Not sure if you queried Mary or not, but she was my agent a while back. I only had her for 6 months and we parted ways mutually. Well, she had mentioned it first. She was a sweet agent, but there were some things that were a disappointment. Like she only sent my ms. to a handful of places and she seem to have lost interest after that. Plus I had another ms. that she wasn't even interested in taking a look at.
She was only doing the agent thing part time and was considering retiring. Don't know what the case is now, but she was very professional and always responsive. Plus she was a good experience in helping me revise it.
Good Luck to you. Hope it works out.
Don't be Moko, she's a great agent to have. Yes, it's normal for some agents to request a hard copy. She did it with me when requesting mine. As I said before, she's very responsive and always, always professional. The only thing with mine was she didn't seem interested after my ms. made the rounds. But that's not something to be alarmed of. I will admit, she was very supportive when I revised, giving me lots and lots of feedback.
And technically she did connect me with a good publisher (Leap Books) She just walked away from the deal because there wasn't any advance.
I do hope it works out for you, good luck, send that puppy when you can!