Nathan Shrum asked Lois McMaster Bujold:

How did you land an agent? Traditional querying or something else..??

Lois McMaster Bujold Back in the day (mid-80s) there was no internet nor, from a small town in Ohio, other easily accessible source of information on agents, so I mainly asked my writer friends, when we corresponded or I met them at conventions, about theirs. My first such query sourced that way fell flat, politely rejected. I no longer remember the details, but I must have learned about the second through another writer acquaintance who used that agent. (I had at that point made my first novel sales to Baen unagented, and sold a scant few short stories.) There was some no-longer-remembered exchange of letters, but somehow we arranged to meet in NYC when I was there for the '89 Nebulas (at which Falling Free won for best novel) and shook hands at a breakfast meeting the next day.

Which was 30 years ago this spring, if I have my arithmetic right. It was a very lucky break for me -- I had only the vaguest idea what I was doing -- but, like most luck, preceded by a lot of work.

Ta, L.

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