A Modest Book Proposal
(I could see myself having to write a book proposal like this to an agent if things had turned out differently.)
Darren McConnell
McConnell Literary Agency
120 5th Avenue, NY, NY
December 31, 2012
Dear Mr. McConnell:
Please find enclosed my chapter synopsis for my speculative fiction novel, "Our First Black President."
Imagine, if you will, if the 2008 presidential election was won by Barack Obama and Joe Biden instead of the late John McCain and Sarah Palin. Imagine how different the world would be.
Sincerely yours,
Robert Crawford
January 29, 2013
Dear Mr. Crawford:
While I and my agency generally don't represent alternate histories, or speculative fiction if you will, I might be moved to make an exception largely on the strength of your proposal.
Please send at your earliest convenience a two-page synopsis, 50 sample pages and your Citizen ID number (laser stenciled on your forearm) so we may access your Homeland Security Criminal record (if applicable).
Long live the Hunter Empress.
Patriotically yours,
Darren McConnell
Feb. 1, 2013
Dear Mr. McConnell:
Please find enclosed under same cover the first 50 pages of "Our First Black President" as well as my two-page synopsis.
No doubt, both your agency and the Ministry of Literary Correctness (praise be to Empress Palin) will be intrigued by the creative liberties that I've taken under the tantalizing scenario of an Obama presidency (As you'll note, in my fictional world, they're still known as presidents, not emperors or Grand Imperators).
Note the difference between our current blessed government and my antiquated but interesting United States (Yes, I've also kept the old name before it became the United Collective Farms of Red China) that's still a nation of laws and not men, where global warming was actually addressed in time and public waterboardings would've likely been frowned upon.
As for my Citizen's ID number, I do not see how my past as a dissident, blacklisted political blogger is germane to my saleability as an author.
Praise be to the fertile Empress,
etc.
March 3, 2013
Dear Mr. Crawford:
Both MiniLitCor and I agree that your proposal has merit, even though the Ministry's Grand High Exalted Censor had deemed it too inflammatory. The notion of a man in a resurrected slave class (Praise be to the Hunter Empress for her infinite wisdom), especially one who died in the Hal Turner/Franklin Graham Purge of 2010 rising to the title of
Likewise it would require tremendous suspension of disbelief on the reader's part to imagine a world that still has dry land and when the former state of Alaska still had ice. Driving to work this morning in my armored speedboat I was thinking how implausible your fictional work sounds.
Therefore I and the Powers That Be regrettably have to pass on this otherwise intriguing project.
May you live in interesting times.
Patriotically yours,
etc.
March 6, 2013
Dear McConnell:
Please find enclosed in a separate encrypted email detailed instructions on how to find my entire manuscript in an encoded, zipped Word file, placed in a secure and as yet undisclosed location by a special ninja courier.
I'm afraid that you're unfairly basing your good judgment on a book of which you have read less than 10%. Of course we all remember that Emperor McCain died of apoplexy during his inaugural when President Bush's black suit made him hallucinate a Vietcong soldier (Inaugurating Empress Palin on the spot saved the taxpayers many yuan). It was a shocking day exceeded only by the assassinations of Senator Feingold, Congressman Kucinich and Michael Moore on Ronald Reagan's birthday (or National Alzheimer's Awareness Day).
However, truth is not always stranger than fiction and it may be entertaining, perhaps even instructive, to reconstruct from unrewritten histories (Such as the late Howard Zinn's A Serf's History of the United Collective Farms of Red China) a United States of America that used to be, before the stars and stripes were replaced with hammers, sickles and pink stripes.
MiniLitCor be damned. I no longer care what they think. I no longer care what our Supreme, Fragrant Empress thinks. You are prejudging me. Please reconsider.
Sincerely, etc.
April 21, 2013
Dear Shithead:
Boy, you don't take No for an answer, do you? Three words and follow the bouncing ball: Try. Another. Agency. Don't ever darken my encrypted inbox with your word processing ever again.
On a personal note, your last novel, American Zen was a pompous, pretentious, pseudo-literary piece of shit written by a pompous, pretentious piece of shit. Its subversive liberal and homosexual element would've gotten you sent to Fox's prime time executions were not such subversive "literature" graciously grandfathered and exempt from the MiniLitCor's guidelines (Praise be to Empress Palin).
Contact me again and your name will be submitted to the Ministry of Witchhunts for possible investigation.
Patriotically yours (and Praise be to the Bastard Prince Johnston),
etc.
posted by jurassicpork @ Wednesday, December 31, 2008
8 comments
8 Comments:
Ho Lee Shit. You oughtta finish this thing, it's got a real grab to it. The illustration is (albeit bearing a resemblance to the cover of one of Harry Turtledove's later works) punchy too.
You also have a flair for the tones of the publishing-agent industry as well.
I'd buy it. Would put my family in hiding under other names first mind you, but I would indeed. If I were a literary agent that is. :)
You also have a flair for the tones of the publishing-agent industry as well.
Well, I am a novelist and I have written to literary agents before (including this very month).
Thanks for the kudos.
Hey bro - I love it! I'm still way behind the eight-ball but attempting to keep in touch, however sporadically, with those close to my heart (that's you!) and even write a blog post once or twice an eon...
love you much - yer sis
Pretty nice, 'pork (can I call you pork? I've been reading you on Sadly, No! for ages).
I second (or third or fourth or fifth) the call to make it a full novel. There's precedent: a novel called 'e' by Matt Beaumont tells the story entirely through emails, and it's pretty damn funny.
Hey, sis! I was beginning to wonder if you were still kicking. Stay in touch, Sis.
Alison: I've only been whoring my blog on Sadly No! for just a coupla months. But thanks for the vote for confidence.
No way am I gonna turn this into a novel. This is the kind of format that works best by what you don't say.
This is hilarious, would love to read the book.
But please remove the nazi paraphenalia from the white house, etc.... that is massively offensive, and not only to us jews.
Very funny. This post reminds me of a Thurber short story (in the same format- as letters to and from his publisher) where he is trying to get some books delivered to the right address. I cannot remember the name of the short story but its HI - Larious (as my Indiana inlaws say).
That was funny. Thank you.
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