Literary agent Emmanuelle Alspaugh has relocated from Wendy Sherman Associates to Judith Ehrlich Literary Management. In roughly a year and a half with Sherman's agency, Alspaugh made deals for authors like former Miss USA Chelsea Cooley, Marie Claire editor Sarah Wexler, and romance novelist Alissa Johnson; she was also briefly an agent with Creative Culture, where she connected Canadian novelist Danielle Younge-Ullman with Plume; that book, Falling Under, came out earlier this month.

In her new position, Alspaugh emailed, she's "delighted at the chance to assume more of a partnership role" working with Ehrlich, a former journalist who's been representing authors for the last decade, and launched her own agency in 2002.

In this week's installment of mediabistro.com's "Pitching an Agent" series, M. David Hornbuckle takes a look at Scribe Agency, founded two years ago by Kristopher O'Higgins and Jesse Vogel, who met in the office of former literary agent (now an editor) James Frenkel. Their client list "skews toward science fiction and fantasy," Hornbuckle reports, "but they are looking for works that are well-written and truly have something to say—while being entertaining and engaging." You know, the usual. Oh, and make sure your query letter "sings... Write it with the same passion you used to write your novel. Let some personality in. Monotonous letters bore them."

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In the latest installment of mediabistro.com's "Pitching an Agent" series, Krista Goering talks about running a new literary agency out of Lawrence, Kansas. "I've never considered living in the Midwest a disadvantage," she tells M. David Hornbuckle. "Everyone communicates by email, phone, and fax, anyway."

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Kae Tienstra of KT Public Relations & Literary Services says that Wylie's "paws on" attitude has earned him a promotion from agency house cat to chief accountant. (Not seen here: Norton, the other KT cat...)

Did you know there was such a thing as the Cat Writers' Association? There is, and Seattle Post-Intelligencer cat blogger Roberta Beach Jacobson is a member. Interesting strategy on the part of the P-I; they're hosting a slew of pet blogs written by "civilians," rather than the newspaper staff. One of these days I'm going to have to ask somebody how that's working out—and then I'm going to think about whether that might make sense for some enterprising book publisher... (Has anybody run with this idea already? Drop me a line and let me know...)

While Sebastian digs into a new manuscript, Petunia settles in for a catnap—just another day at the office for the WriteHigh Literary Agency. "Both kitties love to edit," says Monique Raphel High. "They tell us which projects to pick and which to reject. Sebastian sits on a fluffy towel by my computer every day and helps answer the phone."

Hemingway is "mannered, furiously smart, and even a great volleyball player," says literary agent Sorche Elizabeth Fairbank, "but a bit of a hack when it comes to editing. His tastes tend toward Bigfoot memoirs, old Calvin and Hobbes collections, and anything by Carl Hiaasen (he was a Key West kitty, hence his name). We have to keep him away from the finer literary novels upon which, if we won’t let him have the pencil, he gaks." (Write your own "we know the feeling" punchline here.)

The Knight Agency, a Georgia-based literary agency, announced yesterday that it had hired Jia Gayles as its promotions and public relations director, providing marketing support for both the agency and its roster of authors including Gena Showalter, Lauren Baratz-Logsted, P.N. Elrod, and Cara Lockwood. "Books are like cherished friends to me," Gayles said in her first press release for Knight. "I have always dreamed of working in the book publishing industry, and I am delighted to be a part of such a highly regarded agency."

This is the second major addition to Knight's lineup in the last month: In mid-May, the firm's client list was significantly bolstered by the arrival of literary agent Lucienne Diver.

Yesterday, mediabistro.com published an interview with Ryan Fischer-Harbage, a literary agent who (not coincidentally) is launching an eight-week workshop on book proposal writing tonight. Here's what Fischer-Harbage, who left the world of editing to start his own agency, had to say about how to get his attention:

"I want to know that someone is submitting to me because they have some familiarity with what I do, not because I'm just another name in some list of agents. When I get e-mails that say 'Dear agent, dear colleague, dear sir,' I often don't reply because I feel like I'm one of 1,100 people receiving it, I want to know that there's some reason for them coming to me."

Fischer-Harbage also notes that he likes to rep narrative nonfiction, current events, and history, but he isn't looking for fake memoir proposals. What, are there other agents who are looking for those?

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Michael Miller has an interesting piece on the unpredictable world of publishing in the latest issue of Time Out New York. Most fascinating was this quote from Ira Silverberg, an agent at Sterling Lord Literistic about the role of agents in the publishing chain: "We are the first line of defense--we keep it safe to read in America, because most of the stuff that people write is shit."

Really? Is that the attitude most agents come to the table with?

I had to ask around and received this from Merrilee Heifetz, Senior Vice President of Writers House: "Another way to view agents is that more of what new writers present is of interest to very few other folks. Our job is to find and develop the books that have the potential to reach a broad audience. Of course, everyone thinks their book is a potential bestseller... which is why publishers need us."

I find that a much easier statement to swallow.