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Everyone Should Have a Great Mentor

© Deborah Cannon

To my shock and sadness my literary agent Joanne Kellock died on November 22, 2003. My sadness is not due to the fact that I am once again left on my own to find a publisher for my novels, but that I have lost one of the most dear and influential people in my writing career.

Joanne had twenty-five years experience in the publishing industry. She placed authors of non-fiction such as Larry Frolick, Andy Russell, and Bruce Kirby. With her representation, children's authors Tololwa M. Mollel and Martyn Godfrey reached literary success. To a lesser degree, she accepted fiction manuscripts though they were more difficult to sell. She believed in mine. She took a fledgling manuscript and saw the potential in it. She never minced words with me. She told me exactly what she thought and left it up to me to do it or not. She never asked me to change the story, toss out the idea or write something else. She believed in the story and wanted to make it better. I always did what she suggested and as the years went by under her tutelage, I saw my manuscript grow into something good.

When I first approached her in January 1998 she agreed to read my manuscript. She spent the next six years reading and re-reading it. One of the first things I remember her saying to me was this:

"There are two kinds of novels selling today: very well-written commercial genre and brilliantly written literature. That is it. Any first genre novel must be as strong, if not stronger than books available within the market, so your competition is formidable."

I have never forgotten that because when she to took me on as her protege I realized she thought that I was capable of writing such a book.

Joanne was a great inspiration to me. She understood the genre and how it worked. She taught me how to see, to read and critique my own words better than any creative writing course I ever took. She showed me how to crawl inside a manuscript and to bring the story out. She never coddled me. In fact, I found her quite intimidating. Blunt and honest, I had no choice but to believe her when she thought something I wrote was good. She valued commitment and when she saw how committed I was- saw that I was willing to rewrite my novel six times, she committed just as much to me, and for that I will be forever grateful. Although her health was poor in the last few years, she continued to work with me, helping to bring out the best in my writing.

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