“Friends have developed the Queries to assist us to consider prayerfully the true source of spiritual strength and the extent to which the conduct of our lives gives witness to our Christian faith. [“Faith and Practice of New England Yearly Meeting of Friends]
“We prefer to see only a query letter first. If we are intrigued, we’ll ask to see a portion of the manuscript.” [Posted on a literary agency website re submissions.]
Query, query. My worlds collide. For after finishing Welling Up, a 262 pp. musing on that “true source of spiritual strength,” I must now submit. Such a good, spiritual-practice word, huh?
And I’m going to need some strength: FYI: some literary agencies receive over 150 queries a week! How’s that for competition?
But last night, listening to my spiritual advisors, i.e. the men and women who come to our Wednesday night meals-and-sharing gathering for the formerly incarcerated and those who care for them, I was “renewed and refreshed” (that’s Faith and Practice language.)
So I know I have done, as an agent in a recent, pre-submission dream told me, “wonderful and important work.”
“Onward and upward,” as dear Sara Sue Pennell, beloved member of Friends Meeting at Cambridge, exhorts.