Short stories and glory

by Lauren

Twice this week, I spent my evenings at Symphony Space, soaking in culture at some great literary events. On Monday, I was lucky enough to see Emma Donoghue for the second time—rather than doing a reading, this time she was discussing the fabulous Room with Michael Cunningham. Then on Wednesday, Jim and I went to the Selected Shorts program’s evening with Colum McCann, who I’ve also had the privilege of seeing before. If you feel about Let the Great World Spin and McCann’s work in general as we do, you’ll be happy to hear that the series is actually recorded for radio broadcast, so you can listen to it here. On this particular night, Colum McCann hosted Amy Ryan reading his story “Everything in This Country Must” (from the collection of the same name that first introduced me to one of my favorite writers!), Mary-Louise Parker reading “(She Owns) Every Thing” by Anne Enright, and Michael Cerveris reading Nathan Englander’s “Free Fruit for War Widows.” It was a phenomenal performance all around, and I think I’ll be attending far more of these events in the future. As Jim said, Mary-Louise Parker should read everything.

Tucked into the program I found a flyer for the Selected Shorts Writing Contest, which I thought might be right for some of you. The 2011 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize with guest judge Jennifer Egan will result in a $1000 prize for the winner, whose story will be read as part of a Selected Shorts performance and recorded for possible broadcast. Plus Jennifer Egan saying you’re worthy is no small thing in itself. The deadline is March 1st, and you can read the rules here. Anyone planning to submit? If so, good luck!

And the winners are....

by Miriam

After much in-fighting and name calling, we’re ready to give you our top three picks for memoir pitches, following last week’s contest. This was a tough process because many of the pitches sounded like books we’d like to read (and/or represent). I hope you will actually send us your queries when you’re ready to tell these stories.

Now, without further ado, the winners:

First place: Ariana Richards
Second place: Ken Olsen
Third place: Tamara

Honorable mentions: February Grace and EHF for Suzan W

If the winners would e-mail me their addresses at Miriam@dystel.com, we’ll send you your prizes (Michael Tucker’s delightful Living in a Foreign Language, a DGLM water bottle, and a DGLM soup mug).


Thank you so much for playing along!

Misty, water colored memories…(and a contest)

by Miriam

For someone who’s fanatical about fiction, I’ve always had a soft spot for biographies and memoir (of course, a good account of an interesting life has much in common with the best fiction). Losing oneself in the pages of a novel full of invented characters is a delicious way to spend an afternoon, but there is a particular kind of pleasure in reading about real people’s exploits and experiences and especially how they describe themselves and what they’ve gone through. I find that willingness to share one’s humanity and the courage it takes to air one’s laundry and leave it flapping in the breeze pretty irresistible.

I’ve been charmed by Laurence Olivier’s diffident, self-deprecating take on his prodigious talent and by John Bayley’s loving account of his relationship with the great Iris Murdoch. I’ve been blown away by Paul Monette’s gorgeous Becoming a Man and Elie Wiesel’s devastating Night. I’m desperate to read Keith Richards’ surprisingly well-reviewed Life and Antonia Fraser’s ode to her love affair with Harold Pinter. But, I’ve also got a night table buckling under the weight of memoirs by the likes of Mary Karr, Jeannette Walls and Anne Lamott.

Samuel Johnson, himself the subject of a great biography and the author of the wonderful Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, put it thusly, “I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful; for...every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use.” He went on for a while after that, but you get the idea. Everyone has a story to tell. Their own.

So, I’d like to propose a memoir contest. Give us a couple of sentences that tell us the gist of your memoir and we’ll put it to a vote and decide whose story has the most potential. (Please keep in mind that this is not a referendum on your life…just on your ability to craft a good pitch for it.) We’ll come up with prizes for first, second and third place entries and let you know what those are as soon as we’ve figured them out.

I look forward to reading.

Update: Thanks for all the good stuff, guys. Keep the entries coming until Monday, Nov. 8, at midnight. We'll announce the winners (and prizes) on my Wednesday blog post.

Contest: World champion!

by Lauren

Well, the USA may have bowed out to Ghana back in June, but thanks to Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird, we are the victors in this contest.  Let's take a moment to pause for chants of "USA! USA!" and maybe a round or two of "We are the Champions." 

OK, so now that that's done, here's the results:

1) USA: Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD: 36.59%
2) England: George Orwell's 1984: 26.83%
3 - tie) Chile: Isabel Allende's THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS: 9.76% and Spain: Carlos Ruiz Zafon's THE SHADOW OF THE WIND: 9.76%
4)  Netherlands: Anne Frank's DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL: 7.32%
5) Argentina: Jorge Luis Borges's LABYRINTHS: 4.88%
6 - tie) South Korea: Hwang Sok-yong's THE GUEST: 2.44% and Paraguay:  Augusto Roa Bastos's I, THE SUPREME:  2.44%

So, our winner is...Anonymous.  Email me at labramo@dystel.com to claim your prize, which you'll recall is a copy of one of the fine books in the contest. 

And while I did promise to read the winner and report back, I've actually read both #1 and #2 on this list.  I love them both (and still fear being in close quarters with rats as a result of the latter), so I certainly support their victory.  But since the goal was to get me reading more foreign lit, I'll skip on down to the tie for #3.  I have long meant to read both, so they're both moving up to the "to read soon" pile.  Tell me which to start with below!

Thanks to everyone who participated, and I hope we all at least got some good book recommendations out of it!

Contest: Into the finals

by Lauren

You know about our contest, right? If not, read here and here.

So first, let me start by apologizing for the technical difficulties.  The polling site I used to generate the polls seems to have gone down and the polls won't load now.  Anyone who tried to load that blog post (or even our home page) in the last couple days before we noticed would probably have found it very slow going.  Sorry for that! 

It also proves a slight problem because I'm not 100% sure about all the books now and of course hadn't written them down.  I think I've gotten this right, but please let me know below if I haven't.

I did write down the countries that won the last round before the site went belly up, fortunately.  In the interest of not dragging this out, let's skip ahead to the final match, shall we!  New poll pitting the last 8 against one another, below.  (I'm using a different polling site and sacrificing a USB drive to the technology gods for good measure.) 

Let's get ourselves a winner, shall we?  Polls open till Thursday 8/5, and the winner will be handed glory the next day.

Final Free-for-All » make online polls
Tags : literature

Contest: Be your own psychic octopus

by Lauren

You know about our contest, right?  If not, read here.

I think we could all learn a little something about the courage of our convictions from the world's most awesome psychic, Paul the Octopus, so let us all embrace that spirit and go forth and declare winners!  I lack the technical know-how to set up something awesome and bracket-like for you here, but polls are open until Monday the 26th, so root for your favorites below, and let's see who makes it to the quarterfinals!



[Sorry, technical difficulties!! See the next round post!]



Thanks, everyone, for the nominees!  A bunch of these have been on my to-read list for ages.

*Selected from a list of Korean novels on Library Thing!
**Technically, this isn't from Slovakia, but it was the closest suggestion I got, since it was published in Czechoslovakia before the split.
***Vicki pointed out that while Allende is Chilean, this was published in Spain. I'm sure she's right, but I'll include it here because we did get another Spain entry and no other Chile ones!

Kick Back and Read: A Contest

by Lauren

 

Folks, if you’ve spoken to me in the last month, you’ll know that I have a serious case of World Cup fever. As a child, I was a devoted soccer player and a fairly good goalie, if I say so myself. While I’m something of a fair-weather soccer fan now, every four years I get really, really into it again. I’ve spent the last few weeks on a rollercoaster of excitement (Impressive goals! Beautiful men with even more beautiful accents! Delightful tonsorial choices!) and disappointment (my top three choice teams going out in a blaze of something other than glory). While I gear up to see my (fourth) favorite in the final, inexplicably not doomed by my supporting them, I’m also starting to feel withdrawal.

Now I’m the one who sells foreign rights around here, but I’m not particularly widely read on books in translation. In the spirit of improving that and keeping the World Cup buzz part of my life a bit longer, let’s have some fun here:

Below is a list of the “teams” in the tournament. I’m going to start this off at the round of 16, even if that means excluding Italy (sob). Here’s where you come in: in the comments below, give a shout out to your favorite book from a country listed. The first book named from each is getting selected for the national team! Next week, before I head out on vacation, I’ll set you up with the head-to-head battles. Then while I’m away, you guys can vote for your favorite book in each match. We’ll take this on through to it’s logical conclusion: the World Champion, which I’ll promise to read and report back on—and I’ll send the person who nominated said book a copy of something from the list they’d like to check out.

 

Fine print: books must have been translated into English, because I don’t know any other language well enough to read in it. (Way back when, my trusty French-English dictionary and I trudged through a few, but let’s just say that neither of us enjoyed it.) Let’s see if we can’t get books in for the US and England that were published in those countries but not originally in English. And if we can’t come up with something for a country that doesn’t export a whole lot to the US, the best argument for including a book for that country gets called up, much like those athletes who play for the team grandma was from instead of the one they’ve lived in their entire lives.

Don't have any favorites for countries that haven't already been taken?  Get in the game by suggesting a new name for this contest, because mine is terrible.

• Uruguay
• South Korea
• USA
• Ghana
• Netherlands
• Slovakia
• Brazil
• Chile
• Argentina
• Mexico
• Germany
• England
• Paraguay
• Japan
• Spain
• Portugal

Building enough bookshelves

by Lauren

“I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.” Anna Quindlen

While I can’t speak for Anna Quindlen’s children, I think that those of us here seem to have gotten it right! Thanks to everyone who sent in their bookshelf photos. I’ll start here with mine, and then follow me after the jump for some from DGLM agents and blog readers!!

As I mentioned, I added a new bookcase to the family recently, so the first is haphazardly organized and covered in knickknacks, photos, and mementos. The second actually has some organization to it: Baby-sitters Club and Little House books on the bottom; galleys in the middle; and the top shelf is a combination of books I represent (which I really have to get better about bringing home, because there’s a lot missing), books I sell rights for, and books I’m eager to read that are ready to move up to the majors: the bedside table pile. I actually moved the bedside table pile on top of the bookcase for photo purposes—that’s the pile on the left that’s topped with my brand new Room by Emma Donoghue galley. Those are the books I’m in the middle of or desperate to read next. The pile beside it are the books that I don’t own (though some of those are intermingled elsewhere as well) and have to remember to read and give back. At a glance, it seems about half of those are Jim’s!

At home on the shelves

by Lauren

One of my deepest home decor desires is to line my walls with bookcases.  I grew up in a house where bookshelves were everywhere you looked, but New York City apartment living isn't necessarily ideal for the literary pack rat in me.  I'm probably not going to fulfill my dreams of Beauty and the Beast-style rolling ladders any time soon. 

That said, I've happily just added a new bookcase to my collection, so for right now, my shelves just barely hold all the books in my apartment, so long as I don't bring home the stacks of books obscuring the window by my desk here or the ones boxed up at my mom's.  The box of Babysitter's Club books I just bought from a stoop sale (Books #1-44 plus various specials for $20!  A total bargain!) really ate up all the space I had left after moving the floor stacks onto the bookcase.

So when I read the comments on Rachel's post last week, I was envious of the enormous size of your to-be-read piles.  Those numbers don't count all the already-read books you probably possess!  Do any of you have a real personal library?  Or walls upon walls lined with shelves?  Just massive stacks threatening to topple?  Books strewn about here and there, to be picked up on a whim?

I'm a big fan of the New Yorker's Book Bench blog's 1,000 Words feature, where people send photos of books out in the wild, so I'm asking you, dear readers, to send photos of your lovingly curated or totally ramshackle collections.   Email your photo as an attachment to news@dystel.com with the subject line "Book Shelves", and then comment below to tell us about your personal library!  We'll feature some of our favorite photos here on the blog—and I'll see if I can't convince some of my colleagues to share their own images.  The person who sends in my favorite photo (or the first person to demonstrate their ownership of the enviable rolling bookshelves) will get a copy of something from my bookshelves--making room for me to bring home the copy of Sebastian Junger's War I just got.

What do men want? A poll--and a prize!

by Stacey

Following up on my blog post from last week and based on some of the comments we received, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to ask our blog readers, men in particular, or the women who love them, what it is they'd like to see more of, and/or less of in the marketplace. Reader David Jarrett brings up a good point that a lot of what's published today is derivative of other, successful books or authors, and often not even written by those original authors. But because they've become a household name, it's easier to sell the "branded" version of an author's work than an original work by an unknown writer. I read one of these for our work book club once, and I found it almost unreadable, lacking any depth or originality, a complete by the numbers exercise. It's a frustrating thing that we are all forced to deal with, but it's a reality of the current business model.

So I'd like to know what our male readers really want to read (which categories specifically on the fiction and nonfiction side), what they see lacking in the market, what they see too much of in the market, and what they would feel excited to spend their money on. I'd also like to see positive and negative examples of books they either loved or hated, and why.

Then if I (or any other agents here) sign a new project up that falls into these categories, I will gladly reference this blog post and let editors know there are lots of men out there who are excited to buy and read interesting, original, thought-provoking books in any number of categories, and we need to work harder to find them! As an incentive, I will choose one person who responds at random and send along a copy of a recent DGLM title. Thanks for taking part in our discussion, and in our ongoing effort to make the book biz a better place.

First lines: We have a winner!

by Jim

We have a winner from last week’s poll! At the end of the business day on Thursday, the author who had accumulated the most votes was K whose “I wondered if the girl at the front desk knew that things like me existed,” garnered a healthy 236 votes!

So K, bring it on! Send me your manuscript, and I’ll review it promptly.

Everyone else, don’t be discouraged if you weren’t chosen as a finalist or if you didn’t win. Do feel free to query me—there were lots of great entries!

Choosing the first lines

by Jim

There are several reasons I think the internet is made of magic. First, I put out a call for a first lines contest and ended up with 263 comments on the post (some of them were duplicates, but there’s no way I’m counting to find out the exact number of entries). Regardless, that’s a darned impressive tally. Second, some of them were great. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, when I posted the nine finalists, we got my favorite kind of response: anonymous snarkiness.

No seriously, I love the snarky. That the first comment asked me whether I chose the best or worst nine entries made me smile. Interestingly, someone else took the time to critique all nine entries. And while my first instinct was to rip them a new one, on a second read through, I saw that they actually made some thoughtful points, a few of which I didn’t disagree with. So I thought it would be fun/enlightening to go through and offer their critique along with my response to it as well as the entries themselves.

Before that, I want to take a quick moment to say thank you again to everyone who posted an entry. There were so many to choose from, and some really great ones slipped by. There are three in particular that I’m still mentally rotating with some of the entries I chose. A few commenters yesterday mentioned first lines that they admired: I’d love for you to share which you chose, and I’m sure the folks who penned them will be delighted to be discussed!

Now, on to the main event:

“The next time Hermes brought her back from the Underworld, Persephone wept tears of rage.”

Anonymous says: “Feels too close to pre-existing mythology.”

Jim says: Well…yeah. But I love this sentence. Not only am I a mythology fan, but I think there’s real room in the marketplace for more fiction based in Greek and Roman myths. Beyond that, the language feels nicely in tune with the subject matter but also feels effortless. And even if you know nothing about these gods, you’re left with a tantalizing question: why would someone feel rage for being taken out of hell?


"I saw her do it before she did.”

Anonymous wonders: “What does"it" refer to?”

Jim says: I don’t know. But I want to. This sentence hits a sweet spot between vague and specific that makes me ask a lot of questions. Not only what “it” is (which I assume will be answered in a later sentence), but whether this is about a main character with some sort of psychic ability, or if “she” may lack awareness of what she’s doing, in fact whether the speaker is seeing something that hasn’t happened or whether the subject is doing something without “seeing” it. It’s open ended without feeling clumsy, and it pushes me to want to know more.


“I'm pretty sure my sister had decided to become a pagan or a baptist or something before she offed herself so I don't know why we were having a Catholic funeral.”

Anonymous feels: “"Had decided" versus "decided" and the second "or" with "something" dilutes the power of the sentence.”

Jim feels: I’m going to disagree completely on this one. The “or something” is completely crucial to the success of this sentence. It reinforces the narrator’s indifference to their sister making this seem that much more wrong in so many right ways. As for the “had,” I’d keep it. It feels right for the voice which is key in the first person. This line seems to be giving us a tough yet funny narrator who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is. I most definitely want to hear more from him/her.


"Homo sapiens sluttiwhen drunkus. The subspecies to which I apparently belong."

Anonymous asks: “Am I the only one missing a verb?”

Jim says: I’m not going to lie. This is the only entry that I almost edited ever so slightly before posting. I would much rather the period after “drunkus” was a colon, making this one sentence, or really: setting it up as a single definition. A verb? Totally unnecessary. I let the punctuation slide because I laughed out loud when I read it. A lot of people tried to be funny. This represents one of the few who succeeded.


“There are four Captain Stupendous fan clubs in Copperplate City, but ours is the only one that doesn't suck.”

Anonymous states: “Better stated if it didn't start with "There"”

Jim says: Huh? I don’t understand that comment. This was a triumphant entry. I never doubted its place among the finalists because it captures a voice. I can pick out the genre AND identify a likely speaker in under 20 words. I’ve said before that you can teach writing but you can’t teach voice. Happily, this author doesn’t need any help.


"I will never be Lady Hakebourn."

Anonymous offers: “Okay, but classic problem”

Jim says: True. But there’s so much room to re-explore stories that have been told in new and exciting ways. I dig this because it’s simple and straightforward but also sounds as though it will propel the reader right into the story. I saw a lot of entries that touched on a pet peeve of mine: weather writing. I’ve mentioned it before, and I know that people will be able to come up with great examples of when writing about the weather has been employed to brilliant effect. Trouble is, too many people use rainstorms and cloudy days and whistling wind to set the reader up, and 99 times out of 100, it serves only to delay the opening and prevent the reader from being immediately engaged. Here, the author starts with a blunt enough statement that I feel as though I know the next sentence will build on it. It’s not going to be, say: I will never be Lady Hakebourn. It was a sunny day in June, and a warm wind was stirring up a dustcloud by the barn…


"I wondered if the girl sitting at the front desk knew that things like me existed.”

Anonymous queries: “Extraneous "that," what is the "thing"?”

Jim says: I’m going to go 50% with Anonymous on this. I would absolutely agree that “that” is extraneous. Put a mental line through it. And now it’s a brilliant sentence. What is the “thing?” That’s the whole point! We want to know! Is this being narrated by a supernatural creature? Or is the protagonist just so down on him/herself that they identify as less than human? Like the second finalist, I love that this so fabulously nestles in that nexus between specific and vague.


"I've had five husbands; none of them were mine."

Anonymous votes! “The one I voted for, even though it sounds kind of cheesy like Mae West. Best of the bunch.”

Jim says: Whether or not I think it’s the best of the bunch, I’ll never tell…at least until next week. I can’t agree with calling it cheesy, though. It’s tantalizing and vampy and intentionally provocative. Perfect employment of a semi-colon (brava!), and if you don’t want more specifics, you have less prurient interests than me.


"Thomas Buttermore was your typical left-coast college kid, raised on Twinkies and white guilt."

Anonymous said: “This sounds more like a right-coastie to me. I don't know any educated Californians who eat Twinkies.”

Jim says: Okay, Anonymous: that’s damn funny. But I still love this line. It’s got a nice little wink and a nudge going. It walks up to the line of gimmickry without crossing over it. And Thomas Buttermore is SUCH a good name for a character.

First line finalists: It's poll time!

by Jim

I asked for your first lines, and hundreds of you delivered. Now we’re down to nine finalists (the polling site wouldn’t let me do ten), and I’m asking you to do your part and vote for your favorite.

We’ll keep the poll open until 5:00 NY time on Thursday, and the winner gets their manuscript considered by yours truly.

And check back here tomorrow for more commentary from me on the contest; how I chose these nine finalists, what my first line pet peeves are, and other first-line-related shenanigans.

For the time being, remember to vote! Discussions of my choices are welcome. Feel free to tell me I’m an idiot if you dislike my picks, but remember to be nice to each other!

First Lines: A contest!

by Jim

The biggest news in publishing this week is that the London Book Fair is barely happening because of cursed Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull which, thanks to the NY Times, I can now pronounce!

But really, I can only say so much about that, so instead, let’s have a contest!

You’ve all surely heard that agents make decisions really fast, and if we aren’t entranced by your writing within 6.2 seconds or somesuch, we’ll just move on to the next thing. This is, for the most part, entirely true. So let’s see how quickly you can win us (and your fellow blog readers) over. Post the first line of your manuscript in the comments below by the end of the day on Thursday, 4/22. I’ll narrow it down to a select group of finalists, and then we’ll have a poll for you to judge who had the best, most intriguing first line.

The winner gets to have their full manuscript considered by yours truly. You don’t even have to query!

Bring it on! And in the meantime, enjoy this hysterical NPR link about mishaps that has nothing to do with anything.

A puzzle with a message

by Stacey

Following up on my post last week about not taking anything for granted in this business, I had a meeting with an editor this week from Atria Books, and she shared a story I loved and wanted to pass on. She told me about a book on her list, a first novel, that has been doing very well since its release last month, and has become a bit of a sleeper hit over there. She also told me that part of the reason for the book's success is because a major bestselling author (who happens to be edited by this editor) read the book and endorsed it. Most of the time, that's where it ends, a great blurb and everyone is ecstatic! In this case, the bestselling author loved the book so much that she offered to host a contest of sorts where anyone who produced a receipt confirming purchase of the first novel indicating a particular date of sale would receive a signed copy free of charge of one of her books. I'm told that not only did she keep her promise, but she wound up sending out hundreds of signed copies on her own time and at her own expense. This goes above and beyond the call of duty, but it illustrates to me a wonderful camaraderie that exists in books. Authors willing to help other authors, and really remembering to give back when they've already made it. It's such a simple lesson, really, but one that bears repeating and often. This story has stuck with me and made me feel great about publishing and the decent, kind, generous people who inhabit our world. Can any of you figure out what first novel and which bestselling author I'm talking about? The clues should lead you there if you are so inclined. I will send the first person who solves the puzzle a copy of one of my books. Hint: I (unfortunately) do not represent either author. Good luck!

Three-Minute Fiction

by Rachel

I remember in college, when my creative writing professors would give the class a photograph or a newspaper clipping and ask us to write a story from it, my eyes would glaze over and I’d quickly write a B-grade short story the night before my assignment was due. But, little did I know that this was not a spur-of-the-moment task professors gave out to pass time throughout the semester, but an exercise to stimulate creativity! Photographs, newspaper clippings, even (dare I say it) weird Twitter posts can create new and exciting stories in an author’s mind.

So, having said this, and actually believing this might kill the winter writer’s block for myself and others, I’m going to do exactly what I hated doing in my college creative writing classes, and participate in the Three-Minute Fiction contest, held by NPR. 600 words, one photograph, and 15 days to procrastinate!

Congratulations, Robert Kent!

by Lauren

Thanks to all who competed and voted in DGLM's first competition!  Robert Kent (of Robertkent.net fame, naturally) is the winner of our contest and this pretty blue DGLM water bottle!

Robert's winning entry in the hilariously bad titles contest was ATLAS HUGGED: A Guide to Encouraging Charity in Your Community. 

Congratulations also to runners up Scott Martelle's TWEET JESUS: Bible Passages for the Twitter Age and D. Antone's WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THAT BOOK? Everything Known and Forgotten about Alzheimer's Disease.  Your prize is the (dubious) glory of knowing you made us laugh!

Robert, write to me at labramo@dystel.com to send your mailing address and claim your prize!

Vote for the best of the worst!

by Lauren

Thanks everyone for the excellent responses to our contest. We're taking votes for the winner till Friday at 5 p.m., so help us find our shiny new DGLM water bottle a home in the poll below!

Titling, and DGLM's first contest!

by Lauren

The Ghostbusters theme has been ringing through my head this morning, because of a charmingly named article I’ve been corresponding about written by one of the agency’s clients. I’ve had “Paperback Writer” stuck in my head for days because of my own foolish blog post title from Friday. And I was once tormented for months by two projects I had on submission at the same time that had song lyrics as working titles.

Titles can certainly stick with us, especially when they’re allusions to something else. In college I took a class on literature of the “transition” with a professor who was fond of irrelevant tangents, so I often entertained myself by picking out book titles from the poetry course pack. WB Yeats’s “The Second Coming” alone is owed a debt of gratitude from the classics Things Fall Apart and Slouching Towards Bethlehem, and if you search the poem’s key phrases you can find a surprising number of others. WWI era poetry has also provided authors quite a bit of inspiration.

And beyond songs and poetry, puns and movie titles provide a treasure trove of opportunities for books, especially series fiction. Our own Victoria Laurie’s two mystery series are a perfect example.

Unfortunately, titling books is often much, much harder than just coming up with something to reference. As agents, we often have a hand in helping to come up with great titles for our books—and brainstorming lists of options for each others’ clients can be both a fun and trying experience. Recently, after hundreds of choices were suggested and nixed for a particular book, I decided to consult the internet for help and stumbled upon a great and also hysterical tool for authors: author MD Benoit’s Random Title Generator (note: there are words that might offend some, so use with caution). We actually found a handful of really good titles—though none quite right for the book—and some that were so delightfully unfortunate we had to share those with each other, too. Click on over to the title generator and get yourself a new title for your masterpiece or a working title so atrocious it’ll help lighten the mood whenever you get frustrated with writers’ block.

But we think that you, our faithful blog readers, can do better than a random word combiner. So come up with the best bad fake book title you can and leave it in the comments—bonus points for giving us a logline or subtitle to give us context. We’ll take entries until the end of the day on Friday, select our favorites as finalists, and let you fine folks pick the winner here on the blog. Winner gets a shiny new DGLM water bottle!