Success Story Interview - Sarah Rowlands

An Interview with Sarah Rowlands (SarahLRWriter on QT) upon receiving an offer of representation from agent Colleen Oefelein of MacGregor & Luedeke Literary.

05/09/2024

QT: Can you tell us a little bit about the book for which you've found representation? What inspired you to write it?

Sarah Rowlands:
NIGHT IS ON HER HAIR is set in a gothic 1911 but has magical realism elements that really push it into fantasy. It was written and queried as Young Adult, but now we're toying with placing this in the Adult market, since it's always kind of toed the line of YA to Adult. I pitched it as: "An old Irish curse transforms 17-yr-old Estella into a monstrous plant at night. She must find a cure in this hidden, enchanted glen before her sinister doctor uses her as a science experiment." When I was a teenager, my parents took me to 2 places that really made an impression on me: one was the Thousand Islands region of New York and the other was Watkin's Glen in New York. If you've never been, I beg you to go to both places! I was enamoured with Boldt Castle in the Thousand Islands and with Watkin's Glen Gorge State Park. I consider them actual real-life magical places and I could not get them out of my head or my heart, even now!

QT: How long have you been writing?

Sarah Rowlands:
I've loved writing since I was in grade school. Writing Time was my favorite. But I stopped writing in college (I was a musical theatre major), then picked it up again around 2016.

QT: How long have you been working on this book?

Sarah Rowlands:
I've literally worked on this story since I was 15 years old - and I'm 42!

QT: Was there ever a time you felt like giving up, and what helped you to stay on course?

Sarah Rowlands:
I felt like giving up a hundred times. But then I'd get a good night's sleep and I would be ready to tackle it again the next day. I also told myself day after day that no one was going to make my dream come true except me. So I showed up for myself, and that motivated me.

QT: Is this your first book?

Sarah Rowlands:
Yes - but there have been different versions of this book over the years, so it feels like this is my first, second, third, fourth, and fifth book.

QT: Do you have any formal writing training?

Sarah Rowlands:
I have a degree in English with a concentration in writing. I also interned at a few agencies back in 2017-2020, which was helpful to see my own writing as something marketable.

QT: Do you follow a writing routine or schedule?

Sarah Rowlands:
I don't have a routine or schedule, but I do have times and places that encourage me to write. We have a really cool restaurant/bar in town, so I love to hang out at the bar and write. Something about the loud, busy atmosphere gets my thoughts rolling! I also live in a big farmhouse on 26 acres, so it's easy to find somewhere quiet to write. Otherwise I don't have a routine or schedule (except during NaNoWriMo).

QT: How many times did you re-write/edit your book?

Sarah Rowlands:
A thousand. No, more like eleventy-thousand.

QT: Did you have beta readers for your book?

Sarah Rowlands:
In the beginning I had a wonderful beta reader whom I trusted implicitly, and we kinda helped each other's manuscripts. But we fell out of touch, and now I have a small group of friends to help me (and I help them). So yes, I had many eyes on many versions of this book - and thank God for other eyes!

QT: Did you outline your book, or do you write from the hip?

Sarah Rowlands:
I did not have an outline for this book, though I created outlines for most revision passes, chapter by chapter.

QT: How long have you been querying for this book? Other books?

Sarah Rowlands:
I queried this book first in 2016, and got an agent in 2018. When my agent left the business just last fall, I queried again in 2023-2024. Though I've since written 2 other books, I have not queried either.

QT: About how many query letters did you send out for this book?

Sarah Rowlands:
After my agent left, I queried almost 80 agents for about 6 months.

QT: On what criteria did you select the agents you queried?

Sarah Rowlands:
I was looking for big agents with big numbers... but that strategy soon proved to be fruitless (most didn't even respond to my query), so I reviewed all my favorite books of the past 3 years for who repped those authors. Then I started really digging into agents' wishlists for items that matched mine (Gothic, romantasy, settings like characters...). Things like that. Then I considered their sales and experience.

QT: Did you tailor each query to the specific agent, and if so, how?

Sarah Rowlands:
Sometimes I did - but mostly the query was just the actual pitch. Got right to the point!

QT: What advice would you give other writers seeking agents?

Sarah Rowlands:
Make sure your query is KILLER. Work diligently and smartly to get the query to a place where someone gets chills when they read it. I actually hired a trusted writer to help with my query and first chapter (DM me and I'll give you her name!), and it was the best decision I made. After lots of work, my query, my comps, and my pitch were awesome and I felt incredibly confident. I actually got an offer of rep within 10 days of sending that killer query.

Query Letter:

Dear ______:

BELLADONNA x Outlander: An old Irish curse transforms 17-yr-old Estella into a monstrous plant at night. She must find a cure in this hidden, enchanted glen before her sinister doctor uses her as a science experiment.

NIGHT IS ON HER HAIR is a YA gothic romantasy with cottage-gore elements that has adult crossover appeal, complete at 78,000 words. It is for readers of Erin A. Craig and Belladonna by Adalyn Grace, with the wild and lush Celtic setting of Outlander.

In a haunting island manor, 17-year-old Estella Ripley has been exchanging clovers with her grandad for years, hiding them in books and under teacups like little love notes. They’ve created their own snow globe-safe world that doesn’t judge a girl whose hair and fingertips turn as green as the clovers they trade. But when a vindictive tree inexplicably pulls Grandad into the earth, Estella’s world is shattered. She is now at the mercy of her new husband, a doctor who regards her peculiar attributes as freakish.

Before the doctor can use her for his sinister experiments, Estella discovers a secret passage beneath the island and escapes to an enchanted glen where water heals wounds, plants have personalities, and a group of Irish folk hide from normal society. But the glen’s inhabitants are plagued with an old Irish curse that transforms them into hideous plant-like monsters at night. Worse yet, Estella’s presence seems to heighten their most grotesque and violent traits. Riddled with a horrible suspicion that Grandad caused the curse, she teams up with Ayron Black, an endearing but dangerous amateur botanist, to find a cure. As she falls for the boy who has poison in his veins, the glen falls into chaos, and Estella discovers that abandoning the glen will do more harm than good; the clovers she once exchanged with Grandad might be the cure to save everyone’s lives except her own.

I have a master’s degree in English education with a concentration in musical theatre. In the past few years, I was an intern at several literary agencies. I live on a small hobby farm in Upstate NY with my husband and three bookworms.