Amy Pence’s first novel Yellow, a genre-bender that blends speculative fiction, fact, and physics, debuts from Red Hen Press in March 2026.  She has also authored four poetry collections and two chapbooks, most recently We Travel Towards It (Serving House Books, 2025)—attentive to climate change’s losses, both collective and personal.  In addition to poetry and short fiction, she’s published interviews and essays in a number of magazines, including The Writer’s Chronicle and Poets & Writers. Raised in New Orleans and Las Vegas, Amy taught college English, introductory poetry writing at Emory, and in other workshop settings. She makes her home in Atlanta, where she continues to write across genres.

Finding an agent for my speculative book about a slime mold-tween girl connection that begins in 1973, spirals into space exploration, then spans a few decades was no easy task. I had queried about 75 agents with no luck when I realized my hook needed work to make this complex narrative accessible.

As writers, you are probably familiar with the agent pleasantries to release you from further communication:  the manuscript is “not quite the right fit for our list” or they “didn’t fall in love enough to take it forward” or perhaps they “didn’t connect” with the “voice” or “plot.” I got these responses routinely.

One agent/assistant pairing held on to my manuscript for one year before the assistant to the assistant wrote to say they saw “the merit in the book, but the premise is just too out there for us.” To have written an “out there” book had not been the plan, but the muse had her way with my novel, Yellow.

Looking again at my query letter, I thought I would introduce the slime mold as a character for more clarity. Because, frankly, I liked Yellow, the slime mold that had awakened the young girl to a reality that she would spend her life trying to recapture.

Here’s the new hook:

Meet Physarum Polycephalum, a yellow one-celled organism that has over 700 genders, is immortal, and, some say, has a consciousness. This slime mold, brainless, eyeless, yet capable of memory and problem-solving, resides in its own exhibit in the Paris Zoo and is a scholar-in-residence at Hampshire College.

For this set of submissions, I cast a smaller net—gathering names from unlikely places. Pictured as the visiting agent at a writer’s conference, Malaga Baldi’s straightforward demeanor (and her name) caught my attention, and I added her to my new list of about ten agents.

Two responded favorably to my query, and one was Malaga Baldi. When I talked to her about what made her respond to my letter, she said “Of course you got me at Hampshire College.” As kismet would have it:  she is an alumna of that fine institution.

She was impressed that I had done my “due diligence” and knew she was a graduate; however, I had to confess that I had no idea.  When I told her it was completely luck, Malaga joked that she would now revoke all book submissions! We both agreed our synchronicity was just the sort of magic (or the quantum entanglement) that is thematic in Yellow.

Malaga said that my letter was in her top ten of good query letters. “For me, you conveyed all the different types of elements that are important to me,” she said. “Both science and art which often comes out in science fiction…but it wasn’t science fiction, and though it begins with a 12-year-old—she grows up, so it wasn’t a YA novel.” I do have a vivid memory of our first phone call when Malaga said, “I’ve never read anything like it before.”

Malaga particularly connected to the space exploration element of the book. It stirred up a nostalgia for what feels like more innocent times. “It was the writing that drew me in and a memory of that generation of Apollo astronaut lovers” that included her brother who collected all the patches released by NASA. Malaga said that she asked to see the manuscript to resolve the question “What am I projecting onto this book?” Luckily, she was happy with what she found in the pages.

Malaga sold the book to Red Hen Press almost two years after I became her client.  When the time came for blurbs, we had the idea of contacting the scholar-in-residence at Hampshire College to see what he/she/they had to say about Yellow. Unfortunately, the professor who had seated the Physarum had moved on to another career in science. Possibly, its work had already been done in connecting Malaga with my book. Looking closely at my hook was a great move, but I would have to say that divine luck went a long way in helping me find a true champion for my book in my agent, Malaga Baldi.

Query Letter

Dear Malaga Baldi,

As you are a lover of ______________, I’d like to introduce you to a recently rediscovered character that will fit the bill.

Meet Physarum Polycephalum, a yellow one-celled organism that has over 700 genders, is immortal, and, some say, has a consciousness. This slime mould, brainless, eyeless, yet capable of memory and problem-solving, resides in its own exhibit in the Paris Zoo and is a scholar-in-residence at Hampshire College.

In my novel YELLOW, 60,020 words, 243 pages and written in a bricolage style, 12-year-old Eliza (Z) discovers and understands a unity with the many-headed creature in her Metairie, Louisiana backyard. Z’s understanding of Yellow’s knowing consciousness fractures from an early trauma and she spends her life trying to recover what life teaches her to forget. The novel integrates the launch of Skylab, details from Watergate, the consequences of quantum physics, and the legacy of Vietnam on Americans alongside Z’s story. Both mysterious and metaphorical, Yellow’s consciousness becomes a guiding force for both Z and her brother Clem, a New Orleans seeker, as well as true life misfit astronaut Pete Conrad, the commander of Skylab. The novel takes us to a stunning performance where Z recovers the knowledge that is Yellow.

A little background: Like Z, I spent my early childhood in both Metairie and the French Quarter. I’ve published four books of poetry as well as a fictional hybrid work, [IT] INCANDESCENT (Ninebark Press) that integrates literary biography and poetry into an Emily Dickinson ghost story. My fiction has appeared in journals including Western Humanities Review, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and Juked. I won a Gil Dennis Memorial Scholarship from the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley.

I’m inspired by the works of two of your clients, ____________and the poignantly funny ________. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Amy Pence

Yellow by Amy Pence

Set in 1973, this genre-blending novel follows a young girl named Z who forms a mysterious connection with a strange organism in her backyard—until a traumatic event shatters that bond. As time passes, the experience continues to shape her and her brother in unexpected ways. Blending science, memory, and emotion, the story explores trauma, connection, and the search for meaning across time and space.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon