Cutting and Querying Advice with Nancy Crochiere, Henriette Lazaridis, and Ethan Gilsdorf

We’ve got two very different listeners’ questions today but they’re both common issues for writers to deal with. The first is trying to re-enter a 15-year old memoir manuscript the she needs to cut down enormously (either by 750K words or by 500 pages, depending on our understanding of her question. Either way: A lot!). The second wonders how he’s supposed to know what’s wrong with his query letter or sample pages when agents these days don’t offer a word of feedback. We’ve got Nancy Crochiere (Graceland), Henriette Lazaridis (Terra Nova), and Ethan Gilsdorf (Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks) to help them out.

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Nancy Crochiere is a former humor columnist whose comic debut novel, GRACELAND, published in May 2023, was named a best book of summer by Parade, Woman’s World, and Deep South Magazines.

Henriette Lazaridis is the award-winning author of three novels: her debut The Clover House, the antarctic adventure Terra Nova, and her newest book coming this April, Last Days in Plaka. She is the co-founder of Galiot Press and also runs the Krouna Writing Workshop in northern Greece.

Ethan Gilsdorf is an essayist, critic, journalist, the author of the memoir Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks and teaches GrubStreet’s Essay Incubator program. 

Photo by Eugene Chystiakov on Unsplash

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