Yeah… It’s exactly how it sounds.
Let’s make things clear. I’m a Bi, Pan, Queer, whatever. Maybe it’s because I’m an elder queer or maybe it’s because I’m innately stubborn and dislike labels of any kind, but I grew up in a slightly less accepting time. I didn’t know what being a “dyke” meant in school, I just knew I was being surrounded by the girls tennis team armed with rackets. When my parents asked if I was a Lesbian, I didn’t have an answer. I’m married to a man and still don’t have an answer.
It’s not that I’m not proud to be who I am, but I also don’t see how my sex life matters to anyone I work with.
Apparently it matters more to some than others.
Back in 2020/21 I was querying The Ivy Noose, my Victorian Gothic Lesbian Romance. I queried it with some interest but comps were hard to find at that time and I wasn’t the best at writing queries. I’m still not, but I’m getting there.
Fast forward to 2022 and I was querying a new project called The Flowers of Cardhon Nimloth when I got an agent offer on The Ivy Noose. At this point I was already sending it to editors, one in particular at Sourcebooks who was still reading it.
I should’ve been over the moon. Sending nudges to anyone. Doing the querying offer thing only the offering agent only wanted to do a conditional contract. She moved primarily to script representation and only had a handful of publishing connections left.
And then my beloved grandmother, the woman who raised me, died.
So, there I was, ignoring the buzz from my phone and instead opting to play Legend of Zelda. It wasn’t a great time for me. I wasn’t thinking straight, but I knew I wanted an agent to represent my whole career and not just one book.
After responding to full requests that the nudges brought on, one agent in particular offered not long after requesting the full. And at the time, I didn’t really see the red flags. I asked all the right questions, but I wasn’t in the mindset to see what needed to be seen.
The agent wanted to represent the newer story, Flowers, and were happy to handle The Ivy Noose should Sourcebooks offer.
It didn’t take long before more red flags followed.
Upon joining the agency author zoom chat, I realized that I was one of ten white women and most of them were older. And while that might not bother some people, I recognized that I was the diversity. After that meeting, I dropped hints to my agent as I prodded for promised edits that kept getting delayed.
Two months go by and the Sourcebook editor asks to speak to my agent. My agent was thrilled and asked for the synopsis for The Ivy Noose and I had to push her to respond stating she received it.
Three weeks later the editor never received contact from my agent and I decided that enough was enough. As I was writing a dismissal letter, she sent me an email saying that she could no longer be my agent. She admitted that she never read the fantasy book and declared it was too badly written to be published.
When I confronted the owner of the agency, she simply apologized and offered no other response than, “Yeah, sorry about that.”
So the contract was broken but there was nothing worth suing over. I had the awkward task of telling the Sourcebooks editor that my agent dropped me after reading the synopsis for The Ivy Noose. After some digging, I got the confirmation that the agency was known for having “Christian beliefs”.
So I ended up back at square one.
It’s so ironic because I don’t consider myself a minority. I’m white, privileged, and passing. Sure I’ve been discriminated against, but I’ve never felt the miscarriage of opportunity over my sexuality. Being a woman facing wage gaps was something I had come to terms with, but this was absolutely ridiculous.
But there it is. The most openly LGTBQ book I’ve written cost me an agent.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she dropped me. She never took on any more clients and when the owner of the agency died, the whole agency closed. So they got what they deserved. But whoooie what a ride.
Let’s not do that again!
Shayna Grissom Writes 
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