Elana Roth Parker
Lit agent. Often quilting. Always rewatching a Star Trek series (not Enterprise). Very Jewish. Still not Elena. She/her.
elana.me / lowercasequilts.com
- Summer internship applications are open at LDLA. Yes, paid. Yes, remote. Visit the link in the post below for more info. (i.e. your questions will probably be answered there...also reading is part of the job!)
- News you can (maybe) use: I'm going to be reopening to queries the first 10 days of every month. (Trying out this new-fangled strategy to keep the volume manageable). And checking the calendar...that means I'm reopening tomorrow, March 1. querytracker.net/query/querye...
- The DS9 episode where Frankie Eyes takes over Vic Fontaine’s casino is basically how I picture Trump taking over the Kennedy Center.
- I haven't done an #MSWL day in a hot minute. I'm not open to queries just yet. Probably March? But my general categories don't tend to change that much... I updated my page here anyway: www.manuscriptwishlist.com/mswl-post/el...
- MG, YA or adult, I'm always looking for high-concept, commercial reads. Great plots and hooks. Strong voices and characters in those well-drawn worlds and situations. I'm up for some genre blending. A rom-com in a dystopian world? Agatha Christie in space? Murder mystery and dragons? Do it.
- For MG and YA, I could use some projects to reinvigorate things. Humor and optimism and joy would be nice. Fanciful, fantastic twists. Books that have FUN and let readers have fun. (I really can't handle depressing stories right now.)
- For Adult, some of the same. Nothing too self-serious. I love a fun concept with a strong voice. Thinking of THURSDAY MURDER CLUB or FINLEY DONOVAN as a good example. I'm up for SFF but more accessible and commercial. Or cozy!
- Look, I’m still salty the Lions aren’t in this game, but Philly is making this worthwhile.
- Philly is a brick wall tonight.
- It's Holocaust Remembrance Day. Auschwitz was liberated 80 years ago. Both my bubbie and zayde survived Auschwitz, but neither was liberated there. My grandmother had been transferred to a labor camp, making Nazi uniforms, and freed by the Russian army there. 🧵
- My grandfather was sent on a death march, where his job was to drag dead bodies to the side of the road. He narrowly escaped through a loose board of a barn wall, in which he'd been locked inside with other prisoners, just before the Nazis bulldozed the building. Only a few got out.
- But they both survived. And went "home"...to my grandmother's hometown of Uzhhorod (now in Ukraine). They met at a soup kitchen. They got married. They fled west. Had my uncle in a DP camp in Germany. Eventually got sponsored by the JDC and made it to the US and built a whole new life.
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View full threadEpigenetic trauma is interesting. I don't really know how to explain all the ways their experiences still play out in my life. The subtle ways my father adapted to his parents' trauma, which now play out in how I engage the world as a Jew. I wish more people knew. It's real and not all in the past.
- For one whole hour, my feed here was filled with children's books winning awards and not panic and it was glorious. Alas, back to the pit of despair we go....
- Congrats again @joshuaslevy.bsky.social! A Sydney Taylor Honor for FINN & EZRA! So so so happy for you!
- 6yo: Mom, what’s 9 times 5? Me: 45 6yo: So if 9 bears each ate 5 pizzas, that’s how many pizzas you’d need to order? You’re welcome. Happy Friday.
- Also congrats to client Alexa Donne! This is her second nomination. It’s a good day over here.
- Popping back into this site to say BIG congrats to @joshuaslevy.bsky.social on winning the National Jewish Book Award for Middle Grade Literature today for FINN & EZRA'S BAR MITZVAH TIME LOOP. Kvelling, schepping naches, and all those things. Thanks @jewishbookcouncil.bsky.social!
- And if I can add a footnote: I've increasingly leaned into "we only have each other" when it comes to my Jewish world in the last 15ish months...so this recognition feels extra meaningful, even though I know it won't be felt in the wider kidlit world.
- Guess who picked up a new hobby over the break. Guess who also still has her floss carrying case, complete with lots of floss and old friendship bracelets vintage 1994. This should be an easy guess.
- Sitting down to watch the series finale of LOWER DECKS and realizing how angry I am this is the series finale of LOWER DECKS.
- I was right to be on Yellow Alert. The warbird did de-cloak in the form of my 6yo having an ear ache in the middle of the night and a new fever on the heels of pneumonia two weeks ago, followed by a wheezing cough and a fever last week. This kid can’t catch a break and neither can I.
- Ear infection confirmed. I hate this time of year.
- Not that anyone's asking, but if I had to describe my current mental state it's Yellow Alert on the edge of the Neutral Zone waiting for a Romulan warbird to decloak at any second.
- Has LOWER DECKS done an “Eyes in the dark, one moon circling” joke yet? I feel like it must have.
- I have to amend this to include: - Sins of the Father - Night Terrors - Schisms - Unification 1 & 2
- I finally solved it, but I'm still mad about it.
- Oh screw you, Connections.
- One day I’ll get a handle on my evening anxiety drain-circling, but not today.
