After participating in Boston’s independent writing center’s Novel Incubator program, E. B. Moore signed a two-book deal with Penguin for An Unseemly Wife, about a 19th-century Amish woman who crossed the country in a covered wagon with her husband and children, and for its sequel. She was represented by Alice Tasman of the Jean Naggar Literary Agency, whom she met at Grub Street’s annual Muse and the Marketplace Conference, where students submit excerpts of their manuscripts to agents.
“I’m profoundly grateful to the Grub Street Novel Incubator for its key role in helping me write An Unseemly Wife and for the chance to present it to agent Alice Tasman,” said Moore, who turned to writing after retiring from a career as a metal sculptor. In 2009, she published a chapbook of poems, New Eden, A Legacy, which served as the foundation for her debut novel, and has received fellowships to the Vermont Studio Center and Yaddo.
Grub Street is hoping that Moore’s success is just the first of many for students who go through the Novel Incubator program, a 12-month MFA-level course open to 10 students a year. “We are extremely proud of Elizabeth Moore’s publishing success story,” said Grub Street executive director Eve Bridburg.
