Successful Queries: Tina Pohlman and “Bunyan and Henry,” by Mark Cecil
Welcome back to the Successful Queries series. It’s been a moment, but the whole purpose of this series is to show writers successful queries that are currently working in the publishing industry, along with commentary about what appealed to agents and editors. Hopefully, this will help with your own querying efforts.
In this post, we’ll look at a query by Mark Cecil for his book Bunyan and Henry, recently published by Pantheon, though you’ll see it originally had a slightly different title.
Mark Cecil (Photo credit: Janna Giacoppo)
Mark Cecil is the host of The Thoughtful Bro show, for which he conducts interviews with an eclectic roster of award-winning and breakout storytellers. Formerly a journalist for Reuters, he is Head of Strategy for literary social media startup A Mighty Blaze and has taught writing at Grub Street in Boston. This is his first book.
The story behind Bunyan and Henry getting published involved changing agents from Tina Pohlman to Chad Luibl. As Cecil shares:
Back in the summer of 2022, I queried a small handful of agents who I really admired, including Chad and Tina (who I knew through the writer Mateo Askaripour). Tina quickly offered representation. Then, as is standard practice, I went to Chad and said, I have an offer of rep, are you still interested?
At that point Chad had only had the book for like three weeks, and he wrote me a very nice note about what he loved about the book, and said, if you already have representation, go ahead with Tina! The note was very cool, and thoughtful, and I remembered it.
In the fall of 2022, Tina took the book out on sub, Anna told Tina she loved the MS, but wondered if I could rework some aspects. I immediately thought Anna’s ideas were brilliant, and I knew she understood my book. So I promptly did a rewrite along Anna’s suggestions. Then Anna bought the book in the spring of 2023.
That summer, Tina left agenting to become an editor. So I asked Anna, who does she think would be a good agent to replace Tina? Anyone she enjoys working with? And she (not knowing my history with Chad) recommended Chad would be a fit for me above all.
Remembering that super nice note Chad wrote, I enthusiastically went back to him, and he agreed to rep me from that point on.
Despite moving on to other projects, Pohlman agreed to share what she liked about Cecil’s original query. Here it is, with Pohlman’s commentary below:
Original Query
Hi Tina,
Hope you’re well, and I’m so glad Mateo connected us. Mateo is amazing and interviewing him on my show was a blast. He and I have much in common: high energy, an entrepreneurial background, and a similar aesthetic. My literary fantasy novel BUNYAN shares a lot with BLACK BUCK, too: both works mix humor, satire and pathos, while taking on big issues like capitalism and race. I also know you published JOHN HENRY DAYS, a book I cherish. My own novel grapples deeply with the John Henry legend, and I would hope fans of Whitehead might find something engaging here, too.
New York Times bestseller Caroline Leavitt said about BUNYAN: “Part Pynchon, part mythic, Mark Cecil takes the Paul Bunyan legend, turns it on its head, and makes it do somersaults in this extraordinary debut. BUNYAN is outrageously original and playful, though at its heart, it’s a moving, moving love story.” NYT bestseller Jenna Blum calls BUNYAN: “So ridiculously energetic, muscular, and fun that you barely notice—at first—that the huge engine propelling BUNYAN is a giant heart. This novel is exactly what we need right now, a quintessentially American story that reflects us in all our generosity and grotesqueness, with unflinching honesty and hope.”
BUNYAN is a retelling of the beloved American legend, an epic that combines the yarn of an adventure quest with deeper interrogations of race and class. It follows—of course—Paul Bunyan, who when we first meet him is eking out a miserable miner’s life in a bleak hamlet called Lump Town. When Paul’s adored wife Lucette grows ill with a potentially fatal disease caused by Lump-mineral pollution, Paul sets off on a quest to save her, aided by the advice of a mythical creature called a Chilali. Guided by strange new rules he didn’t know existed, Bunyan travels to The Windy City, where he teams up with folk hero and steel driver John Henry, his preternaturally intelligent wife Polly, and a cast of other larger-than-life characters, who together solve riddles, forge weapons, plumb labyrinths, brawl with behemoths, and do battle with the bombastic industrialist El Boffo, all in the name of Paul bringing a cure back to his dear, dying wife.
BUNYAN is a work of literary fiction with fantasy elements, an examination of both the wild idealism and dark underbelly of the American dream. I hope the novel will appeal to readers of Madeline Miller’s CIRCE and ACHILLES SONG; George Saunders’s LINCOLN IN THE BARDO; and Colson Whitehead’s THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.
A few words about my credentials: I’ve spent 10 years as a journalist and editor for Reuters News, and my writing has appeared in The Millions, Embark, and Grub Daily, among other publications. Currently, I’m Head of Strategy for literary social media marketing startup A Mighty Blaze, where I host an on-air weekly series called The Thoughtful Bro. I’ve been privileged to interview George Saunders, Yaa Gyasi, Maggie O’Farrell, Jeff VanderMeer, Jess Walter, Phil Klay, Jonathan Lethem, and dozens of others, including Mateo.
On a personal note, I’m the white father of four mixed-race children. Several years ago, I sought in vain to find a bedtime story that would feature a black hero and a white one—a story that looked like my own family. BUNYAN began as a loose retelling of The Epic of Gilgamesh for my kids, so they would see a black and a white man working together. Over time, the story evolved into a narrative I hope will appeal to adult readers of all races and help shine a light on who as Americans we truly are.
BUNYAN is complete at 128,000 words. I hope you’ll want to take a look, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Thanks for considering! First ten pages below….
Check out Mark Cecil’s Bunyan and Henry here:
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What Pohlman liked about the query:
Mark Cecil’s query letter arrived in my inbox and lit up my screen with the same exuberance I would soon discover in the pages of his manuscript. Yes, he was referred to me by the one-and-only Mateo Askaripour, so that helped. And Mark kindly reminded me of that connection in the first sentence.
He also mentioned John Henry Days, a title I acquired more than 20 years ago when I was a young editor, as a book he cherishes. But it takes more than a referral and flattery to get my attention, so let’s look more closely at how Mark did it.
In the first paragraph, he manages to convey all the key points about his novel in 101 words. Brilliant.
Next comes a paragraph with two distinctively descriptive blurbs from successful fiction authors, followed by a detailed but pacy plot summary that echoes the spirited tone of the novel.
In the paragraph after that, he gives me an expertly crafted sales handle that includes apt comp titles and tells me who the audience is. I knew it would be easy for me to adapt for my pitch letter, and I’d bet a hundred bucks his editor at Pantheon was able to copy and paste that right into her tip sheet too.
This is followed by a bio packed with terrific credentials and a personal note on the genesis of the novel that comes off as genuine and heartfelt.
He wraps it up by telling me the word count—a whopping 128,000 words, which I’ll admit gave me pause. But I appreciated his honesty, and the sample pages he included with the query reeled me in.
So I asked for the full manuscript, and the rest is history!
*****
Tina Pohlman (Photo credit: Britt Olsen-Ecker)
Tina Pohlman was an agent with the Ross Yoon Literary Agency. During her publishing career, she has also served in senior editorial and management positions in the Knopf/Doubleday and Crown Publishing Group divisions of Penguin Random House, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Abrams, as well as digital media startup Open Road Integrated Media.