We are SO excited to have Ismita Hussain with us for this one.
Ismita is a senior literary agent at Great Dog Literary and a founding member of Disability and Publishing.
In this session, Ismita sat down with Jessica and Julie to review YOUR queries and first pages–and gave the kind of feedback most writers never get to hear. Not vague. Not generic. Specific, warm, and genuinely useful.
You’ll see what “too much in a query” actually looks like, and how to find the one throughline that makes it land. You’ll hear why naming your subgenre clearly can be the difference between a fast yes and a confused pass. And you’ll hear Ismita explain, better than we’ve ever heard it explained, the difference between writing that shows you what a character is doing and writing that puts you inside them entirely.
In the Q&A she talks honestly about full request timelines, what “normal” actually means right now, and how she stays current on what editors are actually buying versus what they say they want.
Check out our downloadable timestamps to refer to throughout your querying journey.
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About the Instructor
Ismita Hussain View Faculty Page
Ismita is a Georgia native and graduate of Emory University, where she studied Human Health and Italian. During college, she also worked for various Atlanta area hospitals in departments ranging from neonatal to geriatric care. In her Desi household, she grew up speaking Bangla, Hindi, and Urdu. Ismita is a founding member of Disability in Publishing and currently serves as their External Relations Lead. She is also a part of the Literary Agents of Change Mentorship Program 2022 cohort.
Ismita represents literary fiction, health-related non-fiction, YA, and short story collections. Some of her favorite authors are Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, Oscar Wilde, and Tom Perrotta. Ismita is especially drawn to fiction with a Southern setting, gritty realist writing, and any books that explore health or disability. Ultimately though, she’s a sucker for writing with a great sense of humor.
Her client list and more about Great Dog Literary can be found on www.greatdogliterary.com. You can also find her on Twitter @ismita_h .