Turns out that a query letter is very hard to write.

I spent some time at https://queryshark.blogspot.com/and came up with this:

Dear XXX

I’m seeking representation for Holding On, a 56,000 middle readers reality miniplot drama.

What Ant Barnett needs most of all is for the door to his dad’s heart flung open so he can see the burning furnace inside.

He doesn’t know this, of course. How could he? Ant is a twelve year old kid who is barely holding on. His dyslexia makes the world unreadable, the bullies at school are circling, his mum is dead and his dad is buried under a weight of grief and financial worry.

Running has become Ant’s escape. He laces his shoes and heads out alone, listening to his mum’s old Walkman, vowing to keep her memory alive.

When the neat and self-assured Molly turns up at school, Ant is thrown into a tail-spin. She gets in his space and she talks too much. “What are you listening to?” “What are you eating?” “What does your dad do?”

When she starts moving in on precious memories of his mum, Ant knows he’s got to stop thinking about her, but Holden James, the skateboarding alpha-male of the school, makes that next to impossible.

His mum’s Walkman slides down a stormwater drain like a hockey puck. His teacher is putting pressure on him to invite his father to the school athletics carnival. The end of childhood is looming.

Something’s gotta give. Surely!

If not, he’ll be running alone on the lonely roads, forever.

Comps for this book are Nisha’s War by Dan Smith for writing style and themes, and Black Cockatoo by Carl Merrison and Hakea Hustler, for its Australian themes and suitability as a school text.

I live in regional New South Wales, Australia on a rural property incised by a seasonal creek. I’m an outside-of-the-box secondary teacher and I enjoy talking with young people. I’ve got five kids of my own. 

Thanks very much for considering my project.