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[Agency] James Frenkel & Associates

Amadan

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Huh. His list of clients is interesting...
 

Treehouseman

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He's BAAAACK.

Also, he that doth not know the secret of the $10 per year domain registration and instead shingles on the back of your free build-it-yourself-Wixsite doth put himself in the most unflattering of lights.
 
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Filigree

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I've heard too many stories about his years at Tor. Even if I was querying, I might be hesitant.

Added: after seeing his client list, doubly so. I wouldn't fit in, and the only authors I really like of his group...are deceased.
 
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az shea

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So, former Tor editor James Frenkel has hung out his shingle as a literary agent:

http://jimfrenkel.wix.com/james-frenkel-assoc

Yes, this is the Jim Frenkel that was banned from WisCon, FWIW.

Thanks for including his link; I'd been wondering if Steven Brust was still with JF -- he was Steve's foreign rights agent. Now I don't have to ask Steve. (I used to be Steve's p.a.)

May be back here in this thread sometime soon. Am pondering... after rereading parts of The Gift of Fear.

JF never harassed me in those ways, but I found certain aspects of the book reinforced thoughts I was having in the past 24 hours.

I'd read about WisCon and his being fired from Tor. Was looking at parts of it again today. Posting them here for anyone who may've missed it.
 

az shea

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An update for freelancers and authors both. Particularly if you are female.

Jim wrote me email in early 2016 and was his usual rambly self. Except... he asked me for my professional rates. Said they were for his intern...

After a few emails, it became clear to me that he wasn't asking for a friend. He was arguing my professional rates with me. Short version -- they were "too high" combined with "don't you think?"

I am a professional copy editor. I've worked for Locus, Tor.com, Angry Robot Books, Wizards of the Coast, and many others.

I say this so that you know I have been paid by these people to do professional work. Not one of them ever suggested I was not a professional who should undercut myself and my rates.

This isn't my first year freelancing, not even close.

Posting this because I had wondered and worried about the reports at Wiscon. I didn't doubt any woman who reported her experiences; I doubted myself, and my own judgment, because JF had never done that to me. Maybe I was saved precisely because we're both garrulous people and he didn't look at me that way -- I dunno.

But I would not work with him. The 2016 experience taught me that he wasn't to be trusted as a professional and could not treat ME as a professional.

(Note: he'd been telling me stories of how other editors had claimed he'd undercut them in deals -- before he promptly tried to do the same to me. I'd say his subconscious was telegraphing like a MOFO.)
 

Bladespark

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Wow. I remember reading about all this back in 2013 and being not exactly shocked, but disappointed that somebody like that had been in such a position of power for so long. Bit surreal to see it come up again now, but I am glad that his past isn't being swept under the rug now.
 

az shea

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Wow. I remember reading about all this back in 2013 and being not exactly shocked, but disappointed that somebody like that had been in such a position of power for so long. Bit surreal to see it come up again now, but I am glad that his past isn't being swept under the rug now.

Yes. It keeps coming up precisely because he can't let it go. JF mentioned the Wiscon issues to me in passing -- "I bet you defended me!" -- when no, I was appalled in 2012 by what he'd done.

I didn't reply to his presumption.

I did not defend him. Hell, I wrote a blog post about that.

I've been raped, stalked, and preyed upon. The odds of it being a false alarm were extremely slim. Just because it didn't match my personal experience of him did not negate the experiences of other women.