First Impressions: Query Letters and Opening Page (Bridgid Dean)

This is a one-session seminar that will be held in person at WriterHouse on Sat., Oct. 17, 2026 from 1 PM to 4 PM. There are six spots available.

Description

Writers spend years writing their novels, but when it comes time to seek literary representation, they have only minutes to capture an agent’s attention. A brief query letter must sell the concept and make the agent open the pages, and those pages need to deliver on the promise of the query letter. In this seminar, we will workshop participants’ query letters to identify ways they can more clearly and compellingly present each manuscript. We will also workshop those crucial first pages, examining how they fulfill the expectations set by the query letter. This seminar is designed for fiction writers preparing to query literary agents. Participants  should submit a query letter and the first five pages of their manuscript by October 7 to programs@writerhouse.org. Students will be asked to read manuscript pages and query letters of fellow seminar students in advance of the class.

About the Instructor

Bridgid Dean studied Literature and Creative Writing at The College of New Jersey and interned at Byron Preiss Visual Publications in New York City. She is the author of the YA fantasy novella The Girl in the Forest. As a freelance editor, she has worked on projects selected for The Best American Mystery Stories and honored with the Ellery Queen Reader's Award and the Derringer Award. Bridgid has completed and queried multiple novels, receiving agent requests on each project, and has spent years participating in critique groups and writing workshops through WriterHouse.