The Retirement Party

Hard to believe, but literary agents are human and they do the things that all of us do...or would like to do if we could afford it.

Literary agents can choose to work until they drop, slumping to the desk in death. Or they can retire.

Nancy Coffey has chosen retirement.

What's to become of her clients, in that case?

Chances are, some of them will migrate to other representation. But those who were signed on for their ability to write marketable young adult fiction will shift sideways.

Some time ago, Joanna Volpe went to work with Ms. Coffey, introducing such things as the blog, the twitter, and the e-query. She introduced some new clients, of course, though at first she was the YA agent while Ms. Coffey kept to her usual fare of adult works.

The once single-agent agency expanded again with the addition of two more agents, further edging towards books for the under-sixteen set.

Who would have guessed that Ms. Coffey was not expanding, but pulling back? Her namesake agency is about to be no more.

Ms. Volpe has joined up with her fellow Coffey-ites in forming a new agency.  Turning over a new leaf, the team has called their business New Leaf Literary & Media.

There is, as yet, no website up and running. They are not accepting queries while they get themselves organized and sorted. It's a good season for that sort of thing, considering how little work is done in the publishing industry over the summer.

In essence, this is an old agency under new management. It isn't likely that they'll be any more interested in your query two months from now than they were two months ago.

But after the dust settles, and your query is fresh, you might consider giving them a try. Things always look different when you're the one paying the bills. Taking on another client or two, or twenty, might have more appeal by then.