Successful Queries: Jaynie Royal and “Play, With Knives,” by Jeanette Horn

Welcome back to the Successful Queries series. In this installment, find a query letter to publisher Jaynie Royal (Regal House Publishing) for Jeanette Horn’s debut novel, Play, With Knives.

Jeanette Horn holds an MFA from The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she received a Maytag Fellowship. Her poetry has appeared in MARGIE, POETRY INTERNATIONAL, STAND, and other literary journals. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and dogs. Play, With Knives is her first novel.

Here’s Jeanette’s query:

Dear Ms. Royal and team:

Please consider my 88,000-word literary novel, PLAY, WITH KNIVES, for Regal House Publishing. The manuscript, which reads as a work of magical realism, takes readers on a dreamlike train journey through romance, strangeness, silliness, and tragedy to a final twist that reveals the story as metafiction. Its magic is that of the written word, and it asks questions about the nature of identity, reality, truth, and art.

Emotionally volatile, Edgar Cosentino can’t tolerate lies. It was a lie that made him leave Rome and take up work as the set designer/stage manager for an acting troupe traveling by train to perform across the American Midwest. Within this eccentric cast of characters, Edgar finds happiness in his budding relationship with the lead actress of the troupe, Ava Vale. Ava is enamored with Edgar, but worries about his temper. And too late, she realizes Edgar’s revulsion for lying has trapped her with a secret—Ava is technically married.

All the while, the playwright and owner of the troupe, Fallon Finn-Dorset, watches this drama unfold. She incorporates pieces of it into her scripts and suspects that, on the train, other elements of her plays are mysteriously becoming real. New train cars inexplicably appear, along with a partly tame fox and a barman resembling Abraham Lincoln. Lies soon blend with truth, and fiction populates reality in ways that have dangerous consequences for Edgar, Ava, and others. But can reality be rewritten in a way that will save Edgar and Ava’s relationship as well as the future of the troupe?

I hold an MFA from The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where I received a Maytag Fellowship and was a finalist for POETRY’s Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship. My work has appeared in RIVER STYX, WASHINGTON SQUARE, MARGIE, POETRY INTERNATIONAL, STAND, and other journals. In my free time, I enjoy dressage. You can learn more at jeanettehorn.com.

I would be happy to provide the full manuscript for your review. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Jeanette Horn

Check out Jeanette Horn’s Play, With Knives here:

Bookshop | Amazon

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Publisher Jaynie Royal’s commentary:

There is much about this query that I love. The title of the work, Play, With Knives, is immediately engaging, suggestive of the wordplay that threads through the novel. And as for the query itself, Jeanette’s literary prowess is on full display. At the outset she establishes the core theme of the work—the power of the written word and the manner in which her narrative examines, and manipulates, the nature of identity, reality, truth, and art. Then, brilliantly, she loops back to that theme in closing (once we have been introduced to the primary characters), establishing both the danger presented by that fluidity of reality/fiction and the possibility of salvation. With enough in between to really pique my interest—a tame fox and an Abraham Lincoln lookalike? What is clear, too, in these opening paragraphs is that this ms is refreshingly original and the author is, indeed, a master of her pen.

But to break it down further: Jeanette’s query is concise, to the point, yet contains all the critical information that our acquisitions team wishes to know (including word count and a brief summary). In the opening paragraph, I can deduce immediately that she understands the market placement for her novel, which is, predominantly, a literary work, one imbued with a speculative, magical element. It is also evident that she is familiar with the books that we publish and has done her research to ensure that her ms would be a good fit for our House. Her opening paragraph is intriguing and serves as a brilliant summary of the overarching work; this, then, entices one to read further.

The subsequent paragraphs introduce us to the characters who populate Jeanette’s novel as well as artfully layering in the central themes that formulate the respective plot arcs. She ends, then, with a brief background as to her credentials, mentioning fellowships and literary journals that have published her work—all of which attests to her professionalism as a writer and her ongoing dedication to engaging an audience for her work. She conveniently provides a link to her author website, with links to recent literary events and social media platforms, which are, of course, a critical component of digital marketing today.

All in all, this query received a universal thumbs-up among our acquisition editors, and we were delighted to invite Jeanette to proceed to the next stage of our acquisitions process.

Jeanette’s thoughts on querying:

During the decade it took me to write Play, With Knives, people sometimes asked if I was going to try to get it published. I’d tell them that the book likely wouldn’t appeal to a large publisher but could hopefully find a home with an independent house or small press.

But when it came time to start submitting, I felt I had to at least see how literary agents would respond (and through them, the Big Five). In January 2022, I signed on with a firm to help me query. They were excited about my manuscript but, because it was magical realism, were adamant that I should only be reaching out to agents who represented fantasy. I felt from the start that, due to the writing style of the book, we should be contacting those representing literary fiction, but I bowed to their expertise for a few months until it was clear that their tactic wasn’t driving any interest.

In May, I broke ties with the firm and started querying agents who represented literary fiction. At the same time, I decided to hedge my bets by simultaneously submitting to independent publishers and small presses, since that was where I still envisioned the book ultimately ending up. Much of the middle part of that year was spent responding to requests for my full manuscript and then anxiously checking my email for news. Several agents ended up really loving my voice as well as aspects of the book, but they ultimately weren’t sure they could sell it. I had several close calls with small presses as well.

When I clicked Submit on the Regal House Publishing website that July, I remember being extremely impressed with the beauty and quality of their books and really hoping things would somehow work out. I was thrilled to get a manuscript request from them soon after, and for the rest of the year, I navigated their very organized and well communicated submission process, excited to make it through to each next step. When I’d reached the final stage, they let me know that a decision would be made on Jan. 6, 2023—Epiphany.

And what an epiphany it was. I was driving home from a dressage lesson, sweaty and covered in dirt and horsehair, when my phone buzzed at a red light. I didn’t have enough time before the light turned green to read Jaynie’s full email, but I scanned just enough of the first paragraph to see that she had accepted my novel!

It’s been absolutely wonderful working with Regal House Publishing to bring Play, With Knives into the world. Jaynie runs the house with such courage, and she’s been extraordinarily professional, an insightful editor, and an amazing cheerleader throughout the entire process. I feel incredibly lucky to be working with her and her team, and I still can’t quite believe that, at the end of a year-long submission process, my novel ended up finding the perfect home.

*****

Born in New Zealand, Jaynie Royal spent much of her early life in Singapore and Malaysia with her family. After the completion of her undergraduate degree at Auckland University, she attended Texas A&M in the US for graduate studies. Jaynie met her husband while in the US where she has lived and worked ever since. Determined to found a traditional independent press that elevated finely crafted literature while serving as a true partner to authors, she established Regal House Publishing in 2014. Jaynie has resided in North Carolina with her husband and children for over a decade.

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