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Red Sofa Literary Agency (Dawn Frederick)

Stytch

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Interesting addition to that, Laura Zats had said she'd be reopening to queries after Labor Day, and she was listed as open on QT yesterday, but I have no idea what happens if you actually query her right this moment.
 

novelgirl

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She's currently listed as closed on QueryTracker. I wouldn't try to query her right now (speaking as someone who was planning on it before the news!). Her RSL query inbox will no longer be active anyway, I'm sure.
 

RG Sarsparilla

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After an explosive two days, Red Sofa is down to one agent, the owner Dawn Frederick. The exodus began with Kelly Van Sant, who resigned after Dawn called the police during the Minneapolis/St. Paul protests. The rest soon followed, leaving Dawn as the only one left. And a great deal of her clients have fired her. Notably among them, Eric Smith. Her personal Twitter account has been deleted.
 

veinglory

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The immediate reaction was to that specific tweet. It's available to see, on my blog amongst others.
The mentions of previous conduct are interesting but it's not what her agents and authors were reacting to with such an immediate separation.
 

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Yeah, sorry, just sorted though that and thanks.
 

eqb

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Ouch. Will we ever get the full story, I wonder. I'm out of the agent hunt for now, but it could be useful to see where Dawn's politics lie.

We have the full story, actually. Before she deleted her account, she had posted a series of tweets about property damage and nothing about George Floyd. When she said she would call the police, a number of people urged her not to, and explained why doing so was problematic. She ignored them. Finally one agent tweeted that she had resigned and why. Dawn posted on the agency website where she doubled-down on what she did, with bonus points for getting Floyd's name wrong. It was only two days later that she finally admitted that she was wrong, but only after she'd been dragged on Twitter.
 

Cephus

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This is why business accounts should have no political opinions of any kind, period.
 

eqb

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This is why business accounts should have no political opinions of any kind, period.

I disagree. Politics informs everything about our lives, including publishing, so I want to know if my agent, or my publisher, values property over people, or the status quo over equality and diversity.
 

Cephus

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I disagree. Politics informs everything about our lives, including publishing, so I want to know if my agent, or my publisher, values property over people, or the status quo over equality and diversity.

Which doesn't change the fact that, from a business standpoint, it makes no rational sense to go off on a political tirade on an account attached to your business. Keep your personal views and your business views separate. The landscape is littered with the corpses of careers of people who didn't.
 

mccardey

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Which doesn't change the fact that, from a business standpoint, it makes no rational sense to go off on a political tirade on an account attached to your business. Keep your personal views and your business views separate. The landscape is littered with the corpses of careers of people who didn't.
I guess it depends how much value one puts on politics and ethics. But I, for one, am very very glad that my agent will express herself clearly on all kinds of matters. And in the days when I did run a business, I certainly allowed my ethics and politics to have quite a big say in who I dealt with.

I think this is a personal view of yours, but in the business of writing, and in the Arts generally, I don't think it's a a very common view.
 

lizmonster

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I think this is a personal view of yours, but in the business of writing, and in the Arts generally, I don't think it's a a very common view.

This. Art is inherently political, and given how one works with an agent (ideally), it's helpful to know you're at least on more or less the same page.

In this particular case...it's not clear the agent in question recognizes her comments were political at all, which is revealing in and of itself.
 

frimble3

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And,when looking for an agent, if you have strong opinions yourself, well, forewarned is forearmed. It would be sad if things were going along nicely, then one side or another said 'something'* and it all ended in tears.

*'Something' being different for everyone.
 

Corvid

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This is so wild. I saw the tweets as they were unfolding and I swear I thought she was trolling. How could anyone be so tone-deaf and stupid? This might sound harsh but imo she kind of deserved to have her business fall apart overnight for posting such ignorant stuff in public during such a sensitive time. I still can't believe she was serious; How do you get that far in the literary world and still make such an absolutely embarrassing guffaw and show no remorse for days until forced at gunpoint?
 

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I think you could have separate and personal twitters without hiding either. In some cases you can have a learning moments before self-destructing, although I doubt this was one of those cases. Red Sofa has always kind of been synonymous with Frederick as a person.
 

Corvid

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Pretty sad that these are the gatekeepers so many people work so hard to impress. It's time for a culling. Agents like this don't deserve clients.