Dashboard Literary Agents Success Story Interviews Cole Nicole LeFavour

Success Story Interview - Cole Nicole LeFavour

An Interview with Cole Nicole LeFavour (ColeLeFavour on QT) upon receiving an offer of representation from agent Leslie Meredith of Dystel Goderich & Bourret LLC.

07/28/2024

QT: Can you tell us a little bit about the book for which you've found representation? What inspired you to write it?: Cole Nicole LeFavour:
Love and Protest tells the story of my own life as a queer, non-binary person who came of age in protest movements in the American West.
I was elected to the Idaho Senate and the book follows that rise to what I’d always been told was power. The story tells of my struggle and friendships there as Idaho’s first openly LGBTQ lawmaker and how I left the Senate and then returned in 2014 to lead civil disobedience in the Idaho Capitol against those I once served beside.

Others encouraged me to write the memoir because it tells of a struggle still going on in red states like idaho where lgbtq people not only never gained the right to public accommodation or state nondiscrimination protections but now have lost ground to fear as armed militias and extremists gain power.

My story is a hopeful story because I’m an optimist. I’ve seen the power of collective effort, compassion, and conscience. I believe we have more in common than what divides us. That will help us all turn the tide if we reach out and persist.
QT: How long have you been writing?: Cole Nicole LeFavour:
I was a kid with a learning disability so I’ve been writing for longer than I could read. I started as a poet and, in college in the mid 1980s, I edited the Berkeley Poetry Review. In 1990 I got an MFA in fiction from the University of Montana but worked as a reporter for an alternative news weekly in Boise where I was offered work as a columnist and writing essays for anthologies and coffee table books on wilderness and the wild like Sawtooth-White Cloud.

I was a firelookout, a wilderness ranger and a firefighter as well as an activist and eventually a state Senator so my life experience has given me a lot to write about.

I highly recommend using every shred of privilege you have to take chances, step out of the box, and live a life worth writing about.
QT: How long have you been working on this book?: Cole Nicole LeFavour:
I was initially asked to consider writing this book by Rob Weisbach an agent who thought the story of a lone queer person elected to and serving in the Idaho State Senate sounded brave. That was twelve years ago, the year I left the Senate and started planning civil disobedience against it.

When I first started writing i was too close to the events to have perspective. Ten years proved to be enough distance that I could tell the story without dwelling only on my failures. There’s a lot about forgiveness in this book. As much as I needed to tell the story of the beauty and power of Idaho’s movement for queer rights, I also needed to forgive myself for my own years of failure as I tried to make change in a hard place and as I struggled to find my own place in gender and my way through love and the world.
QT: Was there ever a time you felt like giving up, and what helped you to stay on course?: Cole Nicole LeFavour:
Many times I did give up. Rob Weisbach stepped aside with my first attempt and I very much don’t blame him. The manuscript had some beauty in it but is was full of self loathing and stuff it didn’t need to dwell on. That’s what therapy and the passage of time are for.
QT: Is this your first book?: Cole Nicole LeFavour:
About thirteen years ago, I finished a very bad YA dragon novel while practicing long form story telling. Just before the pandemic I thought the best way to break into getting an agent would be by writing fiction so I wrote a really beautiful and surprisingly hopeful post apocalyptic novel about a woman who ends up surviving armageddon in a gas station convenience store in the Nevada desert. Of course during the pandemic no one was interested in representing post apocalyptic stories. I’ll try putting that novel out there again soon.
QT: Do you have any formal writing training?: Cole Nicole LeFavour:
I do have an MFA in fiction. I also took many poetry workshops as an undergrad. I’ve been teaching poetry and short fiction writing to kids and adults for about thirty years but I wouldn’t say that helped with structure. Book length storytelling is a creature of its own. I had to teach that to myself.
QT: Do you follow a writing routine or schedule?: Cole Nicole LeFavour:
I’m not a lover of routine. Some people are, bless them. I’ve always had seasonal jobs like teaching, firefighting, and lawmaking, so I’ve had chunks of time to write.

When I write, I just bear down for long stretches of time, whenever I have time. But then I’m one of those people who gets an idea, fleshes it out a bit, makes a time line, and dives in, body and mind for as long as life and work will let me.
QT: How many times did you re-write/edit your book?: Cole Nicole LeFavour:
Over ten years, I completely re-shaped and re-envisioned the arc and story of my memoir three times. I edit it ALL THE TIME because I feel in long form the writing can always be better. This sentence could be more powerful or original, this part that’s dull or not quite necessary to the tension of the narrative can be cut.
QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?: Cole Nicole LeFavour:
I did have beta readers, maybe forty or more over all three major drafts. I try to have a variety of tastes and demographics. People who don’t know me are usually most helpful. I don’t suggest making your sister or your mom a beta reader. The relationship of a reader to you has a big impact on what they’re going to say to you—or not say.

I give beta readers a very specific assignment. I explain carefully I don’t want them to tell me what they think OTHERS will feel about the book. I explain want them to read and respond as a reader.

I have a system which I hope helps me and them. I ask them to put a star by what they like, an x by stuff they didn’t care for, a line down the margin of what’s dull or slow, and to circle anything, including typos or whole pages that are confusing or in error. That helps me so much.

There are limitations to beta readers. You can’t really expect structural commentary from them because most aren’t writers and might not see those larger problems.

For feedback on structure, I did hire a professional to take a read of my MS once I was pretty darn happy with it. I did that with my novel too and got structural advice I couldn’t get from my beta readers.
QT: Did you outline your book, or do you write from the hip?: Cole Nicole LeFavour:
The first draft, I wrote from the hip. At that point the story was more a long series of scenes or mini stories or flashes. I got artistic and put them out of sequence in time because I liked the idea. It didn’t work because there was nothing cohesive to the vignettes and no overall tension to the story even if the little scenes were sometimes pretty.

The second time, I did outline. I had a timeline, an arc for each of the main characters, a conflict or tension list for each character. I even took something i heard in an online conference and made a list of points in the story i hoped the audience might stand up and cheer.

The third time around I just decided that my original plan to tell the story in two books was dumb so I cut a bunch of stuff from draft two and finished my story to the end with the civil disobedience and the end of the love story with Carol. It’s quite a story. It’s way more satisfying now. I’m told it’s compelling, moving, and emotional to read.
QT: How long have you been querying for this book? Other books?: Cole Nicole LeFavour:
I queried my novel starting in 2019, I think, and then started querying the memoir last year. It took me a full year, three requests, and two completely different versions of the book to find an agent.
QT: About how many query letters did you send out for this book?: Cole Nicole LeFavour:
I got a lot of practice querying to big lists of agents with the novel. I sent far fewer queries out for the memoir because I started with all my favorite and pie in the sky dream agents first.

I got a full request from CAA which was so exciting for me as they represent some of my dream actors, screen writers, and directors but alas it was for the second draft of the book. I wish it had been the third draft of the book because of course they didn’t choose to read it again.

My advice is to be very careful that your book is really ready before querying your dream agents. You don’t always get a re-do or chance to try them again. For many of them a No is it. They’re not looking at your new revised MS at all.
QT: What advice would you give other writers seeking agents?: Cole Nicole LeFavour:
I suggest doing it all: taking courses and workshops, going to conferences, joining QTCritique, the manuscript academy, going out whenever and wherever you can to rub elbows with famous and not famous published authors. In the end, because I worked hard on making connections (and keep in mind I live in Idaho where that’s not easy) I had a few referrals or introductions to agents from authors and other agents. That got me a revise and resubmit from David McCormick who is one very kind and wise agent who is probably pretty much impossible to query without introduction.

My agent Leslie Meredith was suggested to me by J. Ruben Appelman who has written successful true crime, The Kill Jar and While Idaho Slept. I’ll never know if a cold query to Leslie would have gotten me representation with her at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret but I feel so fortunate to have her wise counsel and a chance at last to sell my story.

Success Story Interview - Cole Nicole LeFavour

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