Nolan Here!

I have two pieces of very good news. The smaller good news is that a nonfiction piece of mine, “Strange Fire” has been picked up for publication by Arts & Letters, the literary magazine of Georgia College.

I’m so excited that this piece is coming out—for the publication, and because they are going to pay me like fifty bucks. Forgive the tautology, but fifty bucks is fifty bucks.

The bigger good news is…. I have signed with Will Roberts, a literary agent at the Gernert Company. I met Will at the James River Writers Conference last year, he requested a copy of my manuscript, and he loved it. He also gave me great editorial notes, and I’ve been revising for months to get the book in shape to sell.

Since October, we’ve had a few meetings to discuss the manuscript, but he officially offered to represent me a few weeks ago. Last Tuesday, I signed the paperwork. It feels good to be an agented writer—it’s an almost essential step toward publishing your novel and starting a career as a writer—but it feels better knowing that I’m working with someone I trust. Will has a great sense of narrative and was generous with big-picture feedback. He understands the project, sometimes better than I do, and I’m lucky to be working with him.

I’ve also successfully achieved two rejections this year—I’m only 23 rejections away from my goal of 25. American Chordata rejected “Strange Fire” (but Arts & Letters picked it up!) and the Yale Review rejected my poems “The Heel” and “Approved Proposal for the Banshee Mountain Long-Term Nuclear Waste Warning Site.”

I need to get cracking if I want to make 25 rejections by the end of the year. I also need to get cracking on my book list. I hope to read 60 books this year, and I’m way behind—embarrassingly behind, in fact. Here is my book list so far:

Completed:

1. Cakes and Ale, Somerset Maugham
2. The Iliad, Homer
3. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
4. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
5. My Antonia, Willa Cather
6. Writing the Other: A Practical Approach, Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward

In-Progress:

1. The Holy Quran
2. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
3. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
4. Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata, Hans Orberg
5. Wheelock’s Latin, Frederic Wheelock

Abandoned:

1. The Orchard, Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry
2. Disorientation, Elaine Hsieh Chou
3. Absalom, Absalom, William Faulkner

Man, I’ve got more books in-progress than I’ve completed! What comforts me is that several of these books are ponderous, just plain huge, or literally in Latin. Of course it’s taking me forever. And even though I want to read 60 books, I also believe in quality over quantity. I don’t think that having a goal to read X books should stop you from picking up a big book and diving into it. It’s been worth it—I love Les Mis, maybe even more than I loved War and Peace.

I’ve you’ve got this far into the post—thank you for reading! The site has been getting a lot of traffic lately, and I’m very grateful for the readership. You all are the best.

–Nolan