The sky fell open to a map of the constellations.” Resin (Louisiana State University Press, July 2005) by Geri Doran. First book, poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: George Roupe.
“The bells in the church steeple tolled the hour.” Evening Ferry (MacAdam/Cage, July 2005) by Katherine Towler. Second book, novel. Agent: Deborah Schneider. Editor: Pat Walsh.
“When the fairy visited Max he was sitting outside Rico’s Sports Bar in Berlin on a warm spring evening, drinking beer and thinking: the trouble with idiots is, they’re too idiotic to see their own idiocy.” Idiots: Five Fairy Tales and Other Stories (Other Press, June 2005) by Jakob Arjouni. Eighth book, first short story collection. Translated by Anthea Bell. Agent: Susanne Bauknecht. Editor: Stacy Hague.
“Once I was a professional princess.” Little Beauties (Simon & Schuster, August 2005) by Kim Addonizio. Sixth book, first novel. Agent: Rob McQuilkin. Editor: Marysue Rucci.
“I sent one boy to the gaschamber at Huntsville.” No Country for Old Men (Knopf, July 2005) by Cormac McCarthy. Ninth book, novel. Agent: Amanda Urban. Editor: Gary Fisketjon.
“When they write my obituary.” The History of Love (Norton, May 2005) by Nicole Krauss. Second book, novel. Agent: Melanie Jackson. Editor: Jill Bialosky.
“The smarter-than-average, smaller-than-average Israeli man in his middle thirties had been for a time a freelance journalist in Jerusalem, the city in which the state of Israel constructed its massive complex commemorating the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews.” The Task of This Translator (Harcourt, June 2005) by Todd Hasak-Lowy. First book, short story collection. Agent: Simon Lipskar. Editor: Tina Pohlman.
“Beneath a sky burned vaporous white the men marched as they had the day before and would the day after and the day after that.” In the Shadows of the Sun (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, May 2005) by Alexander Parsons. Second book, first novel. Agent: Kim Witherspoon. Editor: Coates Bateman.
“Walt said that the dead turned into grass, but there was no grass where they’d buried Simon.” Specimen Days (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2005) by Michael Cunningham. Fifth book, fourth novel. Agent: Gail Hochman. Editor: Jonathan Galassi.
“She wore an outfit she’d selected herself especially for the occasion: textured mesh tights, a bathing suit, party shoes, and in her long hair, a large, artificial flower, a peony, plucked from her dead mother’s hat.” First Love (Riverhead Books, July 2005) by Adrienne Sharp. Second book, first novel. Agent: Sandra Dijkstra. Editor: Julie Grau.
“Fling of his wish have caught the sea / capture the blue and the green / conquer the flash and flail of the tail / the will of the rainbow fish.” Born to Slow Horses (Wesleyan University Press, August 2005) by Kamau Brathwaite. Thirty-ninth book, twenty-first poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Suzanna Tamminen.
