Dear Imagined Agent:
I was recently nominated for two major honors.
Best American Essay
and
The Pushcart Prize
Although you get a few thousand queries each week from a few thousand writers, and likely won’t care (or see this at all), this is, in fact, a miracle. Why?
I can’t read well, and don’t remember stuff for longer than 2.3 seconds because I was hit by a drunk with a truck. That makes me Diverse, Neuro-Diverse, and brain-damaged, too. A trifecta.
I am writing a book called either: We Used to Be Me or Amnesic Memoir or Dispatch from Bewilderness or J and the Jaws of Life. In my spare time, I have learned to walk, talk and build homes for birds.
The book is built with salvaged words. The homes are built with salvaged wood. The late Dr. Oliver Sacks and authors Dr. Steven Pinker and Dr. Rick Hanson liked excerpts of my work. As you know, they have sold a lot of books.
In my first life, I was freelance writer, ghosting on the side. My life intersected (not in this order) with Big Bird, Martha, Oprah, Elmo, Time, Life, the woman known as the Devil Wears Prada, Rolling Stone, Nova, Cookie Monster and a few icons I can’t name.
I know “brain damaged book by brain damaged writer” is not on your Manuscript Wish List, but hope you can muster one-zillionth of the faith in me that I have in you. If so, please let me send you an excerpt that will take ten minutes of your time if you like it, and one minute if you don’t.
The excerpt is ready now.
All my best,
J
P.S. I have also been published in a few fine publications since breaking my brain and won a few more awards.
I love your short passage about the blue planet, the ball of fire in space, the moon, and the seas. Stellar! Another miracle is your writing, J! I choose “J and the Jaws Of Life” for your title.
also, do not believe in miracles, but do believe in hard work