This week's installment of mediabistro.com's "Pitching an Agent" series takes a look at Liza Dawson Associates, an 11-year-old agency founded by a former executive editor at William Morrow and Putnam, where she worked with authors like Lawrence Block and Colleen McCullough. What's Dawson looking for these days?

"She wants to hear writers' complicated, tricky, moving stories, and she wants to be racing to get to the end. She likes a cathartic cry, and she will continue to read any novel that has at least one gorgeous sentence per chapter. She hates clichés, and she also hates plodding query letters. She would like to see a big historical novel with a thriller or mystery element. She is also particularly interested in narrative history, especially of the ancient and medieval world. She wants to know about women in exotic lands. She also appreciates a well-crafted mystery. In addition, Dawson says she is a political junkie and has a weakness for alternative history."

Clear storytelling is important to Dawson and her colleagues, M. David Hornbuckle emphasizes: "All the agents have a low tolerance for experimental, self-conscious MFA-type writing."

This article is one of several mediabistro.com features exclusively available to AvantGuild subscribers. If you're not a member yet, you can register for $59 a year, and start reading those articles, receive discounts on mediabistro.com seminars and workshops, and get all sorts of other swell bonuses.