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#194 - Becca Langton
365 Plays2 months ago
Children's and YA literary agent Becca Langton returns to the podcast to check in and tell us all about what's been going on with her work in publishing, working in the US market whilst living in London and being in the middle of two book auctions!
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Ooh, a spicy question. I love it. Because the writing is sort of everything. You can fix plot holes, but if the writing... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this. So it's kind of a gamble.
Introduction of Becca Langton
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello, and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast. Returning to the podcast on this week's episode is literary agent, Becca Langton. Hello. Hi. Welcome back. Hi. Oh, I'm very glad to be back. Thank you for having me.
00:00:27
Speaker
Uh, it's no, it's my pleasure. I know you've been super, super busy. So thank you so much for, for making the time to come back on the podcast. Um, first time around was about two years ago now ah that you were on the podcast. And so I imagine a lot has happened, but anyone listening, if you want to hear more about.
00:00:45
Speaker
Becca's journey into becoming an agent and what that looked like. We covered that and a lot more in the previous episode, which is number 92. We'll probably retread some ground on this, um and so but but then kind of see what's changed, see what's new. So let's start off by catching up and just checking in.
Becca's Literary Representation
00:01:05
Speaker
As a literary agent, what are the genres and age brackets that you represent?
00:01:11
Speaker
ah So I am kind of as before do pretty much everything all the way from like the very very young and you know illustration for very small babies and actually I have a a client who's got an amazing book of poetry for like new babies and coming out ah with Walker Books, that's ah Mara Bergman, and it's beautiful, it's really beautiful, and it is poems to share with the tiniest of humans, the earliest of readers. And and yeah then we go all the way up to the top to YA and actually even Crossover, which is probably something which has changed since the last time we spoke because
00:01:50
Speaker
I feel like the new adult crossover space is a kind of burgeoning one or has in the last year really, really come alive. And although I wouldn't probably go into the super grown up spot, there's definitely room for something which feels a little bit more ah for the kind of the literal new adult, you know, the 1920 year olds in college and university looking for books that reflect their experiences yeah as adults who are just just starting out.
00:02:20
Speaker
Okay. so So very much, yeah, still the youngest of young up to like YA, but yeah the differences with the kind of way that new adult and crossover has been introduced into the industry and kind of changed things. You're maybe be looking slightly slightly older than than you had previously.
Adult Readership in YA
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, we talk a lot about what does new adult mean and what does crossover mean. And I think there are all sorts of stats out there. And I think I've heard one recently, which was like 75% of YA readers are between the age of like 25 and 40 or something like that. You know, it was really quite a start that actually ah a lot of the readers of the books that we're working on are grownups. They're not even young adults. They are middle aged adults, almost.
00:03:04
Speaker
and know that means that, you know, actually, I'm kind of, I've sort of split my list in, you know, in my head into two quite distinct groups, which is books very much for teenagers. And that's maybe, you know, the 11 to 15 year olds who are oh really ready for like super sexy dragons, but do want to have a sense of growing up and and adventure and, you know, and independence from parents and ah snark and funniness and all all that kind of thing and the first romance.
00:03:34
Speaker
um And then there's the YA, which is in that really core young adult spot, so something which actually might appeal to 30-year-olds, let's say, and but has that the essence of YA, which is stories which they are you know compelling and of page turners, romance, heart stopper stuff, anything which feels like it appeals in that sort of sensibility rather than content. um And, you know, I look at a book like Fourth Wing and actually I think, well, that has all the hallmarks of being a young adult book. And that's, I think, why it's so popular. And then actually it's got really inappropriate contents for a 12 year old. and So it's actually not YA.
00:04:19
Speaker
but it reads like one. And actually that is kind of, that's why it's so popular, I think, is it hits the sweet spot of all those readers who love why. They love The Hunger Games. They love they love the sort of books that, you know, draw you in, spit you out the other side. And actually, you know, they're not really yeah demanding reading literary fiction, not asking too much for you. They're just, they're pure in entertainment, but actually also have that really like fun, hot romance.
00:04:44
Speaker
And that's not to say that YA, it can't be literary and it can't be beautiful and it can't be high quality and wonderfully written. and But I think there is something that is really speaking to a generation of adults who maybe didn't have it growing up themselves and actually maybe
Optimism in Children's Literature
00:04:59
Speaker
missed out on that really lovely ah sort of teen friendly um sort of bookshelves. So yeah I mean that's awesome which constantly me thinking about and trying to work out how to reach your market which is actually incredibly ah got a huge reach. It goes all the way down from you know kids who are just entering big school all the way up to adults who maybe you've got children of their own. So yeah it's a lot to think about.
00:05:25
Speaker
It's interesting looking at YA through the lens of, well, once you have the data, you see that, yeah, that it's actually mostly adults reading YA, which is a category ah crash categorization that we we're saying is not for adults. Yeah, but it is in fact all for adults.
00:05:43
Speaker
So yeah, knowing that it's that it's that it's kind of actually largely adults who who are reading this, do do you kind of consider yourself then like you're a YA and children's agent, but actually you market to adults?
00:05:57
Speaker
and I mean, I think because we still predominantly sell to children's lists and children's editors and children's imprints, I think it's just, I think this is ah we have to be conscious when we're reading that, and you know, there at the demand, because actually the demand is still for YA books by those readers, you know, the 30-year-olds or the 28-year-olds,
00:06:24
Speaker
but If they wanted to read a book for adults, they could read a book for adults, there's plenty out there for them. They want to read books with emerging teenagers finding first love and fighting off you know terrible evil. And i think I think there's a small part of me which wonders whether given the political climate, the climate climate, the sense of foreboding that we're constantly um kind of battered with, with social media and the news cycles and, you know, we're not allowed to live in a world of optimism, which I think maybe we did 30, 40 years ago.
00:06:56
Speaker
with a sense of progression, we now live in a sense of world in danger. And i ah I also think that that's not always the reality, you know, there is progress all over the world, but we're not told about it, you know, there is... and i I will try not to get on my um soapbox about the news cycle and 24-hour news and... and oh but the constant pinging from the BBC News on people's phones and they're telling them like alert alert alert things are bad um but actually what children's literature does is say to the reader we can make things better you know you will face a problem and you can overcome it and you can overcome it using your ingenuity and your bravery and your skills and your friends and your family and your community which is such an important message and you know or a reminder even because i'm a sort of against also When we're thinking, about what are we telling our young people? What what are we telling ourselves? I really fundamentally believe we should be telling each other and ourselves that we can we can make things better. And we have we need to look to our community, and we need to look to our friends, and we need to look to making connection. And whether that's a school class, or ah a new friend, or doing something with you know people you've never met before, and that's how you make the world better. And that's what these books are doing. And I wonder whether the adults
00:08:21
Speaker
in the world who are just beaten down by the world they see around them find a little bit of thoughtless in YA. So all that to say I think we just have to keep on doing what we're doing and actually if we find a YA feeling book that suddenly has a really kind of spicy dragon romp in it that's kind of okay too and actually you know that speaks to those readers as well and that's where I guess new adult sits.
US vs UK Market Dynamics
00:08:46
Speaker
and And I think North America has been looking for those books for longer than the UK, and but now the UK is catching up as well. um But obviously I also work in the US predominantly, so I'm able to speak to editors ah who are actively looking for new adult and looking for college stories and are looking for and that as part of their lists. So I think that just kind of opens the door for me a little bit in what I'm reading. I have some some flexibility because there is a yeah ah demand for it that hopefully we can fulfil.
00:09:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's nice to hear about the kind of optimism in stories in like you say, a kind of difficult time that we all live in. ah But I guess it's also when you look at it in terms of that wide, like you were saying, like these books are appealing to a huge range of people. It's nice to know that it does feel sometimes, especially if you go online, that there's a sort of generational battle between all different generations of people, but these kind of YA novels appeal across multiple generations to multiple people. But I guess it's nice in the way it's like hopefully bringing people together with a ah mutual interest that we can all share in.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And i think um I think when you sort of get into the weeds of what the publishing business does and um what we have the ability to do, ah then you start maybe seeing more of a political divide rather than a ah generational divide. And actually books are on the side of imagination and freedom of thought and ambition. And which is why book banning is such a hot topic because actually you can see what books can do for people. It can open up a whole new world of possibility and identity and know new ideas and if if books really are community and if you find other people in books you usually see them in the world as well and that's why representation is so important and a real diversity of characters and authors and illustrators and publishers and editors and actually
00:10:43
Speaker
you might be by yourself reading a book but actually when you are holding a book which is written by someone who doesn't look like you or drawn by someone who has a completely different experience growing up from you or is portraying kids on the page who speak a different language or you know grown up in another part of the country or another I don't know, whatever, it's ah it's different. Then you're building community like that. And that's why books are so powerful. And I think that's why we continue to do what we do, even though it can be hard and it can be draining and it can be stressful. you know It can also be joyous and fun and liberating and exciting. So yeah, mean we we carry on. yeah Yeah, we do carry on. um I'd love to touch on, you mentioned you do work a lot with the US markets, even though obviously you you live in the UK and you're UK based.
00:11:32
Speaker
how does How does that work out and how come you ended up working over internationally like that? um I mean, mostly by luck and chance, honestly. I um was approached by Darlie Anderson to be a North American agent and I've been working as a scout, which is this um kind of behind the scenes job, which is ah almost like a rights job. It's an editorial meets rights job where you read everything going and then you report back to editors and from other territories and say, this is what's really hot or this is really exciting. Or they'll say to you, look, I just really need
00:12:04
Speaker
a book about a dragon in a library or I really need a book that um is super sexy and has queers, dungeons and dragons and here you go, here's that book. And so I had that breadth of experience and and and I was approached and leapt at my job because I couldn't think of anything anything better. And honestly, I was right. It is the most fantastic job. and But yeah, i'm I'm based in London. And as you can hear, probably until I'm not North American, I really have no no connection apart from um my avid Netflix watching with with with with North America. But I will say that, you know, certainly post 2020, most of
00:12:44
Speaker
the people working, or not most, but a lot of the people working um as editors and agents in America aren't actually in New York anymore. And so much of what happens happens on Zoom. So I do visit um once a year, I try to go to New York and have in-person meetings because I do think is invaluable and those relationships are wonderful. And I think the personal relationships you build are fantastic. But actually, I don't really feel that much of it's a disadvantage compared to my sort of US counterparts because ultimately we're all on Zooms most of the time anyway. um So it just involves having to do a lot of reading, you know, outside of my own um sort of locality. But having said that, there's so much crossover. Now anyway, and you know, there's so much online, it's
00:13:31
Speaker
easier, I think, than maybe it was 10-15 years ago to just have a sense of what's going on. And and and actually, I also sell North American rights for my UK colleagues, so for British authors or, you know, authors so selling into the UK first rather. Yeah, I would, sorry, not British authors, but UK first authors and administrators. I can sell the North American rights, which is wonderful.
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah, because most UK based agents I would imagine are when they are looking for new authors and new novels to to to kind of sign up, they are looking based on the UK market primarily, but I would guess that you look at queries and you're actually thinking of the US market first.
00:14:13
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. So I have my own list and then I also um have a kind of kind of rights role within the company but um my list is very much in in the fiction side at least, very much leaning towards yeah having US ah authors. In the illustration side actually it's kind of more of an even split because I think art travels sort of um with a little more ease because there's less of the kind of linguistic barriers um and it's much more about style but actually we had a lot a lot of crossover anyway but um yeah my authors are all in the US and actually you know again they're all over the US they they're in Ohio and California and Nebraska and
00:14:56
Speaker
I mean, it's out there everywhere. I actually wouldn't be able to see them anymore if I was living in New York than I do in the UK. So I think but you know that that that there's little difference there.
Literary Preferences Across Markets
00:15:09
Speaker
When it comes to UK market, US market, what are the, and obviously there's going to be a lot of nuance to this, and I imagine the US being such an enormous ah place, you know it'll vary from state to state invariably, but what are the kind of key differences in terms of what the what readers are looking for in terms of readers from the US and readers from the UK?
00:15:31
Speaker
Oh, interesting. I think the the i mean the key differences probably are just experience. So there's less demand in the US s to read a British high school story.
00:15:47
Speaker
And right I think, obviously, British readers are more comfortable reading high school stories because they're just used to them. um But in the YA space, I think that's kind of where the key split is, isn't like contemporary. Fantasy is, ah you know, it's really much in muchness because once you've got a fantastical world and a wonderful writer, then most readers can appreciate the you know, the world that's been created. And then I think what we're seeing, and and and I say this with some caution because things change so quickly, but there is an upsurge in the US of really wonderful, missile-grade British writing. So if you look at books like The Swift um and Greenwild and ah Impossible Creatures,
00:16:40
Speaker
and books which are written by UK first authors but have translated incredibly well, I think that it's clear that that part of the readership and in the US are really open to kind of more British sensibility in the writing. I think maybe that's a classic feeling story and and we do it really well here so that that feels very portable, I suppose.
00:17:07
Speaker
Oh, I see. And that's interesting because Greenworld, I know especially, because Parry was on the podcast. Oh, brilliant. And that one I know is set in, well, it's set around Kew Gardens. So that's very like UK centric, landmark centric.
00:17:22
Speaker
Yeah, no, it is. I think i think there's so there's something that but translates for, I mean, maybe it's the Harry Potter quality of it. I'm not always saying Harry Potter kind of has got British sensibility, but actually isn't really in Britain at all. Like Hogwarts is a fantastical world, so. Since Scotland. Since Scotland. Well, I mean, yes, okay. um If you can find Hogwarts on the map, please help me. But I feel like that that kind of opened up the US market a little bit is to a British voice, and even though technically that world doesn't really exist.
00:17:58
Speaker
um It kind of reads more like portal fantasy in some ways. Yeah, exactly. um But despite I think that that's where we we now have this kind of really amazing tradition of like ah quality British writing working well in the States. And it works really well and when it works. So, you know, it's just we need to find we to find that sweet spot. and And I don't know whether how British something has to become before U.S. readers say actually, no, too much, and then and and then it's too much. But I think, yeah, we they they're really receptive to lovely, quality British writing in that space, particularly.
00:18:34
Speaker
in in middle grades, specifically. That's really interesting. Off in middle grades. And and and you know as I said before, I think that kind of teen, that young teen space, so like 11 to 13, those readers who are still ambitious readers, but are children still and aren't ready for their YA TikTok tables. They really don't want that. And neither do their parents and or you know adults. The adults in their lives don't want them reading.
00:19:00
Speaker
ah like big YA from TikTok. So they want them to be pushed and that's where you know we can offer something really, really cool. And and of of course, the US also producing those amazing authors who are doing incredible work for those kids. But we just seem to be able to sort of offer it in ah in a way which feels very natural to our market. and That's so interesting because that that kind of tween age group from what I've heard has has been quite hard to break into the market with.
00:19:30
Speaker
yeah Yeah, we don't talk about it. But I think that's general contemporary. I feel like that's that contemporary spot, which is which is harder. But when you are able to do a fantasy book in that space, and then it's a little bit easier. Because actually, if you're 10 or 11, and you're still reading because you're in year six, and and you can read up, that's where those books are. And I think where we lose kids is when they get secondary. And then that's where you're looking at like 14 and 15. So I think, as so like a rule of thumb, always li we always think,
00:19:58
Speaker
kids are reading two years above their age so if you're 10 you're reading about 12 year olds and that's and yeah that that kind of impossible creatures spot I guess um and when you're 12 you're reading about 14 year olds and where are the books with 14 year olds and in them and they're really hard because actually 14 year olds are thinking about their sex lives as much as they're thinking about, you know, following unicorns around. ah So yeah, that is really it's a really but tricky spot because of course it is because it's so confusing to the children, let alone the people trying to write them and for them. um And there's a huge variety of experience when you're 14 because some kids haven't hit puberty at all and some are well, well through it. And ah
00:20:39
Speaker
looking for more grown up stuff and there's just less modernity in in terms of actual interest, I guess. And, you know, I think that's where we're still working out how to cater those kids. And that's not to say they don't want it because they really do. But it's just it's just harder to find them, I think.
00:20:57
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I've heard, I think it's um comic books and like Japanese manga is doing very well in that age group.
Rise of Graphic Novels
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah, the graphic novel space is really taking off here and obviously has been really well established in the US but it's a spot that I've been really enjoying reading recently because as someone who's tired and stressed, yeah opening up a graphic novel is just so fulfilling. i' i've read I've read a whole book and it's you know 45 minutes later um done and it's so easy to read and I think but again I think it's a post 2020 world.
00:21:32
Speaker
We saw a lot of kids really, really, really affected by lockdowns and COVID and their reading age suffered, understandably. They basically lost the foundations of ah learning to read if they missed their reception year or their year one year. um And then if you're missing years three and four, like that's a huge social moment and you know more more more learning missed. So graphic novels are a great route back into kids who haven't got that grounding in literacy that other other generations have had.
00:22:02
Speaker
and And I think even in straight fiction we're looking at, we're finding books that are maybe quite big but the text is very sparse or is interrupted by pictures or there are other ways into engaging brains which are maybe a little bit I guess kind of overwhelmed by big block text in a way which other could haven't been. I think you know I'm all for it because actually a kid opening a book is a a kid opening a book and and why why do we care whether it's a graphic novel or
00:22:37
Speaker
award-winning piece of fiction. I don't think it matters. I think we should be celebrating reading in all its forms. And I think even even you know as ah as a young person, I remember there being this sort of snobbishness about kids reading annuals or the Guinness Book of Records. But there's nothing wrong with it. It's brilliant publishing. There's a reason the Guinness Book of Records is so popular. and and yeah and and continues to remain popular because kids A love facts and also as reading, um I love the Guinness Book of Records. I still have Michael P from, I think, 1999. I regularly delve back and sing them out of the long fingernails. It's wonderful. Oh yeah, yeah. I remember that picture. Um, yeah, I mean, I, anyone who, who, you know, thinks that because it's in a medium, like a graphic novel and it can't be, you know, sophisticated and literary. I mean, I've read several of Alan Moore's graphic novels and those are some of the most intelligent, like sophisticated, most like brain boggling things I've ever experienced as a reader.
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah, ah one of them my favourite books I've picked up recently and is that a ah US graphic novel called The New Girl. um I think her name's Cassandra Callan, although I need to check that. but and And it's about a girl who ah emigrates from Romania to the US and she has to work out how to survive in a school where she doesn't speak the language. Oh no, sorry, i she moves to Canada.
00:24:01
Speaker
and okay So she's dead in French and it's really hard and everything everything's tough and she has terrible periods. And when I was reading her thinking, this would not necessarily translate to straight fiction. This girl with all four cramps and yeah she's worn out beating through her trousers and all this stuff. which somehow is completely palatable in the graphic novel form because it's so cute and bright and child-friendly and it's perfect for an 11-year-old reader. I know it really, really hits the sweet spot in a way that I just don't know if it would, if it was it was written. it would I think it would feel a lot more serious, a book about being you know and new a new girl not speaking language in a foreign country and really missing home and her grandparents and her friends, but somehow the poppiness of the graphic novel just like lifts lifts it beautifully.
00:24:48
Speaker
Yeah, you can do so much with that the kind of visual aspect of it and like the way things are placed and the way things are drawn and all of that stuff. It's a lot of goes into it. and Getting back on to, I wanted to, we we touched on the children's bucket right now and um middle grade middlewered fantasy I know had this kind of very big boom some years ago. I was under the impression at least in the UK that that had died down and it was quite a hard space to to kind of get into. what What does it look like to you? Well, yeah, I think it's probably everything goes in peaks and troughs and you have a very, you have probably had a very high peak with something like Skandar and the trough we're in now is just not Skandar levels. um That's to say, yeah, it is harder and people, their lists are fuller because people bought books two or three years ago that looked like that.
00:25:43
Speaker
and But that's not to say it won't work, I'm in the middle of an auction for an amazing British and fantasy novel, for probably in that sort of team space, after middle grade really, and which is absolutely ah in in that lovely fantasy quality writing spot. um And it it's amazing writing and it's an amazingly imagined world and we've had an auction in the UK and an auction in the US, like it does work, it just needs to be needs to be special and I think it
00:26:15
Speaker
Maybe there's less demand for it, but I think the demand is less for books that fill a spot that looked like other books. So there's always space for brilliance. Yeah.
Genre Saturation and Trends
00:26:28
Speaker
yeah it's Yeah. It's one of those, like you say, it's ebbs and flows, but they're not necessarily protectable ebbs and flows. totally yeah and we'll see what happens next and I called it i I feel I called it last year at Bologna I was like I think romanticy is finished and I think it is not finished but people have romanticy on their list now they don't need another one and unless it's really spectacular or really does something different or really really really is very compelling and there's gonna be enough on the shelves for the next two or three years that people aren't falling over themselves to get a book that looks like all the other books
00:27:03
Speaker
Yeah, because the the publishers, I mean, if you go on Bookseller and you can see all the announcements over the past sort of year or so, the publishers are all like stocked up. We're going to get a lot of romanticy coming out in the next, like you say, a couple of years. I've seen like lots of the kind of ones that started things off are going into like movie production and stuff like that. yeah We're we' about to be flooded with it, which means, yeah.
00:27:25
Speaker
I would imagine agents and publishers, editors are are looking to the future where they're saying like, right, this market's about to be very saturated. What's the next thing? What's the next thing? yeah And I think often it's almost a little bit reactionary. That that new thing will come along. everyone Everyone will fall over themselves for it. Only one will get it. And then everyone else is looking for the thing that they've missed out on. And then we'll get a big a big boom in it. or, you know, TikTok will decide that this, a book that they have found is incredible and sales will take off and suddenly everyone will be looking for the book that looks like that, that book. and Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I think, you know, I always say to writers, you just can't write to the market because you'll be too late, ultimately.
00:28:06
Speaker
Yeah, because it I mean, just the time that it takes to yeah create something like that. um We are about the point in the episode where we head over to the desert island. But of course, Becca, you have been to the desert island before. And last time you you kind of gave me an either or answer. And your two choices were Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons, or the Lost Art of Keeping Secrets, Eva Rice.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah. Someone asked me yesterday, they asked me, and what are your two favourite books? And on those are the two books that said I So, actually, nothing to say. I probably, I would add in The Arrival by Shaun Tan. and Okay. Because I think it's just an absolute masterpiece and I've got Prince on my wall from it and it's a book that I always return to as something really, really special.
00:28:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's there are actually very few books that I reread, and those three are absolutely books that I return to. I mean, not including picture books, because I am forced to read picture books over and over and over again by my children, so I don't get a choice in that matter. Yeah. and yeah Okay. it's It's nice that you have like a very core group of like these these books that you are like unanimous that I have. These are the ones I will never forget these books. I will always keep rereading these books and I imagine slowly over the over the years like you might find a new one to add and then it'll grow very slowly.
00:29:33
Speaker
Yeah, i think I think that's right. i think I think as the reader, kind of reader that I am, although I actually delight in beautiful, sort of really, really lush writing, um my guilty, not even guilty, my very unguilty pleasure is books which are just page turners. So I will happily sit and read 15 thrillers on a on a ah you know a beach somewhere.
00:30:01
Speaker
I love it, I love it, but I'm never, i I don't need to read them again. I've got no interest in returning to those books. I just want to be in that experience of needing to know what happens next. I don't yeah have any, and I don't remember them. I've often read books when I think I know this book and that's because I read it already and it's gone, it's out of my mind. so and Yeah. so It's like ah it's like um watching like a silly action comedy movie or something like that. It's like i'm I'm enjoying it and I'm glad I'm seeing it. I've immediately forgotten the plot an hour after the movie's finished. you knows Exactly. it's yeah It's just there to entertain me for sure. It's not like a ah deep, meaningful piece of art, whether whatever medium that comes in, where you're thinking about it and then it comes back to you like a few weeks later and like a month later and then a year later and you're like, I should experience that again. yeah
00:30:46
Speaker
Exactly. And I kind of feel like sometimes we forget that that's what books can do that and books should do that. And, you know, we don't, not every book that we read needs to be an improvement in our lives or improvement of ourselves. Like it's completely legitimate to read a book because you've heard about it or you saw it on TikTok and it sounds kind of... compelling and then it is um or you just need to know like who who killed him or you know where this person is or or whatever it is or you just need to know whether they get together or not in the end like that's it that's fine the end yeah or it's also okay to open a book and it's boring you'd stop I because i just i just got no interest in yeah treating treating literature and treating books as a kind of higher art form because it's great for them to be entertainment
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah and absolutely.
Becca's Current Projects
00:31:33
Speaker
um Next up, I wanted to follow up on you mentioned and that you you're currently in an auction. I don't know that you had another auction recently as well. I wanted to just ask a bit about the mechanics of those things and then also check in on what Becker's looking for in queries and things like that as we approach um the sort of the the end of the year and thinking back. We talked about this last time you were on, but that as I say, two years ago, I imagine a lot has changed. But all of that stuff is going to be in the in the extended episode, which you can find at patreon dot.com slash right and wrong.
00:32:06
Speaker
yeah Anyway, I shouldn't. just I'm probably going to get a seat. I just hope that all those young readers who love Harry Potter still find their Hogwarts, which makes them feel at home. Because that's what Hogwarts did for a lot of people for a long time and doesn't anymore. and But that's not to say it can't or shouldn't.
00:32:27
Speaker
Yes, it's it's it's always good to have some escapism. Exactly. thing um But thank you so much, Becca, for coming back on the podcast and chatting with me, telling us all about everything you've been up to and and what's going on in publishing. It's been really, really awesome chatting with you. ah Thank you very much for having me. It's a joy.
Connecting with Becca Langton
00:32:42
Speaker
And for anyone wanting to keep up with what Becker is doing, you can follow her on Twitter at Becker underscore Langton, on Instagram at agent underscore Becker. And if you want to submit, go to DarlieAndersonChildrens.com and you can find a link to her query manager on there. To support the podcast, like, follow and subscribe, head over to the Patreon for bonus content and add free extended episodes and check out my other podcast, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes. Thanks again, Becker. And thanks to everyone listening. We will catch you on the next episode.