How to poison an intern

I've just spent a delightful week in New York, where amongst other things I met all the fine people at FinePrint Literary Agency. The lady in the middle of the picture is Joanna Volpe, who was Janet's godsend when I submitted my first book and is now a successful agent in her own right with Nancy Coffey. The others are the interns at FinePrint. Missing is Intern Mitch. (Mitch, if you send me a photo I'll put it up.)

I think it'd be fun if the interns said hello and told us something about themselves in comments. I'll edit their words into the main text.

The people in this picture are among the few who have read both my first two books, so they're miles ahead of the rest of you. I spent an amazing afternoon with the interns asking them to tell me what they liked and disliked in the books, which let me tell you was eye opening. Mostly it caused me to say things such as, "OMG I never noticed that!" with the occasional, "What do you mean you don't remember the rat joke?"

The little yellow jars on the table are Vegemite, the closest thing Australia has to a national food. In a fit of more-ethnic-than-thou, I brought five jars, which the interns tucked into eagerly.

And quickly rejected.

They now know what I meant when I said you have to spread it thinly. Vegemite is strong and salty, but full of vitamin B. Not that I'm offended, I had a feeling this would happen. I once fed some Vegemite to a Canadian who clutched his throat and choked, "You feed this to children?"

And now a word from Deirdre:

This is Intern Deirdre (far right). We all agreed it was a lot of fun discussing your manuscripts with you, so I'm glad it was helpful for you.

A little bit about me... I recently graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in English Language and Literature, and I'm trying to break into the world of book publishing via my fantastic internship with FinePrint Literary Management and Nancy Coffey Literary and Media Representation. These people are wonderful and know EVERYTHING there is to know about books and publishing.

Thank you again for the Vegemite (even if I did give mine away to Jo)!

From Intern Cassandra. I swear this was not a paid advertisement...

We had a great time meeting you - it was so much fun meeting an author and getting to talk to you before the rest of the world sees your amazing books and propels you to J.K. Rowling fame!

I'm a huge fan of your books - I don't think they're quite like anything out there right now. I mean, Mary Renault is all well and good, but I like a little humor and mystery with my history. I urge all you readers to run out and buy the book the second it comes out - it's impeccably researched and a total page-turner.

The only Vegemite-taker amongst the lot of them was Jo, shown here eating the traditional Vegemite sandwich as per the Men At Work song of years ago.


I suggested by the way FinePrint should post pictures of their offices so people can see what a literary agency looks like, and both Peter Rubie and Janet recoiled in horror.