If anybody ought to know how a Chicago writer can get published, it`s Jane Jordan Browne. For 12 years, Browne has been delivering Chicago writers into the hands of publishers through her literary agency, Multimedia Product Development.
Unlike so many other agents, especially those in New York, Browne says she`s not only approachable but happy to be of service to unpublished authors. ”I like to discover new talent,” says Browne, offering as evidence two of the recently discovered novelists she represents: Susan Sussman, author of ”The Dieter” and ”Time Off From Good Behavior” (due in October); and Michael Raleigh, whose first mystery, ”Death in Uptown,” will be published next month.
”We`re listed everywhere,” says Browne, noting that her agency shows up in such publishing bluebooks as the Writers Market and the Literary Market Place. She`s also listed in the Chicago Yellow Pages, just below G & D Food and Liquors, which is not a literary agency but might well be.
Although these and other solicitations draw dozens of manuscripts and book proposals every week, Browne says she still likes to get out onto the battlefield to recruit new talent, which is why she does a lot of speaking. That`s why she`ll be the keynote speaker at the Taste of Chicago Writing Conference, a weeklong jubilee that begins at 1 p.m. Sunday in the South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 South Shore Drive.
After a week of seminars, workshops, panels and readings at the cultural center, the conference will move north to the Newberry Library on July 13 for ”Get Published Day!” At that concluding point, Browne will make her entrance to counsel participants on how they can break into print.
Her first suggestion should startle nobody: Get an agent. ”Everybody in publishing needs an agent,” she says, previewing the advice she`ll give hopeful authors at the conference, which will also feature writers Larry Heinemann, Sam Greenlee, Albert Goldbarth, Martha Verteace, Paulette Roeske, Nat David and Beatriz Badikian.
”Some people say that it`s easier to find a publisher than an agent,”
Browne acknowledges, obviously exempting herself from that imperious company. The type is probably best exemplified by Andrew Wylie, the Manhattan agent who is reportedly harder to reach than his most celebrated authors, among them Philip Roth and Susan Sontag.
”We call ourselves armed guides to the jungle,” Browne says of herself and her fellow 15-percenters. ”The agents are in and out of the market every day. They know who`s doing what, when, where and how. So the idea is to make the right match: the right editor at the right house at the right time.”
To judge by the current market, publishing may be even more of a jungle than anyone realized. Among the hotter properties are true-crime books and novels about serial killers.
Even though the publishing axis is centered in Manhattan, Browne doesn`t feel handicapped or discriminated against because she operates out of Chicago. ”A good agent can sell anything from anywhere,” she insists.
Formerly an editor in New York, with Hawthorn Books and Crowell, Browne also disputes the notion that being from Chicago dooms a writer to a lifetime of quiet desperation and neglect, a stereotype that found its saddest and fullest expression in the career of Nelson Algren.
Writers such as Eugene Izzy and David Mamet, not to mention Saul Bellow, have permanently disposed of that myth, she says. ”It`s getting trendy to be a Chicago writer.”
Whether they`re from Chicago or Missoula, Mont. (another trendy literary outpost), writers mustn`t fail to do their homework, Browne says, before going off in search of either an agent or a publisher.
She recommends such basic references as ”How to Get Happily Published,” by Judith Appelbaum and Nancy Evans, the Writers Market and Writers Digest magazine.
”We have people come to us with ideas for non-fiction books,” adds Browne, who has a staff of three, ”and we`ll say, `That sounds interesting. Have you done your book proposal?` `My what?` they ask. But if the idea is promising . . . we`ll say, `Go home and write your proposal. When it`s ready, send it to us and we`ll take it from there.` ”
Beyond an open-door policy, Browne doesn`t offer any guarantees.
In that respect, she`s no different from any other agent. ”We get an awful lot of queries,” she says, ”and we have to spend a lot of time saying thank you, but no thank you.”
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For information about the Taste of Chicago Writing Conference, call St. Xavier College, 312-779-3300, extension 207.
