A conversation about the writer/agent relationship and contemporary publishing. Kirstin Valdez Quade's most recent book is The Five Wounds, winner of the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. It was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Aspen Words Literary Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, and the Maya Angelou Book Award. The Denise Shannon Literary Agency is a New York-based boutique agency with a distinguished list of fiction and nonfiction authors.