Agent: representative or catalyst?
The word agent means a representative. It also means a cause – an ingredient for change. Davinia Andrew-Lynch, who set up the Andlyn agency in 2015 and Abi Fellows who joined The Good Literary Agency in 2018, give their takes on whether it is possible to do both.
LITERARY agents act on behalf of writers, but they aren’t a luxury reserved only for the stars. With many publishers only accepting work via agents the agent has become the gatekeeper of the publishing industry.
Research shows that the demographics of published writers and the characters in their books don’t reflect the demographics of society – especially in children’s books. So, what can agents do about it?
Davinia Andrew-Lynch Davinia set up the Andlyn agency in 2015. She’s building a list of authors for mass audiences so her taste is mainstream: “I’m more of a Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones kid.” The books she loved most when she was growing up were Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus Trilogy. “I remember thinking at the time, I love this but I just wish there was something like this which had a black girl at the centre of it.” She believes that agents must stay true to their taste to do their jobs properly, and that balancing this with finding more diverse authors needs to be carefully managed or they can end up clashing: “I can only take on the writers that I really love because I only have a finite amount of time. At the same time I can’t conjure up someone who fits into a certain mould from an under-represented group. I have to make sure I’m doing my job as an agent really well and I can only do that if I stay true to the stories.”
Davinia can see that many voices are unheard “particularly in terms of children’s fiction because it’s criminal what’s going on there – that’s why I helped set up the Fab Prize (with Faber &
20 PEN&INC.
Faber in 2015)” – but the evidence she’s seen suggests that the outcomes of actions can be subtle and take a while. “What’s been particularly interesting is that when I started, my submissions inbox wasn’t that mixed – and I’m particularly talking about writers of colour. I had been trying to strategically visit places where I would find children’s writers from a range of backgrounds, because that was my focus, but I wasn’t finding or hearing from many people. Over the last few years however, that’s changed; and those early efforts are starting to come to fruition. So these are people who perhaps noted that I was going out of the usual ‘publishing spheres’ or trying to reach out. I always knew they were there, it just took a little time to find them. Some writers would say things like: “I saw that you started
Davinia Andrew-Lynch
the Fab Prize, but I thought I’d send it to you directly.” They didn’t enter the competition, I think, because they simply don’t want to be boxed-in. But whether they applied or not, creating the Fab Prize itself showed that those writers from ethnic backgrounds are welcomed in children’s publishing.”
This chimes with her own experience: “I think the frustration for me sometimes is that because of who I am, it’s expected that I am only representing certain people. Like the people approaching me and not going through the Fab Prize. They just want to be represented for their story. And I just want to be seen as an agent. That’s the ultimate thing that runs through this.
“It’s not going to be changed overnight. But if I stick to my guns I will find those authors who are in the minority. It’s about trying to offer as many varied opportunities for under-represented writers to find their route in.” She fears that writers from under- represented communities are almost forced to forget that the main thing is their writing. She takes Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give: “Yes, this is an issue book but she elevates it. She’s a brilliant storyteller. But that’s the key and that’s what authors have to hold on to. It’s not that they have to write books which are heavy in theme or social politics related only to their background. It’s how you tell those stories, or your story. That’s what people need to understand, just so they don’t believe ‘that’s the only kind of book that will do well from my kind of community’ because that’s not the case at all.”
Workforce
But she sees limitations to her own literary radar. “I had a really middle class
Autumn-Winter 2019
Agents
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