[Agency] Fuse Literary (formerly Foreword Literary)

Sent requested full to Laurie Mclean on January 11 via her Agent Savant email. Nudged on March 12 after news of Foreward's opening. Advised to resubmit query to Foreward Literary. Received form rejection on March 27.

She IS a very pleasant lady and received my original face-to-face pitch with great enthusiasm. Needless to say the form reject stung. I finally understand why I need to grow some thicker skin or stop chasing the rainbow.

korrinblue said:

Sent requested full to Laurie Mclean on January 11 via her Agent Savant email. Nudged on March 12 after news of Foreward's opening. Advised to resubmit query to Foreward Literary. Received form rejection.

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Sorry to hear that. Keep at it. It takes time.

Queried Laurie 3/26, form rejection 4/2.

I'm thinking of querying Pam, especially because Prophecy Girl is similar to my project. But hopefully not too similar.

I got a partial R&R from Danielle Smith. She seems to be nice and helpful!

I'm working on my revisions and I will re-submit my pages to her.

Congratulations, Bershka!

bershka said:

I got a partial R&R from Danielle Smith. She seems to be nice and helpful!

I'm working on my revisions and I will re-submit my pages to her.

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That's awesome news, bershka!!! Good luck with the re-submission!

A friend of mine is thinking of querying them. I know they don't have a "yeah, we got it" auto responder, but does anyone know how long their response time generally is? Thanks.

Hi Gravity,

Jen Karsbaek requested my partial from a pitch contest.
Partial to request for full - 3 weeks with pleasant personalized confirmation of receipt.
R&R request approx 5 weeks after that. (working on that now)

I would guess each agent has his/her own time frames.

Well, my literary YA set in the 70s doesn't seem to match any of their needs, but maybe when my mystery is finished...

Anyone with fulls heard back from Ms. Karsbaek?

I was wondering that myself, WriteStarfish. No word yet for me. According to her Twitter account, she's awfully busy with her family and blogging, and she's also been working on clients' books. It's possible that she just requested too much all at once to read in what we normally expect from an agent (maybe she's reading all the fulls, comparing them against each other to take her pick). It's also possible that she's a no-answer-means-no kind of agent, but that's just plain not nice for a full, so I hope it's not the case.

Good luck . . .

IsabellaCranford, thanks for the reply. I think that she will answer, since she said on her twitter that she does reply to all queries. I'm assuming that would mean that she'd definitely respond to the fulls then.

Oh and thanks and good luck to you too!

Well, I'm keeping fingers crossed, WriteStarfish, but at the same time, trying to be realistic. I've had a number of fulls requested during various drafts of my novel, and I've found that most everyone has got back to me within a couple months, usually one month. Usually, they had rejection comments that showed they had read to the end (and this always helped with a revision). Of course, the slowness for Jen Karsbaek may mean that she's requested many fulls, and that she's working with her clients and putting them first. I also know she has her hands full with young kids (I know full well what that's like), and her blog. So, I guess we ought to just be hopeful and sit on our hands and wait! I may end up sending a nudge at the three month mark, and if I do, I'll report back.

Just wondering if anyone who has a full out with Jen Karsbaek has heard about it. A bunch of us had full requests in March, and then no peep, it seemed. I saw on Twitter today that she wants queries for historical fiction about royals. Hmm. Since I haven't heard back and haven't seen anything posted here for a while about a response to one of those fulls, I'm beginning to suspect that she's a no answer means no kind of agent for fulls. I can take that approach for queries, but I really think that if we send someone a full, they really should send us some kind of answer.

Hi IsabellaCranford- I wouldn't give up just yet. On Query Tracker some fellow March full requests have heard back that she is currently reading the manuscripts or that they are in line to be read. (within last week or so). If you email her to check, she seems to reply.

I queried Laurie McLean on 5/25

Nothing yet, but it hasn't been very long. I'm really hoping to hear back. I like what I've seen from them so far.

I did email to check with Jen Karsbaek about my query from March, and she replied the same day saying that she hadn't got around to it yet. She didn't tell me when she'd read it, just said that once she got around to it, she'd let me know either way. I'm just wondering why she's asking for more submissions if she doesn't have any time to read the fulls she's already requested. Not great interest in those fulls, I'm guessing, which is fine; it's often a matter of taste, after all. And I'm sure she'll let us know at some point. Onward, then, to the next batch!

Oh, and thanks for your reassurance, WriteStarfish. I'm not giving up on the novel—and to be fair to Jen, mine's a pretty long one (though it's meant to be a quick read).

Any recent news from anyone?

I haven't heard anything yet. I sent in my full 3/5/13. Anyone else from early March waiting to hear?

Mine is from right around the same time.

Queried Laurie today...fingers crossed.

Full request from Pam today. Getting ready to send. The wait begins!

I queried Pam on 8/28 and just got a full request.

I almost didn't query her, because all the MG favorites listed on her bio are fantasy, and mine's contemporary, but when she confirmed receipt of the full, she said she's "definitely looking for more MG contemporary."

She's got a super helpful thread going in the Ask the Agent section if anyone's missed it.