Successful Queries: Molly Ker Hawn and “Now, Conjurers,” by Freddie Kölsch

Welcome back to the Successful Queries series. In this installment, find a query letter accepted by Literary Agent Molly Ker Hawn of The Bent Agency for Freddie Kölsch’s novel Now, Conjurers, recently published by Union Square & Co. As you’ll hear in Freddie’s own words, this success story came from taking a chance:

Molly wasn’t actually the original person I queried at The Bent Agency, and I almost didn’t query that particular agency at all. I was told by people who’d gone through it how arduous the querying process is, and I knew that it would probably take several iterations before I had a tight enough letter to get anyone to request a full manuscript. So I kept my expectations low, and in the first round the only ‘dream agency’ I emailed was The Bent Agency.

To my surprise, I got an email back from a different person at The Bent Agency, who asked for my full manuscript. Then I heard from a third (and fourth) agent at The Bent Agency! I had a video chat with Molly and newly-minted associate agent Martha Perotto-Wills, and within ten minutes I knew that I was done with agent-hunting, and that of the agents who had offered representation on my brief journey these were the people who most got my work, enjoyed it, and truly believed it could succeed. They offered such astute edits and radiated intelligence, forthrightness and honesty. And they’ve done that with every manuscript I’ve thrown at them over the past few years.

Now, after two years of reading the vibrant copy that publishers have put together around this book, my original query letter (and book title) seem unbearably clunky. But I’m glad that the people at The Bent Agency saw enough in it to pass my manuscript around until it found the perfect advocates.

Freddie Kölsch

Freddie Kölsch is a connoisseur and crafter of frightful fiction (with a dash of hope) for teens and former teens. She lives in Salem, Massachusetts, with her high school sweetheart-turned-wife, a handful of cats, a houseful of art, and a mind’s eye full of ghosts. Now, Conjurers is her first novel.

Original Query

Northcott Faire before us.
Nearest grave behind us.
Necropolis around us.
Nexus compels us.

November 1999. Nesbit Nuñez and the rest of North Coven discover the body of Bastion Attia—their leader, beloved school quarterback, secret witch, and Nesbit’s confidential boyfriend—partially devoured in the thin woods at the back of Stepwood Cemetery.

The small town of North Dana is thrown into darkest mourning, and Nesbit’s coven is left with zero answers and zero closure. Dove, Bastion’s sister and the Heart of the coven, wants Bastion’s killer brought to justice, and Nesbit is inclined to agree with her. The four remaining witches of North Coven believe they are embarking on a magically-enhanced murder investigation. For the first week.

Then Mayor Winship dies at Bastion’s funeral.

Then the first week happens again.

Then every soul in North Dana forgets that Bastion Attia ever existed at all. Every soul except for the members of North Coven…and the school bully, Cameron Winship, who’s started to speak strangely. Exactly like Bastion did.

Suddenly Bastion’s highly particular set of compulsions don’t seem like ordinary compulsions at all. They seem, in fact, to be connected to the key he always wore.

The key that Cameron Winship is wearing now.

The key that unlocks the last mausoleum in Stepwood Cemetery.

North Coven has drawn the attention of Mr. Nous, the creature that waits behind black velvet curtains deep underneath North Dana, and it has discarded its centuries-old game for a more direct approach. Nesbit and his best friends must unravel the mysteries of Bastion’s life and death…and, in doing so, stay alive for long enough to understand why Mr. Nous is intent on obliterating them.

His Strong Enchantments Failing is an 88,000 word YA horror novel about grief, class differences, enduring friendship, and monsters beyond human comprehension squatting just outside of our reality.

This is an #ownvoices story with a predominantly LGBTQIA+ cast, written for both teens and adults who wished they had their own queer version of Ray Bradbury and Stephen King stories when they were teens. I’m writing to you because I feel that this book checks two boxes for your YA preferences: it reads as both horror and a dark twisty thriller.

I’m a lesbian witch myself (there’s at least one in this story) and I live in Salem, MA, with my wife and three cats. In a long-ago life, I was a Creative Director for an advertising agency, but now I mostly lift boxes and write books.

Thank you for taking the time to consider His Strong Enchantments Failing.

Check out Freddie Kölsch’s Now, Conjurers here:

Bookshop | Amazon

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What Molly Ker Hawn liked about the query:

This query is longer than I would usually advise, but Freddie needed to convey that Now, Conjurers is a bit of a genre mash-up with a fairly complex plot. 

The first thing that caught my eye was the mention of the ‘beloved high school quarterback, secret witch, confidential boyfriend’—I’m always interested in new spins on high school social dynamics, and the idea of the popular jock having a secret supernatural life while also being queer reeled me right in. And because I’m interested in stories that play with time, ‘Then the first week happens again’ jumped out at me next. Between those two lines and Freddie’s summary at the end—a ‘YA horror novel about grief, class differences, enduring friendship, and monsters beyond human comprehension squatting just outside of our reality’—I knew I wanted to read this book without paying much attention to the rest of what she was saying about the plot. 

I already liked the setup, and I loved the elegant way she described what the book is really about—it showed me that she had something to say, and knew how she wanted to say it. I always like to see an ambitious story that’s more than the sum of its parts, and a confident voice is something I’m always looking for.

*****

Molly Ker Hawn

Molly Ker Hawn leads the London office of the Bent Agency, where she primarily represents authors who write for the young adult and middle grade market, including Angie Thomas, Frances Hardinge, Alwyn Hamilton, and more. Before joining TBA, she held editorial roles at Chronicle Books and Dial Books for Young Readers, worked on early social media development for a major teen magazine, and served as National Programs Director at the Children’s Book Council, the trade association of American children’s book publishers.

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