Mary Sue enjoys attending conferences where she networks with authors and editors. The Seymour Agency was founded by Mary Sue Seymour in 1992. Mary Sue Seymour is a member of the Author's Guild, the AAR, CBA, WGA, RWA. Mary Sue is looking for new clients who write any type of romance including historical, contemporary category, contemporary mainstream, suspense, paranormal, regency or inspirational - basically any type of romance. She is also looking for writers of nonfiction. She wants nonfiction about real life heroes, prescriptive books, cookbooks, and basically any type of nonfiction by credentialed authors. She is looking for Christian books of any type. She does not handle magazine articles, e-published or self-published books, general novels, children's books, poetry, short stories, New Age and books contradictory to fundamental Christian beliefs.

When I was a little girl, my parents told me I had to be a teacher. So without thinking, I majored in education in college, was fortunate enough to get a teaching job right after graduation, and taught for fourteen years.

While I pursued my teaching career, I wrote fiction at night. I even had three different agents. The last one wasn’t very good, so at the suggestion of a friend and fellow teacher (business), I decided to begin my own agency.

The first manuscript I received had some basic flaws. Even though I knew little about agenting books, I did know what constituted good fiction because I had always been an avid reader. I asked the author to correct the two flaws and then sold a four-book deal to Bantam. To my surprise, The Seymour Agency “took off.” I quit my teaching job and now agent full time, selling Christian fiction, secular romance, young adult, and nonfiction.

To get my “kid fix” I give private piano and art lessons and help with the art and vocal music program at a Christian school. I also teach adult watercolor at my alma mater, The State University of New York at Potsdam. . My husband, a retired high school English teacher, tells me I do too much—that I’m too busy and I work all the time. He’s right, but I feel that God has blessed me with gifts and I want to use them all before I die. Was it Erma Bombeck who said that when she stands before God she wants to be able to say, ”Thank you for the gifts, Lord. have I used them all?”

I love traveling, especially flying in planes. And I’m on the road a lot. Yesterday I got back from RWA Nationals in Washington, DC, and tomorrow I leave for a conference in Pennsylvania where I am presenting two workshops.

My two sons, Matthew and Luke, named after the gospel writers, are grown-up. Matthew lives and works in Baltimore, so I am an Orioles baseball fan. Luke is a collegiate soccer goalkeeper at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, so I go to all his games I can.

I am a member of several professional organizations: WGA, Romance Writers of America, the Authors Guild, and AAR, which is like an agent’s union. I also work with film agent Marni Freedman.

I represent best-selling Christian authors Beth Wiseman, who writes for Thomas Nelson, Amy Clipston, who writes for Zondervan, and Mary Elles, who writes for Harvest House. I also represent Shelley Shephard Gray, who writes for Harper One, which is HarperCollins’s inspirational division; Don Reid of the Statler Brothers, who writes for Cook Communications Ministries; and Barbara Cameron, who writes for Abingdon Press.

Please visit my Web site at www.theseymouragency.com. I accept submissions via snail mail only. Send the first fifty pages of a novel, with a synopsis of about five pages. For nonfiction manuscripts, send a proposal and sample chapter one. I do accept e-mailed queries.

The best advice I can give to writers is to get a critique partner or partners. All my published authors have them.

Blessings to you in all your writing endeavors!

Mary Sue Seymour