If you’re a writer flailing to find an agent or publisher, you may want to get out your slingshot.
Isabella Maldonado says every aspiring author she meets wants to throw rocks at her. Not once, but thrice. First, for stumbling upon and signing with an acquiring editor at her first writer’s conference. Second, for signing with the first agent she ever pitched. And finally––the karma just keeps getting better––for her agent landing her with one of the most prestigious publishers in crime fiction when her first one went belly up.
The stars and planets aligned, the cosmos hailed in rose-tinted wonder, and fate was speaking (loudly). Yes, Isabella Maldonado is the go-to person for your lottery numbers.
Maldonado, the daughter of a Puerto Rican parent hailing from New York City, was born in the urban uplift of suburban Fairfax County, Virginia – growing up in one of the richest communities in the United States just outside Washington, D.C. And yet, she did not become a lawyer, doctor or engineer in the 1980s – not even a writer. She aspired to be one of the first (and few) female police officers in the county.
“A lot of people said I couldn’t be a cop. I always had this cockeyed optimism. I didn’t listen.”
One of her most harrowing experiences as a rookie cop was when she was the first officer to arrive at a brawl in Falls Church, a city in the middle of the county. She waded into what became a small riot. She could hear the sirens of her backup in the distance, but they couldn’t find her location. A huge guy picked up a concrete splash plate from under a building downspout, raised it over his head and galloped toward her.
“Do I shoot him?” A lot went through her mind. She was just twenty-two and instead yelled “stop.” He paused while towering over her. She took a step back and talked everybody down. Backup eventually arrived and immediately asked, “Why did you get out of the cruiser?”
This time, she listened.
“I didn’t make that mistake again.” She was soon tapped to become a hostage negotiator. “I learned my words were going to be a tool. Some of the best cops I ever knew were the best talkers.”
During her more than twenty-year career, she rose to the rank of captain, became commander of special investigations and forensics, was a precinct commander and hostage negotiator. She was spokeswoman for the department when the world’s attention suddenly focused on her jurisdiction.
Anyone who remembers the Beltway Sniper terrorizing the Virginia and Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. for three weeks in 2002, may recognize her as the woman often in front of the cameras.
When she retired early in 2010, Maldonado moved to Arizona with her husband, Mike Parra, where she began a five-year odyssey to learn the writing craft – something she had always wanted to do. “I read everything I could get my hands on. First, at the library and then buying books online.”
She joined the Phoenix Chapter of Sisters in Crime, “Desert Sleuths,” eventually becoming president. Her colleagues guided her along the way as she consumed more than a hundred books on the art and craft of writing and published short stories in three of the chapter’s annual anthologies. Only then did she feel confident enough to embark on her first novel.
She decided to write a police procedural and locate it in Phoenix, her new hometown where her Mexican American character was a commander in the police department. She felt it was too soon since her retirement to set a novel in her old domain. Her manuscript for Blood’s Echo involved a Latina officer. Mike helped her set up interviews with the Phoenix police and the civilian crime lab director at the department became one of her beta readers, explaining some of the new police forensic science, which had vastly advanced since her retirement five years earlier.
She also talked about her writing plans with a well-known literary agent who told her she was a good writer but that she needed to make one critical change. “Oh, I could sell this all day if your main character was White,” she told Isabella. “But your main character is a person of color. It will not sell. Libraries and publishers tell me they want diversity. It’s lip service. You are really hurting your career.”
The agent told Isabella not to quote her, claiming she’d deny she ever said it.
Again, Isabella did not listen.
“With full confidence and ignorance of the publishing world, I persisted…I stuck with a Latina law enforcement officer because that’s what I am, and I felt it added something to the mix that wasn’t out there already.”
Besides a police procedural with Detective Veranda Cruz as her protagonist, her novel included plenty of Hispanic food and culture. Isabella likened her character to a sort of female Harry Bosch, Michael Connelly’s famous fictional detective. “I admired the way Connelly described how it was to walk through the halls of the LAPD. It has that ethos about it.”
During this time, her Sisters in Crime chapter held a local writers conference. Terri Bischoff, acquiring editor for Midnight Ink, was a speaker. Midnight Ink had a policy of accepting queries only from agents, but with one exception. They would engage with writers at conferences.
Maldonado was the last in line at the conference to pitch Bischoff, who asked for Maldonado’s manuscript.
“I did not expect that,” Maldonado says. In fact, she hadn’t completed editing her manuscript, so she asked for two weeks grace. A month after she sent it, Bischoff offered her a three-book deal.
Her novel was published in March 2017, but did not sell well.
“I still didn’t have an agent. I was so stunned. I wasn’t expecting to get a contract so fast. I was scrambling. I didn’t know what I was doing. It was all very unexpected…With the enthusiasm of pure ignorance, I thought, now I need to get an agent.”
The best piece of advice she ever received, she says, was to attend writers conferences. So, with grandparents babysitting their small son that summer, Isabella and Mike ventured to New York City to attend the International Thriller Writers annual conference. “Everyone pitched in to go to New York for four days. I just knew I needed an agent to get ahead.”
She lined up along with hundreds of writers for the conference’s famed “PitchFest,” where fifty or sixty literary agents take three-minute pitches for novels.
“I got in line with hundreds of others, and some women behind me started griping loudly that PitchFest was a scam. I turned to them and said, ‘I got a three-book contract at a conference. I’m going to pitch cold and I’m getting an agent. It’s not a scam. It’s not a rip off. How else are you going to do it? This is your time. Get yourself ready.’”
A few people in line started clapping. “I think they were starting to get depressed listening to the negativity. But I made a declaration, so I had to get an agent. Your mindset is a big part of it.”
She zeroed in on eight agents, all of whom did film deals. After telling them she already had a publisher, half of the agents asked, “What do you need me for?”
“I thought, if that’s all the imagination you have, then I don’t need you.”
Liza Fleissig, of Liza Royce Associates, showed the most interest and they quickly bonded.
“I hope you can cook and manage stuff,” Fleissig later told Mike, “because your wife is going to be extremely busy.”
“I just could not resist her enthusiasm,” Maldonado says. “Enthusiasm counts for so much. You want someone who is just on fire for you and that was Liza.”
“So, to this day, I’ve never written a query letter…You’re going to want to throw bigger rocks at me.”
And maybe there are a few more slingshots waiting in envious hands because Blood’s Echo won the Mariposa Award for Best First Novel, which is given to a debut novel at the International Latino Book Awards.
It soon became clear her relationship with Fleissig is one of her most important. Maldonado’s third book was two months from publication when Midnight Ink announced it was folding. All of their authors were left empty handed, floundering about what to do with their unpublished manuscripts and books they had already published.
Liza moved quickly and landed Isabella with Thomas & Mercer Editor Megha Parekh. “I think they knew I had something they could work with, but I didn’t know that. They gave me the exposure I needed.”
Her first novel with Thomas & Mercer became a bestseller, was optioned at auction for film, and is published in 25 languages.
“Now, I know they’re going to want to throw rocks at me.”
Or maybe, like her, they’ll know when to listen instead.
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Blood’s Echo
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Start to Finish: Nine Months
I want to be a writer: When I was a kid, I read A Wrinkle In Time. That’s when I fell in love with the magic of taking a reader on a journey. I knew I wanted to do that someday.
Experience: Three short stories taught me the art of being edited and refined my voice. A 22-year law enforcement career. Five years of studying the craft.
Agents Contacted: None
Time to Sell Novel: Zero
First Novel Agent: None
First Novel Editor: Terri Bischoff
First Novel Publisher: Midnight Ink
Inspiration: Michael Connelly, J.A. Jance (Joanna Brady), Jeffery Deaver. For their authentic police procedurals.
Advice to Writers: Write with the full confidence of ignorance of the odds. I told my husband I’d have a publishing deal within a year. I had no clue what I was up against, but it came true. Put yourself out there. People will hold you accountable.
Website: https://www.isabellamaldonado.com
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