Christopher Mannino (MG Fantasy)
Author: Christopher Mannino (@TheWritingVerse)
Age Range: Middle Grade
Genre: Fantasy
Agent: Steve Fraser, Jennifer De Chiara Agency
The Query Letter:
I hope you are safe and well in these turbulent times. I'm reaching out with a 50,000-word MG Fantasy that blends the lyricism of Barnhill's Girl Who Drank the Moon with imaginative visuals along the lines of a Hayao Miyazaki film or Lin's Starry River of the Sky.
When the Man in the Moon steals every star from the sky, thirteen-year-old Jaq must forge a new set of stars in the center of the Sun.
Jaq despises the family business. Tomorrow he'll become a nightkeeper, joining a group who walk the sky's glassy surface. Nightkeepers fasten stars every evening and collect the bulbs again before dawn. Boring, manual labor. He yearns to become a respected poet instead.
Stars power the world, fueling city generators and even creating emotions. Ukko, the Man in the Moon, wants the stars for himself. Ukko is sick of hosting nightkeeper feasts and envies his sister, the Woman in the Sun, whose glorious rays outshine him. Hoping to brighten the Moon, he steals the stars and the cities below fail.
Jaq travels the world, trying to rescue the stars. After climbing a ladder to the Moon, he opens a hatch through the sky and accidentally releases Envies, green-eyed snakes that swarm the world and destroy the stolen stars. Consumed by the Envies' power, Ukko attacks the world below. Jaq, once deeply jealous of his non-nightkeeper friends, struggles to accept and overcome the emotion. With the Woman in the Sun's help, Jaq must combine nightkeeping and poetry to re-forge the stars, stop Ukko, and save both night and day.
THE STAR-KEEPER AND THE JEALOUS MOON is told through three POVs. The main story is through Jaq's perspective. A fussy mooncat named Seren reluctantly agrees to watch over Jaq. Meanwhile, Ukko's mother, a trickster immortal, interferes in Jaq's progress while constantly complaining to her unresponsive broom. The narrative weaves prose and poetry.
I released three YA Fantasy novels through a traditional small press and have one self-published adult novel. I spent over a decade in public education, teaching middle and high school students theatre and English. Member of SCBWI, and the PEN/Faulkner WinS program. I am currently the primary caregiver to two inspiring and adventurous children.
BONUS: This query letter was a QT success story, and the full interview is available here.