Middle Grade Ninja: 7 Questions For: Literary Agent Tamar Rydzinski

Tamar Rydzinski worked at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates prior to joining the Laura Dail Literary Agency, where she is now vice president. She graduated from Yeshiva University in 2003 with a major in literature and a minor in business. 

Tamar is not interested in prescriptive or practical non-fiction, humor, coffee table books or children’s books (meaning anything younger than middle grade). She is interested in everything else that is well-written and has great characters, including graphic novels. A fantastic query letter is essential – “you need to make me want to read your book, and be excited to read it,” she says, “with those first couple of paragraphs.”

Follow her on twitter @trydzinski

For more information, check out my friends Natalie Aguirre and Casey McCormick’s wonderful blog, Literary Rambles.

 

And now Tamar Rydzinski faces the 7 Questions:

Question Seven: What are your top three favorite books?

 Hardest question ever! And it probably/definitely changes based on my mood. 


Limiting it to kids, and not counting LDLA authors, of course:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (or anything by Sherman Alexie, really)
Chime by Franny Billingsley
If I Stay by Gayle Forman
                                   

Question Six: What are your top three favorite movies and television shows?


TV shows: 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Firefly
Chopped (or pretty much anything on the Food Network)

Movies:

Dirty Dancing
The Princess Bride
Bridget Jones’s Diary

Question Five: What are the qualities of your ideal client?


Someone who works hard! And someone who communicates, who tells me what they need. Someone who is respectful. And I will do the same for my clients!

Question Four: What sort of project(s) would you most like to receive a query for?


Right now — science fiction, mystery, thriller. But I also want anything and everything that makes me say, “wow.” I’m in this business because I love books, and I want my submissions to remind me of that.
  
Question Three: What is your favorite thing about being an agent? What is your least favorite thing?

My favorite thing is discovering that manuscript that I absolutely fall in love with (see above answer 🙂 Then working with that author to help get his or her book into the hands of readers.

My least favorite is when those books don’t get into the hands of readers for whatever reason. 

Question Two: What one bit of wisdom would you impart to an aspiring writer? (feel free to include as many other bits of wisdom as you like)


Write what you love. Do whatever you can to make your books successful. And don’t compare yourself or your career to anyone else! That can only bring you heartache. 

Question One: If you could have lunch with any writer, living or dead, who would it be? Why?
 

Marlowe. To see if he’s really Shakespeare or not! Seriously. I have been thinking about this since high school.

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