10 BIPOC Agents Currently Open for Queries
Where to Query This Week (6.25.25) | Plus, how to keep writing when the waiting feels endless
Welcome to Sub Club’s Where to Query This Week!
What no one tells you is that finishing your book is only the beginning. The hardest part might not be the writing—it’s the waiting that follows! This week, Peterson Berg, writer and creative mentor, shares his insight on how even though the querying process can leave a void in your writer’s routine, filled with anxiety and doubt, we writers need to keep moving. This process is not a race; it’s a marathon.
Hurry Up and Be Patient: How to Keep Writing When the Waiting Feels Endless
Writing a book is a marathon. Months and years of overwhelming word counts and self-set deadlines, sustained by adrenaline, momentum, and the promise of an eventual finish line. You charge through each draft, pushing your work until there’s nothing left you can give, and then pushing a little harder still. Finally, with an explosion of endorphins, the last revision is complete. You pass through that finish line…
And come to a complete stop.
The process that follows the completion of a book is radically out of sync with the process necessary to finish one. For emerging writers, a completed manuscript means querying agents in the hope that you’ll find someone eager to champion your work. For those who already have an agent, a completed manuscript means having your work submitted to editors in the hope that they’ll want to publish it. In both situations, the writer must relinquish control of the outcome, something entirely antithetical to the control you had when working on the book.
Querying and submission do not have defined timelines. Queried agents can take months to respond if they respond at all, and editors take just as long, if not longer. It can be a devastating, confusing experience: all that confidence you amass through passion and determination is stripped away. You realize how little control you really have, and overnight, your writing career turns from self-determined, urgent work into a never-ending waiting game.
And the thing about waiting is… It’s awful. It’s awful under any circumstances, and especially awful when it extends across indefinite amounts of time, and especially especially awful when the payoff for years of hard work and the achievement of a lifelong dream are on the line.
When I began to query my novel, I was anxious. All the time. With every email sent. With every full request. With every form rejection. With every new day of silence. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had nowhere to channel my anxiety. It was a dizzying, disorienting experience. I desperately wanted it to end.
For years, I woke up early to write my novel before my (other) workday began. After querying it, I spent that time checking my email and puttering uselessly around the room instead. This, I realized, was a major source of my problems: I’d left a book-shaped hole in my daily routine, and I was filling that time with anxiety. Through weeks of floundering, I realized that I needed to find something to occupy my time. And though it might be healthy to learn a new hobby, I returned to what I knew best. I started writing something new.
This is where that marathon metaphor starts up again: When runners finish those grueling 26.2 miles, they are encouraged to keep moving. The body adapts to a certain energetic state, and an abrupt stop invites serious risks. In those hours and even days after this monumental moment, runners have to find ways to keep some gentle movement going.
As much as we’d like it to be, the finish line is not the end. A life of writing requires perpetual, long-term activity, and to stay healthy, even our recovery must be an active one.
One month after I first started querying, I began a new project. Eight months after that, I had a new first draft. Once the book becomes what I hope it can be, it too will reach a stopping point. Once again, I’ll be thrown into a fresh state of ever-present uncertainty. But I won’t come to a halt. Regardless of what happens with the book, I have to keep writing—slowly if I need to—until I find the strength to pick up the pace again.
Peterson Berg (he/they) is a writer and creative mentor based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Their short fiction has appeared in Maudlin House, Rejection Letters, and others. Peter provides individual workshops and project-based consultation to help writers find the heart of their story and draft an eye-catching query letter. For more info on how to work with them, visit petersonberg.com.
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10 BIPOC Agents Currently Open for Queries
The list highlights 10 BIPOC literary agents who are currently open to queries, offering underrepresented authors an essential path into the publishing industry.
These agents actively seek diverse voices across genres—from speculative fiction to memoir—making now an excellent time to submit your work.
If you’re querying and want a curated list specially made for your manuscript AND help with your query letter, be sure to check out my Personal Agent List service!
»» Get your own agent list here ««
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