bruce Springsteen (Bloomsbury), and Barack Obama: Invisible Man. I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters publishes with Bloomsbury in October.
David is a regular contributor to No Depression and has also written about cultural issues and the arts for the Daily Beast, The Atlantic, Washington Post, Blurt, and the Los Angeles Review of Books; politics for AlterNet, the Indianapolis Star, and Truthout; and life and literature for The Cresset. He is a former columnist with PopMatters. He has conducted interviews with a diverse range of musicians, authors, and cultural figures, including Jesse Jackson, all members of Metallica, David Mamet, Daryl Hall, James Lee Burke, Warren Haynes, Stacey Patton, Ruthie Foster, John Mellencamp, Steve Earle, and Rita Dove. David lives in Indiana, and teaches literature and political science at the University of St. Francis.
David is a regular contributor to No Depression and has also written about cultural issues and the arts for the Daily Beast, The Atlantic, Washington Post, Blurt, and the Los Angeles Review of Books; politics for AlterNet, the Indianapolis Star, and Truthout; and life and literature for The Cresset. He is a former columnist with PopMatters. He has conducted interviews with a diverse range of musicians, authors, and cultural figures, including Jesse Jackson, all members of Metallica, David Mamet, Daryl Hall, James Lee Burke, Warren Haynes, Stacey Patton, Ruthie Foster, John Mellencamp, Steve Earle, and Rita Dove. David lives in Indiana, and teaches literature and political science at the University of St. Francis.
Falkin Literary is glad to announce that we’ll be working to bring PC Magazine writer Will Greenwald’s unabashedly geeked-out, funny, and suspenseful fantasy novel, ALEX NORTON, PARANORMAL TECH SUPPORT, to bookshelves. Will has been covering consumer technology for a decade, and has served on the editorial staffs of CNET.com, Sound & Vision, and Maximum PC. He currently covers consumer electronics in the PC Labs as the in-house home entertainment expert, reviewing TVs, media hubs, speakers, headphones, and gaming accessories. Will lives in Brooklyn.
Coming January 2020
from Doubleday
from Doubleday
Excited to announce we're now working with former editor in chief of BudgetTravel.com, Robert Firpo-Cappiello, who has enriched the travel experiences of millions of morning television viewers in 100+ upbeat and inspiring travel segments (2013 to present) on the Weather Channel, CNBC, and New York City’s PIX11 Morning News. Under Robert’s leadership, Budget Travel reached more than 4 million travelers annually via social media, e-newsletters, and online traffic. Robert is now a regular contributor to Budget Travel, Lonely Planet, and an array of other online and print publications focusing on travel, lifestyle, and wellness. Looking forward to seeing his book on shelves soon: AMERICAN TOUCHSTONES: 101 TRANSFORMATIVE TRAVEL EXPERIENCES ACROSS THE U.S., which will enrich the lives of families, couples, groups, and solo travelers who seek truly life-changing trips within reach of everyday Americans.
Adam Stone is an award-winning journalist covering community affairs, technology trends, government and defense and a regular contributor to USA Today. We're glad to be representing him and his crime novel, WE'RE THE DEATH MERCHANTS.
Nora Seton's (The Kitchen Congregation; Picador 2001) CHE AND THE BERENSON GIRLS is set to publish with Raleigh, NC publisher Regal House! Che tells the story of a single mother in Houston, forced to take in her dying father before a hurricane arrives. She is a fashion designer, raising her daughter while fending off the increasing violence of her ex-husband. The eye of hurricane “Che” brings with it a horror of family history and Houston’s own brand of lunacy. RIYL Prince of Tides, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and The Secret Life of Bees.
Teffanie Thompson's award-winning and cinematic novella DIRT will be an audio book! Coming soon from Audible.
I am delighted to announce that Falkin Literary is working with filmmaker Laurent Bouzereau (Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind; Five Came Back; Don’t Say No Until I Finish Talking) to help bring his hilarious, moving, and instructive discovery of Cinema and America in the ‘70s to bookshelves.
Falkin Literary is excited to announce our representation of Ery Shin, an assistant professor of English at the University of Southern Mississippi, and her kaleidoscopic debut novel, Spring on the Peninsula, which explores queer life in contemporary Seoul under the shadow of war with North Korea. Spring is part of Ery’s broader aspiration to raise more timely questions regarding love, sex, and emotional intimacy on the Korean peninsula before the general public, and is forthcoming from Astra House in Spring 2024. Tonally and structurally, think Gary Indiana’s Do Everything in the Dark and Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book. Ery received her undergraduate degree in English from Princeton University, followed by a master’s and Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Oxford.
Falkin Literary is pleased to be working with Brittany Ackerman and her trenchant, funny, poignant novel, Boca Bitches, a book about a fourteen-year-old Florida girl growing up too fast, a work that begs for nostalgia but refuses sentimentality. If Greta Gerwig wrote an early teens novel set in post-Y2K Boca Raton, this would be it. Brittany is a graduate of Florida Atlantic University's Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing. She has completed a residency at the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods and has attended the Mont Blanc Workshop in Chamonix, France under the instruction of Alan Heathcock. Her collection of essays, winner of the 2016 Red Hen Press Nonfiction Award, The Perpetual Motion Machine, was published in November of 2018. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
Happy to announce that Falkin Literary will be working with poet, essayist, editor, critic, publisher, scholar Kristina Marie Darling on her new nonfiction project, her poetry, and work-in-progress novel. Kristina is the author of thirty-two books of poetry, essays, and criticism. She is Editor-in-Chief of Tupelo Press and Tupelo Quarterly, an opinion columnist at The Los Angeles Review of Books, a contributing writer at Publishers Weekly, a staff blogger at The Kenyon Review, and a freelance book critic at The New York Times Book Review. Her most recent poems appear in The Harvard Review, Poetry International, New American Writing, Nimrod, Passages North, The Mid-American Review, and on the Academy of American Poets’ website, Poets.org. Kristina has published essays in The New York Times, The Kenyon Review, The Millions, Agni, Ploughshares, The Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, The Iowa Review, and numerous other magazines. Holding a master’s degree in American Studies from Washington University in St. Louis, as well as a master’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Missouri, an MFA degree in Creative Writing from New York University, and a PhD in English Literature from the University at Buffalo, Kristina's work has been honored with nominations for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Kingsley Tufts Award, the Harvard Society of Fellows Junior Fellowship, and the Ted Hughes Award, as well as a contributing editor’s nomination for the Pushcart Prize anthology.
Kristina Marie Darling
Kristina Marie Darling
Excited to announce that Falkin Literary is working with the owners of Grupo Bimbo/Bimbo Bakeries, the largest baking company in the world, to bring the harrowing narrative nonfiction story of the founder's war-torn love story to bookshelves.
Soon to be a major television series (from the makers of American Gods, American Horror Story, Glee), Louisa's Two Girls Down publishes in paperback January 8!
Read an excerpt
Read an excerpt
So pleased to announce that Falkin Literary is working with Carolyn Cohagan
on the Next phase of her exploits.
Stay tuned.
on the Next phase of her exploits.
Stay tuned.
Christian Picciolini's television docu-series, Breaking Hate, will be returning in 2019. And a related book is soon to appear.
I've been listening to liberal talk radio legend Randi Rhodes for years, so I'm thrilled to be involved with getting her memoir out into the world. Until then, find her show streaming live online weekday afternoons 4-6 Eastern, turn up your mind, and buy a stinkin' podcast ya bastids!
Extremely excited to be working with fellow Texas writers Saul Ramirez and John Seidlitz and their already-acclaimed book THE CHAMPIONS' GAME: A True Story. “Accessible for all readers, this story is a natural for the big screen: check and mate.” – Kirkus Reviews (*Starred Review*)
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 shelves.
“Opening this book is like arming a bomb” --Lee Child, NYT Bestselling author of the Jack Reacher Novels
*Starred Reviews* from Publisher's Weekly and Booklist
“Opening this book is like arming a bomb” --Lee Child, NYT Bestselling author of the Jack Reacher Novels
*Starred Reviews* from Publisher's Weekly and Booklist
Congratulations to anti-hate activist, filmmaker, and memoirist Christian Picciolini on the sale of his memoir to Hachette Books in a two-book deal for world rights. Falkin Literary is very excited to be working with Christian; to help his work reach readers, yes, but more so: to be joining his movement, especially post-Charlottesville. Look out for his memoir WHITE AMERICAN YOUTH: My Descent into America’s Most Violent Hate Movement --and How I Got Out from Hachette December 2017. 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, was gored in Pamplona (again) in 2017, 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 (Bookouture/Hachette UK)
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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MORE EVENTS AND APPEARANCES COMING SOON (new website 2019)
Rochester, NY Event // 2018 Ladder Literary Conference
presented by Writers & Books
Rochester Riverside Convention Center
June 16, 2018
ArmadilloCon - August 3-5, 2018
The Late Bloomer: The Unlike a Virgin Tour, October 2018:
Tulsa - Magic City Books
Dallas - Interabang Books (with writer Will Clarke)
Austin - Travis High School (5 readings)
Austin - McCallum High School
Houston - Murder by the Book
Austin - BookPeople (with radio host Martha Louise Hunter)
Friends of the SMU Libraries Event: Tables of Content
10 Haute Young Authors, March 30, 2019
SMU Library Event
2019 Writing Workshop of Austin TX on Friday, Nov. 16
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
--------------
Falkin Literary on Facebook
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, was gored in Pamplona (again) in 2017, 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 (Bookouture/Hachette UK)
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.
--------------
MORE EVENTS AND APPEARANCES COMING SOON (new website 2019)
Rochester, NY Event // 2018 Ladder Literary Conference
presented by Writers & Books
Rochester Riverside Convention Center
June 16, 2018
ArmadilloCon - August 3-5, 2018
The Late Bloomer: The Unlike a Virgin Tour, October 2018:
Tulsa - Magic City Books
Dallas - Interabang Books (with writer Will Clarke)
Austin - Travis High School (5 readings)
Austin - McCallum High School
Houston - Murder by the Book
Austin - BookPeople (with radio host Martha Louise Hunter)
Friends of the SMU Libraries Event: Tables of Content
10 Haute Young Authors, March 30, 2019
SMU Library Event
2019 Writing Workshop of Austin TX on Friday, Nov. 16
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
--------------
Falkin Literary on Facebook