“Publishing is a tough and impersonal industry and yet writing (especially fiction) is deeply personal.” –Mary C. Moore, Aevitas Creative Management
The 2025 Agents Symposium is a year-long program of monthly events with literary agents – taking writers step by step along the journey to publication. We’re happy to share Q&As with some of our featured agents here. To register for Mary Moore’s presentation on March 22nd on “The Ins & Outs of Approaching Agents,” click here.
An Interview with Mary C. Moore
Mary C. Moore represents a wide range of fiction as an Aevitas agent based in the Bay Area. She likes to work with clients long-term, and is comfortable representing multiple genres/age-ranges that an author is interested in, although prefers to begin a partnership in one genre before jumping to another. She is currently hoping to find layered and deeply satisfying upmarket fiction, bookclub fiction with light speculative elements, and smart female sleuth stories.
Scribe: How would you describe your personal approach to working with an author?
Mary C. Moore: I love to have an open communication style with the author, where they trust me enough that I can be straightforward with them. Publishing is a tough and impersonal industry and yet writing (especially fiction) is deeply personal. I want to serve as support to help an author separate their personal reactive feelings from what makes sense professionally, before it spills over to the publishing team. But also make sure the author feels supported and has the confidence to ask questions and make choices that best serve them and their needs. My goal is to get the author’s relationship with the publishing team to a place of comfortable communication, where I fade into the background until I am needed.
Scribe: What do you look for in a debut author?
MM: I look for a writer who has something to say, and can weave it into their fiction in a nuanced and subtle, yet powerful way. I have very eclectic tastes, so I’m open to all genres and age ranges. I prefer to work with writers that have been writing for some time, and have multiple projects/ideas, yet who also can focus on one project at a time. In terms of personality, authors run the gambit, and we are all pretty quirky in this space, so I don’t have preconceived notions on what personalities work best. I have noticed that the best fit for my style of agenting seems to be personalities that are “mellow” patient-ish, and yet also have type-A tendencies. It sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s a real personality type, and the longer I do this, the more I gravitate toward those types of clients. I want to work with someone who is both ambitious but able to be realistic.
Scribe: What’s one piece of advice you find yourself giving to others time and time again?
MM: Know when to move on and work on the next project. Holding onto a single project can limit you and your career. Your writing only improves with each new story, and it may take a few manuscripts before you find an agent and even then it might be one or two more before you find a publisher. And even if you are one of the few that has their first completed manuscript picked up, there’s no guarantee it’ll be a success with readers. By focusing on what’s next, you’ll be able to navigate the ups and downs of what’s happening with the current project better.
Scribe: What excites you the most about the publishing industry today?
MM: I have loved watching the rise of speculative fiction within the bookclub space. SFF used to be regulated pretty heavily to the SFF shelves, but these days there is so much potential and openness to crossover, from super light fantasy to deeply character-driven spacey science fiction. When I started agenting, to submit a SFF novel you really could only go to a small handful of editors, but now you have almost as many options as general fiction submissions do.
Scribe: Tell us about a recent book/project that you worked on that excited you and you want everyone to know about?
MM: Gracie Marsden’s Bones of Jade, Flesh Like Ice, a dark fairytale that reimagines centuries-old mythology to examine what it means to be a woman with power. The story follows a woman, living during the Song dynasty, who is determined to write her own fate, despite being cursed by a jing prophesy, married off to a pig farmer and an emperor, then murdered and reincarnated.
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Thanks, Mary!
Click here for more information on the 2025 Agents Symposium, an event that focuses on the craft of writing, the business of publishing, and building a literary community.
