Perfect Pitch: Leslie J. Anderson's Query for The Unmothers
So, this is a bit of a wild realization…
I haven’t shared a “perfect pitch” post in a full year.
The last one I posted here was for Tawny Lara’s Dry Humping, a non-fiction sobriety book, back in July 2023. Between then and now, a lot of clients have had option books get scooped up (second, third, fourth books with their current publisher), which has kept me pretty busy. Those clients aren’t really querying, we’re busy with their proposals.
So please, friends. Books are still happening! I’ve got a bundle to-be-announced, that’ll have posts like this in the future. And thankfully, Leslie J. Anderson was willing to share the original query for THE UNMOTHERS, which is due out with Quirk Books on August 6th. With a starred review from Library Journal, an Indie Next Pick from the ABA, some awards already in-hand, it’s a debut that is posed to make a big impact, and I hope you pick it up.
In fact, if this is helpful, please consider preordering (or if you’re reading this after pub date, ordering) Leslie’s stunning folk-horror novel.
Let’s jump in.
Dear Eric,
Thank you for your kind response to my last book, [Redacted!]. I truly appreciated it. You told me to let you know when I had a new project, and here it is! People of the Horse, a dark fantasy will appeal to fans of The Southern Reach Trilogy, Pet Sematary, and The Lamb will Slaughter the Lion. The book is about 75,000 words.
Carolyn Marshall (chain-smoker, cynical journalist, recent widow) is being punished by her editor, sent to a small town to investigate a frivolous, tabloid story of a horse that gave birth to a human baby. Despite her resentment for the assignment, she begins to wonder if the story might be true. Pulled into the mystery, Marshall finds a town that births its own monsters and refuses to face its own sins and secrets.
Marshall finds the baby’s father, Roswell, a damaged boy living in the shadow of his equally damaged mother. Undeterred, Marshall follows Roswell as he moves through the world of Horse People, helping to rescue horses, learning to ride, and facing the trauma of her own recent loss. Meanwhile, the strange tides of the town ebb and flow around her – a drug dealer tries to fight the monster in the woods, a young man struggles to rescue his friend from addiction, a pastor faces the secret violence done in the graveyard at night.
The dark truth, held in trust by generations of Raeford women, is that the creature of the woods is more than a legend. [Redacted Spoilers!] Its very presence brings old disputes to a boil and the town begins to tear at the seams, unable to escape deep-rooted hatreds and the creature they cannot bring themselves to name. Marshall and Roswell claw a way out while the infighting in the town provides a new target for the monster’s wrath.
My writing has appeared in Asimov’s, Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, and Apex, to name a few. My collection of poetry, An Inheritance of Stone was nominated for an Elgin Award and poems from it were nominated for Rhysling Awards. I am also a cowriter and frequent collaborator on The CryptoNaturalist Podcast which has nearly 80,000 listeners and followers across social media platforms, garnering media attention from The AV Club and The BBC.
I have a Creative Writing M.A. from Ohio University and currently work as a marketing and communications manager for a healthcare business analytics firm. I am eager to be an engaged and collaborative partner in promoting my work and building a career in popular fiction. I live in a small, white house beside a cemetery with my partner, three good dogs, and a Roomba.
I included the first ten pages. I look forward to hearing from you!
Best Regards,
Leslie J. Anderson
Okay, okay. First. Let’s discuss the redacted bits.
One, I don’t really want to dish details about Leslie’s other book, which we are still planning to pitch around. “But didn’t you pass on it?” Sure, but now we are working together and digging into that book and getting it ready for a new life. This is a thing that happens. Shelved books aren’t always shelved forever, friends.
Two, the query does giveaway a bit of the plot, in a way that I really liked in the pitch letter, and that I used to pitch editors, but we didn’t opt to dish on the jacket copy of the actual book with the publisher. So, no spoilers, sorry friends.
Now, let’s talk about what this query does so wildly well, and why it grabbed me.
When Agents Say Send the Next Thing, They Mean It: Seriously. I don’t say it wildly often, but every now and again I read a whole manuscript that is so stunning and powerful, but I don’t quite know how to sell it, or I have something similar to it, and I just know I want to hear from this writer again. I’d said it to Adam Sass when he queried Surrender Your Sons, and that went very well. Same thing here.
I knew I wanted to see anything Leslie wrote next, and it was this book. And seeing as I was already a wild fan of her writing from that first project, I inhaled this immediately.
So please. When we say to email that next book, please do. We’re not just being nice. Though a lot of us are nice.
Perfect Comparative Titles: We have nods to Jeff VanderMeer, Stephen King, and Margaret Killjoy. I knew immediately the vibe Leslie was going for with this book, and it absolutely delivered. “But aren’t those authors too popular?” Please, I’m begging you, dear writers. If a comparative title or author is perfect, use the popular one.
When pitching around Jill Baguchinsky’s So Witches We Became, we comped it to Stephen King’s The Mist. It was fine. In fact, it says that on the jacket copy. When we pitched K. Ancrum’s Icarus around, I comped it to The Goldfinch. Again, we did just fine.
A Big Cast, Perfectly Pitched: One of the many remarkable things about Leslie’s book, is that it has a huge cast of characters. Writers often get worried about querying their big shifting POV cast books, but here, she gives us a quick peppering of the people we’re going to meet, without going all in on them. And she sticks to the core of the story… a reporter investigating something strange.
Bringing Up Relevant Writing: I love it when writers dish a little bit about where they’ve been actively publishing. Not everyone does it, because not everyone has that, and that’s fine. But when you do have something to share, bring it up. We like to see that there has been buy-in for your writing in the spaces you’re writing in.
A Note on the Title: Yes, yes, it’s not called People of the Horse anymore. Writers, don’t get too hooked onto your titles. They do often change.
Alright, that’s all we got here.
I hope you found this helpful, and please, order Leslie’s book. It’s astonishing.