won’t forget.”
“You’re right,” she said, thinking of where her mind had just taken her. “Some things you never forget.”
16
KEVIN ARRIVED AT NINE O’CLOCK. THE MEETING WAS SCHEDULED IN Turlington Hall, which was a fancy name for one of the hotel’s mezzanine-level conference rooms. Percy Gates wasn’t there, but his assistant greeted him at the door. A crowd had gathered inside, standing in clusters of four or five around the room and conversing. Most were dressed in business attire, except for two balding guys with ponytails who wore blue jeans and tweed jackets. Kevin made an effort to introduce himself to a few people who were mingling around the breakfast bar, hoping to network. His luck, he met only others like him. Aspiring writers.
The Percy Gates fiction writers’ conference came with an impressive guarantee: find a literary agent or your money back. After two years of writing and rewriting his novel, Kevin had received enough rejection letters from publishers to know that Percy’s premise was correct: The big houses didn’t buy a novel unless it was presented by an agent. Percy liked to relate the story of the clever journalist who, as a test, retyped The Yearling verbatim and submitted it in manuscript form directly to every publisher in New York. One or two recognized it as the 1939 Pulitzer Prizewinner, but most rejected it out of hand on the assumption that if it wasn’t represented by an agent it wasn’t any good.
Not that Kevin was shooting for a Pulitzer. Mostly he just wanted to hear that his stuff was entertaining. At times, he’d evenbeen tempted to let Peyton read a few chapters. It would have been a bit like asking his mother if she thought he was handsome, but every writer had to start somewhere. That was where Percy Gates had come in. He claimed to handpick aspiring writers whose sample chapters exhibited “serious talent.” That, plus a thousand-dollar registration fee paid in advance, got best-selling wannabes five minutes each at the podium to present their work to a roomful of agents in an informal setting.
By nine-thirty, Kevin counted roughly sixty bodies in the room. With just a dozen authors—Percy had promised there would be no more than twelve—that meant an agent-to-author ratio of four-to-one. If he couldn’t score in this room, he didn’t deserve to be published.
“Do you have your speaker’s card, Mr. Stokes?” It was Percy’s ever helpful assistant.
“Yes, thank you,” said Kevin.
The young woman stepped up to the microphone and made brief introductory remarks that emphasized the informality of the occasion. Each writer had been given a numbered card and would speak in that order, for three minutes tops. There would be no introductions, and strict silence was not required. Guests were free to continue to mingle and enjoy themselves, listening or not as they wished, as if the authors’ cries of Please represent me! were no more than Muzak.
Kevin figured his placement—sixth—was perfect, far enough down on the speaker list for things to get rolling but not so far down that people would leave before he got his shot. He watched the initial speakers with an eye toward gauging what type of comments piqued the interest of the audience. The first guy was nervous, sweaty, and horrible. The next three were just flat. Interestingly, they were all lawyers, like him. The fifth had obviously mastered the art of billing by the hour. He droned on well beyond the time limit.
“I see my book as a kind of big-screen, literary thriller,” he said. “Sort of Jackie Chan meets Moby Dick .”
Finally, number five was finished. No one applauded, but no one had acknowledged the previous speakers, either. Less than half the crowd was even listening at all and, of those, half were listening only to be polite. Kevin felt a knot in his stomach. The confidence and energy he’d felt earlier were slowly giving way to embarrassment and desperation. He glanced toward
“You’re right,” she said, thinking of where her mind had just taken her. “Some things you never forget.”
16
KEVIN ARRIVED AT NINE O’CLOCK. THE MEETING WAS SCHEDULED IN Turlington Hall, which was a fancy name for one of the hotel’s mezzanine-level conference rooms. Percy Gates wasn’t there, but his assistant greeted him at the door. A crowd had gathered inside, standing in clusters of four or five around the room and conversing. Most were dressed in business attire, except for two balding guys with ponytails who wore blue jeans and tweed jackets. Kevin made an effort to introduce himself to a few people who were mingling around the breakfast bar, hoping to network. His luck, he met only others like him. Aspiring writers.
The Percy Gates fiction writers’ conference came with an impressive guarantee: find a literary agent or your money back. After two years of writing and rewriting his novel, Kevin had received enough rejection letters from publishers to know that Percy’s premise was correct: The big houses didn’t buy a novel unless it was presented by an agent. Percy liked to relate the story of the clever journalist who, as a test, retyped The Yearling verbatim and submitted it in manuscript form directly to every publisher in New York. One or two recognized it as the 1939 Pulitzer Prizewinner, but most rejected it out of hand on the assumption that if it wasn’t represented by an agent it wasn’t any good.
Not that Kevin was shooting for a Pulitzer. Mostly he just wanted to hear that his stuff was entertaining. At times, he’d evenbeen tempted to let Peyton read a few chapters. It would have been a bit like asking his mother if she thought he was handsome, but every writer had to start somewhere. That was where Percy Gates had come in. He claimed to handpick aspiring writers whose sample chapters exhibited “serious talent.” That, plus a thousand-dollar registration fee paid in advance, got best-selling wannabes five minutes each at the podium to present their work to a roomful of agents in an informal setting.
By nine-thirty, Kevin counted roughly sixty bodies in the room. With just a dozen authors—Percy had promised there would be no more than twelve—that meant an agent-to-author ratio of four-to-one. If he couldn’t score in this room, he didn’t deserve to be published.
“Do you have your speaker’s card, Mr. Stokes?” It was Percy’s ever helpful assistant.
“Yes, thank you,” said Kevin.
The young woman stepped up to the microphone and made brief introductory remarks that emphasized the informality of the occasion. Each writer had been given a numbered card and would speak in that order, for three minutes tops. There would be no introductions, and strict silence was not required. Guests were free to continue to mingle and enjoy themselves, listening or not as they wished, as if the authors’ cries of Please represent me! were no more than Muzak.
Kevin figured his placement—sixth—was perfect, far enough down on the speaker list for things to get rolling but not so far down that people would leave before he got his shot. He watched the initial speakers with an eye toward gauging what type of comments piqued the interest of the audience. The first guy was nervous, sweaty, and horrible. The next three were just flat. Interestingly, they were all lawyers, like him. The fifth had obviously mastered the art of billing by the hour. He droned on well beyond the time limit.
“I see my book as a kind of big-screen, literary thriller,” he said. “Sort of Jackie Chan meets Moby Dick .”
Finally, number five was finished. No one applauded, but no one had acknowledged the previous speakers, either. Less than half the crowd was even listening at all and, of those, half were listening only to be polite. Kevin felt a knot in his stomach. The confidence and energy he’d felt earlier were slowly giving way to embarrassment and desperation. He glanced toward
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