Marsal Lyon Literary Agency

I met Kevan in person at the RT Convention in April 2011. She was very nice and requested pages. After I sent them she forwarded it to Jill who requested to see more. Jill wound up passing but they were both very professional and timely with their responses.

Kathleen's contact info has been updated on both the agency website and she's on Query Tracker now.

Kevan just requested my full, after having a partial for a month or so. Anybody work with her before or currently?

Yeah. Queried Jill, got a response two hours later: a rejection but it was kind, detailed and most importantly, it was personalized. Though my experience with her was brief, she seems like an excellent agent and I would definitely recommend querying her.

Kevan just wrote me to say that she finished reading my full and really liked it. She's going to give Jill a few sample pages and discuss with her and get back to me by the end of the week!!!!

*Happy Dance*

Archie1989 said:

Kevan just wrote me to say that she finished reading my full and really liked it. She's going to give Jill a few sample pages and discuss with her and get back to me by the end of the week!!!!

*Happy Dance*

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Holy guacamole, that sounds really promising Archie1989! Keeping fingers and toes crossed for you!!!

Archie1989 said:

Kevan just wrote me to say that she finished reading my full and really liked it. She's going to give Jill a few sample pages and discuss with her and get back to me by the end of the week!!!!

*Happy Dance*

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BRAVO!

My fingers are crossed for you.

got the response today . . . my MC's are at too awkward an age to be marketable, and the story hook isn't strong enough.

Big ol' PASS.

Archie1989 said:

got the response today . . . my MC's are at too awkward an age to be marketable, and the story hook isn't strong enough.

Big ol' PASS.

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Keep querying. You'll get there.

In the earlier posts here, there's a lot of mention of requests for pages sent via snail mail. Anyone know if they still do this?

And Archie, I'm sorry to hear the news wasn't better Is it possible to tweak the ages of your characters? I'm sure your hook will be plenty strong enough to other agents, but the awkward age bit is harder for many to get past; I had the same problem with a manuscript I've since trunked.

Thanks, DahlELama & LadyMacBeth. I can't tweak the ages unfortunately. A college setting is crucial to one of the MC's arcs.

And to answer your question, when they requested my partial and then my full both times they asked for it in a word doc attached to email. Don't think they do much snail-mail anymore.

My understanding is they accept both email AND snail mail.

Good Luck!

I posted an interview with Ms. Rushall on my blog this morning. If you're thinking about querying her, it might be worth a look-see.

http://motherwrite.blogspot.com/2011/11/interview-with-agent-kathleen-rushall.html

Good luck to everyone waiting to hear back from her!

Adding some query stats...

e-queried Kathleen Rushall on 11/12 and received a request for the full ms and synopsis on 11/14.

Good for you, Lydia!

I queried on 11/14 and still haven't heard back. Anyone else in the same boat?

I queried about the same time you did, Krista, and haven't heard anything, either.

Good to know, litgirl. Thanks (and good luck with your query)!

I'll give it a try and send them a query right now

Krista G. said:

I queried on 11/14 and still haven't heard back. Anyone else in the same boat?

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litgirl said:

I queried about the same time you did, Krista, and haven't heard anything, either.

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Response time for queries is 1-4 weeks. reference link: http://www.marsallyonliteraryagency.com/submit_work.asp

Lydia Sharp said:

Adding some query stats...

e-queried Kathleen Rushall on 11/12 and received a request for the full ms and synopsis on 11/14.

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Updating...

Got a personalized rejection letter from Kathleen on 12/2.
Total time from query to full request to rejection = 20 days.
Not sure why it was so quick for me and not for others, but there it is.

I'm sorry about the rejection, Lydia.

Well, I'm out. Best of luck to the rest of you waiting!

Oops, forgot to update!

Queried 11/14
Personalized rejection received 12/2

MG historical science fiction

Ms. Rushall thought my writing was so strong but said this particular plot wasn't calling out to her. She even went so far as to say that she was certain I'd get an agent with this manuscript, but she invited me to query her again if that didn't happen. (Boy, if I had a nickel for every agent who thought some other agent would fall in love with my manuscripts...)

Best of luck to everyone still waiting to hear back!

Krista G. said:

(Boy, if I had a nickel for every agent who thought some other agent would fall in love with my manuscripts...)

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not a bad complaint, as complaints go...

Krista G. said:

(Boy, if I had a nickel for every agent who thought some other agent would fall in love with my manuscripts...)

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I've been getting that comment a lot lately, too. To the point where I'm wondering if they all had a secret meeting and unanimously decided to include it in their rejection letters now.