Hi all, would appreciate any constructive feedback on my query letter below. I know it's hard to query memoir without a platform, etc., but I'm seeing this as a challenge to myself to try anyway and do my best. Thank you so much!
Dear [Agent Name],
Forty stuffed animals sprawl on the bedroom carpet, my siblings and I puppeteering them to elect the next president of the Stuffed Animal Community. None of us wonder at the fact that we’re all in our late twenties and pretending that a plush koala can speak. My memoir, ALL MY FRIENDS ARE STUFFED ANIMALS (76,000 words), explores how I’ve come to embrace my identity as an adult who plays with stuffed animals.
My plush toys keep me company during my sheltered, lonely childhood, but when I attend public middle school, I cannot escape into my imagination with them anymore. Setting them aside, I’m forced to face the challenge of growing up: how to be normal. Without my stuffies, I struggle to belong and find my place within my family and as a Cantonese-American. For over a decade, I battle debilitating chronic illnesses while doctors dismiss my pleas for help, creating more uncertainty as to who I’m meant to be.
As an adult, a reunion with my old stuffies leads me on a journey to love myself again. Rather than reverting me to childishness, romping around with them accesses the parts of me that aren’t burdened by pain, grief, and loss, redefining me as resilient and enabling me to reclaim my innocence. They push me to continue fighting for my health, resulting in diagnoses of endometriosis and fibromyalgia. I reconcile with my family and cultural roots, realizing that I hold the agency to define myself.
Stuffed animals are relevant now, as evidenced by a 2025 study by Circana that found that adults spent more than $1.5 billion on toys in the last quarter of 2024. Even a new term has even been coined—kidults—who reach for stuffies to cope with trauma in a healthy way. My memoir will appeal to those who enjoyed Mindy Kaling’s dry quips and coming-of-age themes in Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me? and Cathy Park Hong’s second-generation exploration in Minor Feelings. The stuffed animals serving as the throughline and the highlighting of identity mirror Courtney Gustafson’s Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats.
I’m a Pacific Northwest resident and a student in [XXX]’s Creative Nonfiction MFA program. My work has been published in The Pinch Journal. Thank you for considering my project, and I look forward to your response.