SPOTLIGHT FEATURE: Amy Bishop from Dystel, Goderich & Bourret

Today’s feature is on Amy Bishop who is an agent with Dystel, Goderich & Bourret in New York. Amy has been with the agency since 2015, progressing from intern, to agent’s assistant, to office manager. With a degree in Creative Writing, she both maintains her own list as an agent and oversees digital projects and social media for DGB.

Amy’s fiction specialties include upmarket/literary fiction, book club fiction, and literary suspense. She seeks historical nonfiction, science, current affairs, cultural criticism, investigative deep dives, and select prescriptive nonfiction for a millennial audience.

Outside of genre, Amy is always happy to receive AAPI/BIPOC submissions from the corresponding voices.

Check out the interview highlights below, and read it in full on Amy’s AgentMatch profile.

“Writing above all is what moves me; it can be a rollicking plot, but if I don’t love the quality of the writing, I’m probably going to pass (or pass you to one of my colleagues)”

Hi Amy, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us! We would love to pass on to our members what you’re looking for in submissions, your favourite book deals, and any advice you might have for querying authors.

Q. What’s at the top of your fiction wish-list?

I would love to see more AAPI voices and more BIPOC voices in my inbox in general. For adult, my sweet spot is upmarket book club fiction—not uber-literary, but also not super commercial. The writing is beautiful, the characters well-formed, but a plot really moves underneath the more literary elements. I’ve loved Charlotte McConaghy, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Zakiya Dalila Haris, and am terrifically excited for Grace Li’s debut. I’m fascinated by women of color writing about women of color in a historical setting that I may not be as familiar with; complicated, tangled mother-daughter relationships; a touch of speculative or magical elements in an otherwise contemporary setting; novels set in the Midwest, Southwest, and Pacific Northwest; stories about women and girls coming into their own, in a myriad of ways. I love dry humor and books with a touch of wryness to them. I love to be surprised and I love to fall in love. I’m interested in books that can join a cultural conversation without being too heavy-handed—I think MIGRATIONS does this so well for climate change and THE OTHER BLACK GIRL does this looking at microaggressions and racism in the workplace/everyday (but with a TWIST!).

For young adult, I would love contemporary rom-coms; clever retellings (or novels that use a familiar story as a jumping off point); select historicals (preferably after the 1700s, but if you’ve got an amazing novel set on the African, Asian, or South American continents set before then, send it my way—and, of course, send it my way if it takes place after then too!) I’m interested in stories about adoption and growing up biracial or otherwise feeling in-between cultures (for these stories, please, only from authors who are adoptees or biracial); stories about grappling with grief or loss, and that awkward, uncomfortable age of feeling simultaneously like the world is at your fingertips, but not yet quite knowing who you are.

Q. What do you love when it comes to non-fiction?

My nonfiction tastes veer toward history, science, and the social sciences. As with my fiction, I love hearing about women doing kickass things, and learning about the broader social context surrounding them. I’m always interested in learning with my nonfiction, and I veer towards unknown history, feminist history, and deep dives into a particular topic. For me, the heart of nonfiction is about the people, and so I need an interesting person (or persons) for the narrative to be shaped around. I’m fascinated by sociologists, psychologists, scientists, and general academics writing for a more trade audience—I’m thinking of the incredible Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, my own author, Dr. Kelsy Burke, Bessel van der Kolk, and so many others. I’m also interested in journalists who have done extensive research on a particular story or topic and historians. I do select prescriptive work, but increasingly, a significant platform is necessary for me to even consider. I’ve been very, very selective with memoir, and am not actively looking to take it on (but again, as with most things: if you have a truly remarkable story, come wow me!)

Q. What do you want to see in a query letter?

Above all, I want to see professionalism. A thoughtful, clearly researched query letter that has the following five elements: 1) why you’re querying X agent, 2) brief pitch (no more than a couple short paragraphs), 3) author bio, 4) comp titles, if applicable, 5) metadata (title, word count, genre, etc.). I don’t care what order these are in, as long as they’re all included. I greatly dislike gimmicky letters or query letters that start off negative (‘well, you’re clearly never going to read this, but…‘) I can also tell if the author has just blasted off the same letter to 50 agents and put no time, research, or care into the query. The query is as much about pitching the book, as giving us a sense of how you might be to work with, so if I get the sense that the author is careless or already approaching this without much thought, I’m already uncertain about how they might be to partner with long-term.

Q. Tell us about a recent deal (or three) that really delighted you.

Oh boy! I’m going for the three option. Maria Dong’s debut novel, LOOKING GLASS LIAR, which is about a young woman’s attempts to cope with mental illness via a vividly constructed fantasy world, and what happens when those attempts fall apart when she witnesses the co-worker she’s been stalking jump off a bridge right in front of her, and discovers he’s been watching her all along. It’s surprising and funny, and oh so twisty! Another debut novelist—Madeline Kay Sneed’s THE GOLDEN SEASON, which is set in the Southern Baptist “Bible Belt” of West Texas, and in which a father and daughter must grapple with her coming out. The novel redefines questions of faith, love, and what it means to be family for them both, and is just heartfelt and beautiful. And lastly, a third debut, by Zoe Sivak, titled MADEMOISELLE REVOLUTION, about a biracial heiress who flees to Paris when the Haitian Revolution burns across her island home. In Paris, she works her way into the inner circle of Robespierre and his mistress, where she must contend with her place in both uprisings. It’s historical fiction centering on a woman of color and such a smart, deeply researched book, while also being deliciously fun.

Thanks, Amy!

In the meantime, if you’re struggling with your query letter and synopsis, do check out our free resources on our website. We have lots of info to help you on your way. Or, better still, if you’re a member with us, our lovely Writers Support team will be happy to offer you a free query letter review!