Agent Query for YA Climate Novel MOURNING DOVE

Dear Ms. <AgentInThePictureAtLeft>,

Uncle Tom being whipped to death brought forth tears in White Northerners' eyes and that helped end slavery. MOURNING DOVE has a happy, uplifting ending but to help prevent climate extinction, it will make all readers, including you, sob through a box of tissues. The following scene is only referenced in MOURNING DOVE as backstory for two characters. It does not appear in the novel, which is not quite as dark as this. It is presented here in this query to show the power of my writing in a mere 134 words.

CLIMATE APOCALYPSE “HAVES” AND “HAVE-NOTS:” She’s well-dressed and healthy. I’m in torn rags and emaciated. My mother just died sick. My younger son starved to death. The crying of the fat-cheeked baby in her arms hurts my poor ears. I stab it, kill it, and the noise is gone. I shout, “Your food supply! Your water! Now!”

She looks at me with mouth open, shocked. Her blouse is covered with her baby’s blood. I point my bayonet at the little boy trying to hide behind her skirts. She says, “No! No! I’ll show you.”

I smile. My remaining family and I will survive a little while longer.

The words are those of Gerta's mother, who was carrying Gerta in one arm and the bayonet in the other.

SIXTEEN YEARS LATER: Dammit Jen. You didn't have to die to get me to grow up.—Ttuuee Darlton, MOURNING DOVE, p. 127. The words are untrue, and not just for Ttuuee.

Ttuuee is MOURNING DOVE's main character and second point-of-view (PoV) character. He let nothing stop him in making amends for the death of Jen, his sister, the initial PoV. He fought off climate apocalypse "have nots." With the help of Gerta, now a painted witch, he cured his father's disease. He adopted Gerta as a sister. They beat pirates at sea. They triumphed over his cousin, an evil queen ruling a colony in Antarctica. Ttuuee was told by his scientist grandfather that the climate started returning to normal, and he fell in love with a young woman composing a Lakota symphony, in remembrance of her heritage. To him, she was his Rembrandt girl.

MOURNING DOVE's target audience is anyone who loves or hates Greta Thunberg. Those who loved Paolo Bacigalupi's WATER KNIFE (as I did) will love MOURNING DOVE. Bruce Holsinger's DISPLACEMENTS is another climate novel with strong characters, like MOURNING DOVE. The novel's themes include: What is mourning? What is love? What is guilt? And even what is death, as the last voice heard in MOURNING DOVE was Jen's.

My homework for MOURNING DOVE has made me a recognized climate change expert blogger. Random House published my novella "Oceans Away" in Stellar Short Novels. I was a ghostwriter for U.S. Senator Paula Hawkins and my op-eds appeared under her name in major newspapers. Articles under my own name were published in national journals. I have 66,000 social media connections following MOURNING DOVE: climate scientists, activists, and even entertainers. A few are rather famous and I've already asked some about cover blurbs.

I am querying you because you represent Young Adult fiction, and you express interest in Nature/Ecology non-fiction. MOURNING DOVE is 81,000 words. This is a multiple submission. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Shawn Oueinsteen,      
www.shawnouinsteen.com
mourningdovenovel.blogspot.com