A Letter to My Future Literary Agent

Dear Future Literary Agent,

Last night it dawned on me that you and I would not meet in the traditional way. I would not submit a book pitch that you would come across in your inbox of dozens of other pitches sorted by genre. That was never meant to be my journey. Mine is, and always has been one of radical honesty, divergence, and big asks that require the swell of community energy. I am not sure why I ever believed that our meeting would be any different?

I must admit that prior to now, I was not ready for you. It took keeping a personal blog since 2008, obtaining two graduate degrees that privileged reflective writing and processing, sending a tweet with a link to half blog post half academic assignment to THEE Brene Brown, an invitation to collaborate with writers such as Sonya Renee Taylor, Kiese Laymon, Luvvie Ajayi Jones and Tarana freaking Burke, and TWO WEEKS on the New York Times best sellers list for me to feel like maybe I am ready.

I have had the essays from You Are Your Best Thing for months. I began reading the book as soon as I got the copy draft and immediately I could feel the swell rising—this book was going to change everything. I could sense there was a great awakening happening and the earth was shifting right beneath our feet, our world was changing and the space for our stories existed. The tragedy of Black death had cleared the room and made space for stories of acknowledgement, and reckoning. The losses around us left our communities full of hollow that allowed the echoes of our grief-filled wails to carry across the continent and spill into the oceans. Our ancestors heard that call, recognizing it as their own they answered and the great shift began. Last summer we saw it in our own streets and now we watch it in Palestine. The uprising of the oppressed as they push back against a force meant to restrict and confine with the resolve that we are infinite.

I wanted Kwasi to do the impossible. I wanted him to fill the hole. The empty in me was an entire planet, a solid celestial body insistent on being acknowledged. My sortilege did not summon Kwasi. It summoned my acute awareness of the complete globe of nothingness, an impermeable mass that had taken up residence in the negative space where my mother used to live…

As I heard Sonya read the words of her story Running Out of Gas, I wept. Though I heard her story as one of grief for the loss of her mother entwined in a desire to fill herself physically with a substitute kind of love, I heard it through the filter of my own experience. I, Jessica, wanted men to do the impossible. I wanted them to fill the hole. The empty in me was an entire planet, a solid celestial body insistent on being acknowledged. My sortilege did not summon men. It summoned and summons my acute awareness of the complete globe of nothingness an impermeable mass that has taken up residence in the negative space where the old me used to live…

I began to grow suspicious of myself and my own scar tissue yesterday when I had a tearful breakdown discussing the shame around financial mishaps. I realized that much of the reason finances are hard for me is because my finances became really problematic as a result of my sexual assault. And thus, every time I revisit the issue of rectifying my finances and rehabbing my credit, I have to revisit the memories of how I got there and why i got there. I have to process, in some capacity, being violated every single time I consider my financial decisions. Or perhaps, I don’t have to but I do. That is my reality. One that I was completely oblivious to prior to expressing myself. Which is what lead me here, searching for you.

What I know about myself are my gifts. I am a gifted teacher of sorts. I am a gifted healer. I am a gifted communicator and I use all three of those every day to do the work that the divine calls me to do. I have worked to be able to do this most effectively through writing and dialogue and it is with this intention that I fully pursue a book deal among other opportunities to write, and engage with audiences around topics of healing, empowerment, wellness and care. Never am I better at connecting that when I do so in real time through my own processing of pain. I need to write this book to evolve my healing from my sexual assault and I need to write this book because as a canary in the mineshaft, my healing is key to showing others how to liberate themselves from their own pain.

The book that I am being called to write is one that continues examining the ripple effects of healing the wounds of sexual assault. Exploring the non-linear process in an intentional and sometimes achingingly authentic way. I want to discuss how my sexual assault impacted how I looked at who I am as a woman, a lover, a daughter, a sister, a professional and a creative. I want to talk about the shame that I felt and feel and how that alone has been my motivating factor to keep speaking out against rape culture and in support of survivors. We do not deserve the shame we feel, that holds us hostage and paralyzes us in our pain. We deserve to be free and to present in our bodies, present to our lives. The book that I am being called to write uses my own life experiences to explore intersections of identity and how they impact my ability to heal, how they color my journey and how they have shaped the crown of my sovereignty. The book that I am being called to write is one of many in a series of autobiographical reflections of complex social topics through poetic prose.

Overwhelmingly, the feedback I have gotten from my essay in You Are Your Best Thing has been, “I didn’t want it to end.” I tell people, I didn’t want it to either. Both during the writing and the recording of the audiobook I could feel something inside of me that hungered for more and not in a greedy way but in a way that felt like this is what I should have been doing all along. There is more in me. There is more to be told and there is an audience who I know can benefit from having someone model radical self-acceptance, and honesty. I say that as humbly as it can be said while still very much acknowledging that this is a gift I know I have and am not afraid to proclaim. Not any more.

I am looking for a literary agent who can See me and Hear me and understand my need to move differently. I want to work in partnership with an agent who believes in dreaming big and pushing boundaries. I need them to understand that I want my career to be carved with intention and purpose. I made a comment to Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts that I was moving backwards having a book out before landing an agent and she offered back a beautiful reframe, she said, “No, you are moving the way you’re supposed to and establishing your value in the market.” I had never considered it quite that way before but isn’t it true? Was my photo not there sandwiched between Laverne Cox and Aiko Bethea on the back cover of a New York Times best selling anthology? A type of book that everyone in the publishing world said wouldn’t sell? I could not deny the obvious. I can not deny the obvious. I was there because I belong there and I belong in the space of writing professionally.

Not only do I want to write, I want to speak. I want to make films. I want to show people in as many ways that I can, that who you are, as you are is enough and that that being is worthy of being honored and revered.

I thought, like the character in Soul that after the book was out my life would somehow be different? I thought that overnight my life would change and my entire world would be flipped upside down in a whirlwind of opportunity. What I have learned is that, success is much less a place but a feeling. Further, the greatest gift the success of the essay/book could have ever given me was clarity on my next step. Resolve that yes, I was going to open pursue a writing career and I was going to more fully dedicate myself to the work of healing and empowerment. The fire that lights in me is going to get me to my next level of success, I have no doubts.

Which is why I am looking for you.