SPOTLIGHT FEATURE: Katherine Odom-Tomchin from Folio Literary Management

Good morning, everyone!

Today’s feature includes a fantastic interview with Katherine Odom-Tomchin!

Katherine is a literary agent and Audio Rights Director at Folio Literary Management in New York, which she joined following her time at Heritage Publishing, Florida. She represents both fiction and nonfiction for an adult market, with her favourite genres including horror, sci-fi and thriller on the fiction side, as well as memoir and narrative nonfiction.

Some of the authors Katherine represents include Carissa Orlando (The September House, coming Autumn 2023) and Josh Flagg (The Deal, published September 2022).

Katherine has recently been active on Twitter where she participated in the #PitDark pitch festival. She also does Agent One-to-One sessions with Jericho Writers, so don’t miss out on a chance to get her feedback on your work by booking your session here.

Check out some highlights from our interview with Katherine below.

“Thank you for querying and putting yourself out there, from a literary agent who hates sending rejections.”

Hi Katherine, thanks for speaking with me today!

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

Always at the top of my list is horror, science fiction, and thrillers. I connect most with dark literature that makes you re-evaluate – your life, your priorities, your privilege, the world around you, and everything in between. It’s so easy to get lost in the day-to-day: get up, walk the dog, go to work, cook dinner, wash the dishes, rinse, and repeat. A book that can refocus me away from these everyday distractions to explore the deeper undertones of what’s happening around us is a book that I will find satisfying, important, and worth sharing.

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

I’m a huge nerd for voice, whether it be in fiction or non-fiction. Memoirs and narrative non-fiction with a distinct voice and something valuable to say, usually with a creative twist, take the cake for me. I will say that I typically only represent platform-driven memoirs, but I love a good essay collection that has direction and purpose. I’m also drawn to true crime, psychology, and self-help.

Q. Is there any genre you’d rather not receive?

I don’t currently represent children’s fiction: picture books, middle grade, or YA. I also tend to stay away from historical fiction, poetry, short story collections, very upmarket literature, and romance, with the exception of LGBTQIA+ romance. I love a good queer love story.

Q: What is a day in the life of an agent like for you?

Every day is different as an agent! That’s part of what I love about this job. I also imagine my day-to-day is very different from the next agent’s, as I split my time between building my print list and managing audio rights as Folio’s Audio Rights director. I subagent audio rights on behalf of BenBella Books, an independent print publisher of non-fiction based in Texas, as part of my duties there. But, on any given week, you’ll find me crafting submission letters, sending out submissions, running auctions, negotiating contracts, and managing my query inbox, most likely with my dog, Bossy, curled under my desk or my black cat, June, pawing at my keyboard.

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

My biggest recommendation – skip the form submission! The best queries are those that are full of passion and targeted at specific agents. I always recommend starting with a paragraph that is tailored to the agent that you are querying. Never begin with the description or your pages. Maybe you found me on Publishers Marketplace and your book is similar to what I’ve described I’m most interested in. Maybe you can’t wait to read one of the recent deals I’ve done. Or maybe we’re kindred spirits that knew each other in another lifetime. Whatever it is that brought you to my inbox, it’s always better to put personal touches on a query letter than send out a mass email to 50 agents all at once.

Q. What are you looking for in the opening pages of a novel? What really excites you?

A jarring first sentence always gets me excited. A wonderful writer once taught me that the first sentence in a story must be unexpected, either in the way that it’s written or the idea it proposes. “The woman sat in the bathtub” becomes “The woman sat in the bathtub sitting at the edge of the world,” or something much more eloquent than I could possibly write. Immediately, you wonder who this woman is, why she’s sitting in the bathtub, and how it came to be that a bathtub sits at the edge of the world, whatever that means. There’s motivation to read on.

I’ll also say that the opening pages should be the strongest and most honed, since those are the pages that you’ll be submitting to agents initially. Of course, the goal is to have the most polished, proof-read full manuscript ready to submit to agents, but crafting a first chapter that is captivating in both voice and writing style is key to getting your foot in the door.

Q. What’s your favourite thing about being an agent?

Finding that book that makes me miss my train stop. That book for me was Carissa Orlando’s The September House (out from Berkley next year). I laughed, cried, and re-evaluated everything in all the right places reading that book for the first time. I’ll always remember the train ride I took when I came across her query in my inbox – I blew right past the 42^nd Street stop and didn’t glance up until I was halfway to Inwood. Moments like those are anything but a dime a dozen, but when they do happen, they’re magic.

Q. What are some of your favourite authors and books?

I’m a classic horror buff. It by Stephen King is definitely at the top of the list. Really anything by Stephen King, especially his older works – The Shining; Misery; Full Dark, No Stars; Cell; and Desperation – are books that made a big impression. I’m also a huge fan of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, Severance by Ling Ma, and, on the nonfiction side, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara.

More recent books that I loved reading were Look What You Made Me Do by Elaine Murphy, The Guest List by Lucy Foley, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires and The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix, and The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky.

Q. Any final words of advice for authors in the querying process?

Rejection isn’t the end all, be all. What works for one agent won’t work for another. We’re all shot down and put through the ringer – agents know this like authors do. Sometimes we are completely and totally head-over-heels for a book… and then it doesn’t sell. If you’ve queried before and you’ve received rejection after rejection, revisit the manuscript. Maybe you’ve received feedback from agents that warrant revising your pages accordingly. And if you haven’t, read as much as you can. See what’s working in the genre that you’re writing in and experiment. Your story deserves to be told and no one can tell it but you. Thank you for querying and putting yourself out there, from a literary agent who hates sending rejections.

The full interview can be found on Katherine’s AgentMatch profile.

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!