Last night at my son’s playoff  baseball game – go As! – I had a long conversation with a woman who is the grandmother of one of my son’s teammates. For the most part, it was your garden variety Little League parent chatter. We discussed the joys of living in Chicago, her son’s new puppy, and her favorite yoga classes. Then we got around to ever popular question: “So what do you do for a living?”

Within 90 seconds I found myself asking her if she knew any literary agents, and if so could she introduce me -- she did, and we agreed to exchange emails today. I’m  trading her the contact information for a delightful and reasonably priced doggy daycare service, in exchange for the contact information of her friend’s agent.

Her friend doesn’t even write fiction. She’s a cookbook author, and co-writer of Chicken Soup for the American Idol Soul, but at this point, I’m just happy for an introduction.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I can’t find the contact information for literary agents on my own. I’m a  journalist and I know how to find people.

As soon as I finished writing my book, I scurried down to the  local Border’s to buy myself a copy of the Guide to Literary Agents – every unpublished writer's bible -- and dutifully checked off all of the entries who:

• a.       Represent women’s fiction or some version thereof
• b.      Are open to accepting queries
• c.       Represent at least some new authors

I also found several websites dedicated to listing all kinds of information about literary agents --  Agentquery.com is the most complete. You can narrow your search by genre, author and keyword and most entries have links back to the agents website. However,  I also love many of the smaller, genre-focused sites, like Wow! Women on Writing, which offers agent information as an added benefit to its readers. It's less thorough, but I feel an odd kinship when I go there.

So  I’ve got my resources, but I’ve also got a sneaking suspicion that my best shot at winning more than a cursory glance at my carefully crafted query,  is through a personal introduction.

And no, that’s not just me being paranoid. I’ve read countless blogs by agents and writers who talk about the value of personal connections when cementing an agent writer relationship; and some of the listing in these query resources actually say “only accepts queries upon recommendation or introduction.”

In other words, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. And I’m sad to discover that after 20 years as a journalist I know exactly one literary agent personally (more on that in another blog), and I have been introduced to one other agent by my wonderful and talented friend Wendy Webb, author of The Tale of Halcyon Crane, a ghost story set in a spooky island town that I read cover to cover in one sitting because I was too afraid to turn off the lights. You should buy it, really, it’s awesome.

But I digress.

I have spent years amassing an amazing collection of contacts. My LinkedIn network includes professionals from dozens of industries all over the world. This year alone, I interviewed the guy who designed the space shuttle, the US Ambassador to Iraq, and a World Health Organization doctor who’s trying to eliminate malaria in third world countries. But have I interviewed any literary agents, or anyone who happens to know any agents? The answer would be a sad and echoing, ‘no.’

So instead, I’ve become a lonely unpublished author trolling baseball fields and playgrounds – the only places I go where I actually interact with other adults not related to me – to find someone, anyone who knows an agent and is willing to introduce me. Sure it may get me ostracized at cocktail parties, like a desperate insurance salesman trying to make his monthly quota. But it also might get me published, and that's worth the risk.

Do you know an agent? Do you think (s)he might like my writing? Maybe you could introduce us sometime…