[Agency] Ralph M. Vicinanza, Ltd.

The only weblink I found didn’t work, but they are listed on P&E.

Ralph Vicinanza Ltd.: $ A literary agency. Ralph Vicinanza: (Literary, Adult) Contact at:


303 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011

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Not much help, am I?

This lists 3 agents at Ralph M. Vicinanza Ltd.; Matthew Mahoney isn't listed (but, of course, that doesn't mean anything; Mr. Mahoney could be a junior agent or it might not have been updated in a while).

Apparently, the agency has an Amazon page. This *might* be a listing of their stable of writers, but I could be completely wrong on that. (Might just be a listing of books people at the agency has read and liked.)

Holy moly! Just found this at this site:

Ralph M. Vicinanza Ltd. is a New York City based literary agency that handles literary and commercial fiction and non-fiction, particularly specializing in fantasy, science fiction, and thrillers. Other areas of interest include science, history, serious spirituality, literary fiction, women’s fiction, and young adult fiction. Their authors include Stephen King and Robert A. Heinlein.

Yeow - King and Heinlein! Two biggies at this agency. (Still nothing about the agent the OP mentioned, though.)

Ah, there's this on Matthew Mahoney on Query Tracker.

Lastly, there's Mr. Mahoney's Agent Query page.

~Nancy

JerseyGirl1962 said:

Ralph M. Vicinanza Ltd. is a New York City based literary agency that handles literary and commercial fiction and non-fiction, particularly specializing in fantasy, science fiction, and thrillers. Other areas of interest include science, history, serious spirituality, literary fiction, women’s fiction, and young adult fiction. Their authors include Stephen King and Robert A. Heinlein.

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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he was RAH's agent at one time. Spectrum currently represents Heinlein's estate. Apparently he represents Asimov's estate, though. Solid enough!

They rep Pratchett, too. My agent Chris Lotts is with Vicinanza; I've sent him an email to check on this, so I'll post a reply when I get one (may be a few days due to BEA).



Update: Yep, he confirmed it, and said very nice things too.

Anymore info on this agency? Website or such? I'm thinking of sending out my vamp novel and/or my shifter series to them.

Chris Lotts is my agent, and I have nothing but great things to say about him. Give it a shot!

Robyn said:

Anymore info on this agency? Website or such? I'm thinking of sending out my vamp novel and/or my shifter series to them.

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They don't have a website; apparently they keep meaning to, but are generally so busy they just haven't gotten to it yet.

All I can say is they're a very solid, venerable agency; I adore my agent (Chris Lotts, as I said above) and am proud to be repped by him. He sold my book(s), and we're working on some other things for him to sell . He's always available for me and is incredibly supportive before and after the sale; like Tamsin, I can't say enough good things about him!

FYI I just queried Adam Lefton and received this message:

Thank you for your email. Please note that Adam Lefton no longer works with Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.

soulcascade said:

FYI I just queried Adam Lefton and received this message:

Thank you for your email. Please note that Adam Lefton no longer works with Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd.

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Yeah, he left earlier this year. I queried him in Jan and found out not long after that he was gone. But I never got a message! Still don't know where he went to.

This web page implies that his agency is some kind of partner or subsidiary of Spectrum.

Christopher Schelling there represents my friend Ellen Kushner (Swordspoint).

I may be too late with this, but I googled Matthew Mahoney and Backspace writer's conference came up with his picture and a short bio for anyone still interested.
Still alive

Mr. Mahoney called our query "excellent" and asked for a partial, stating that he'd get back to us "soon" last week. Anyone know what soon is to Mr. Mahoney? (A month? Two? Three?) We are so flattered that he seemed genuinely excited to read our work!! That right there felt like a win of sorts.

I'll admit A) I'm a noob and B) all this waiting seems harder than writing the book almost!

Matthew Mahoney brief bio

smallthunder said:

Hi --

I've searched the threads here, but I haven't found any info on Matthew Mahoney. According to Agent Query, he works for Vicinanza, but since I couldn't find a website for V -- I can't find any solid info on Mahoney.

Anybody have any info?

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Hi there. Mahoney was a panelist at the 2009 Backspace writer's conference, and they published a little bio of him. You can find it (with picture) at this address: http://www.backspacewritersconference.com/content/view/76/34/.

My writing partner and I have a partial out to him at the moment, and since everything we've read/heard about the agency is positive, we've got our fingers crossed that he's interested.

Hope this helps.

stafford.as said:

Hi there. Mahoney was a panelist at the 2009 Backspace writer's conference, and they published a little bio of him. You can find it (with picture) at this address: http://www.backspacewritersconference.com/content/view/76/34/.

My writing partner and I have a partial out to him at the moment, and since everything we've read/heard about the agency is positive, we've got our fingers crossed that he's interested.

Hope this helps.

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Why hello thar! I do believe we've met.

Just got a partial request for a query sent on 11/27. Very fast, very polite.

Just sent something today - we'll see what happens (and how long his reply takes!).

Ralph Vicinanza is a 600-pound gorilla.

HapiSofi said:

Ralph Vicinanza is a 600-pound gorilla.

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That explains why Chris thanked me for the chocolates I sent but said bananas would have been better.

HapiSofi said:

Ralph Vicinanza is a 600-pound gorilla.

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Eeeeek! I was going to query, but now am scared! Do you mean to say that they, as a firm, are a force to be reckoned with and impossible for publishers to ignore? Or do you mean that Mr. Vicinanza is an extremely overweight and hairy individual with barbaric manners (and, thus, not a nice person)?

Whew! Thanks, Terie!

Querying away....

Tasmin21 said:

Chris Lotts is my agent, and I have nothing but great things to say about him. Give it a shot!

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I queried Mr. Lotts a few weeks ago, but I now see that they take new authors by recommendation only.... so I guess I'll never hear back....
That's too bad, from what he has on AgentQuery he was a perfect match for my thriller!

Cheers

sciri said:

I queried Mr. Lotts a few weeks ago, but I now see that they take new authors by recommendation only.... so I guess I'll never hear back....
That's too bad, from what he has on AgentQuery he was a perfect match for my thriller!

Cheers

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I wasn't aware that Chris was taking authors by recommendation only. Neither AgentQuery nor Querytracker say this. He does say, however, that he typically only responds to queries he's interested in.