I am seeking representation for my adult supernatural thriller, THE DARK WELL (85,000 words) in which Ava Maple conspires with dark forces for the power to rescue her fiancée, Liz before a sinister organization feeds her to a dead god beneath Kansas City.
Ava and Liz are happily engaged and eager for life’s next chapter, but when Liz enrolls in a cash paying sleep study—she disappears. Ava goes to the police, but Dr. Estes, the study’s enigmatic director, has the cops on his side. Desperate, Ava turns to Kenzie, Ava’s estranged love and childhood bestie, who agrees to help despite their unresolved past. As Ava and Kenzie pursue Liz, they discover an undying man imprisoned in a makeshift lab, glowing doors warding a network of caves, and the artifact Estes abducts people to study: a well, teeming with dark, aberrant voices. And to save Liz, Ava will have to make a deal with a denizen of the well.
About what happens to us when love betrays us, THE DARK WELL is a standalone story with series potential which could be described as the horror of Eric LaRocca’s EVERYTHING THE DARKNESS EATS meets the sass and action of Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files. I workshopped this novel with USA Today Bestseller, Kory M. Shrum who writes in the same genre and my partner’s occupation in construction (shared by the protagonist) informed parts of this story and its settings.
I’m a queer writer living in Independence, Missouri. I studied creative writing at UMKC and have been a finalist and multi-honorable mention in the Writers of the Future Contest. My short fiction can be found in various places, and I was recently honored to be included in the HWA Poetry Showcase Anthology. I worked on Space & Time Magazine (est. 1966) for four years, ending my time there with a two-issue run as Editor-in-chief. Before becoming a write-at-home dad, I was a public librarian specializing in digital literacy. In my spare time, I love to garden and play tabletop games.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Kind regards,
Austin Gragg (they/he)