{"id":1051009,"date":"2021-11-24T06:59:07","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T11:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1051009"},"modified":"2021-11-24T06:59:11","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T11:59:11","slug":"life-after-cancellation-how-one-literary-agent-reclaimed-her-life-from-the-mob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/life-after-cancellation-how-one-literary-agent-reclaimed-her-life-from-the-mob\/","title":{"rendered":"Life After Cancellation: How One Literary Agent Reclaimed Her Life From The Mob"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Flife-after-cancellation-how-one-literary-agent-reclaimed-her-life-from-the-mob%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1051009&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Literary agent Colleen Oefelein knows a lot about living under the uncomfortable glare of a media spotlight she never sought. In 2007, she was working as an Air Force captain and chemical engineer when her boyfriend\u2019s ex, equipped with a drilling hammer and an 8-inch folding knife, attacked her in an airport parking lot. The incident made news around the world because Oefelein\u2019s boyfriend (now husband) was an astronaut, as was his former lover, who was charged with attempted murder and kidnapping. The story became known as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/crime\/lucy-in-the-sky-astronaut-love-triangle\/\">The Astronaut Love Triangle<\/a>, and involved details so outlandish \u2014 like the fact that the perpetrator allegedly wore a diaper to save time \u2014 it eventually inspired a 2019 movie starring Natalie Portman.<\/p>\n<p>It was a harrowing period and one she\u2019d never want to relive, but in a way, Oefelein tells me now in a soft voice that belies the tough, commanding jobs she\u2019s had in the past, that experience prepared her for the next time she would face a swarm of negative headlines. The second attack came in the form of a cancellation mob.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A New Career<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After the trial against her assailant was over, Oefelein and her husband relocated to Wasilla, Alaska, a region of glassy lakes and snow-capped mountains, where she began to process her trauma through journaling. That turned into writing a memoir, which eventually led her to publish a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B0176M19RM\/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0\">novel<\/a>. Through the process, Oefelein learned the ins and outs of the publishing industry. As a high-energy literature lover, she realized that along with being an author, she had the ideal skills for helping other would-be writers find homes for their work.<\/p>\n<p>She spent the next few years working for a small, startup agency. But when it closed in 2018 due to the owner\u2019s illness, she gratefully accepted a position as an associate with the Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency (JDLA), an established boutique outfit with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Looking at their roster of clients that included bestselling authors like \u201cElf on The Shelf\u2019s\u201d Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell, and celebrities like Ed Asner and Tippi Hendren, Oefeleien thought big things might be on the horizon. She gave little thought to the fact that she didn\u2019t share her new employer\u2019s politics.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI knew the first time I talked to [owner Jennifer De Chiara] that she was on the Left,\u201d Oefelein tells me. \u201cShe was very, very proud of having met the Clintons. She talked about that a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In general, Oefelein finds politics boring, but she is a Christian, and if pressed to describe her ideology, she says she considers herself a moderate conservative who leans left on a few issues. So she wasn\u2019t exactly enthusiastic about how partisan her colleagues were, and she disliked the amount of time they wasted bashing President Trump during meetings: \u201cI kept thinking, \u2018Man, I have things I need to do. Can we just get back to business?\u2019 It was a little frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Further frustrating was when, in January, an <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/e\/2PACX-1vS_tiz6ATX5piqGmFlu6FqNwJinahlYJqn7JtGoiDOUIFEEx3MuvXubKQJi6BGpTlsyJpqLgk-pyhiE\/pub?urp=gmail_link\">open letter<\/a> began circulating in the publishing world calling for agents and editors to pledge not to work with any member of the Trump Administration or anyone associated with it. Three of Oefelein\u2019s coworkers signed and were encouraging others to do the same.<\/p>\n<p>Privately, Oefelein thought, \u201cI\u2019m not signing a petition to not work with people. That\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d she recalls. She also thought, \u201cWow, you know, what a way to really alienate a segment of the market.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, she kept her objections to herself and threw her energy into attracting quality authors and manuscripts, something her agency advised her to use social media to accomplish.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not really a big social media user,\u201d Oefelein shares, \u201cBut in our one of our monthly discussions our guidance was that we needed to do more to connect to people more on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thus, when a comedian she followed on Twitter mentioned that he was going to Parler and Gab because he appreciated their commitment not to police speech, Oefelein thought the platforms sounded like new opportunities to reach untapped talent. In November 2020, she opened accounts herself and began cross-posting the same content she put on Twitter and Facebook, offering free manuscript critiques and describing the kinds of books she was interested in representing \u2014 mostly romance and young adult novels.<\/p>\n<p>What she never posted, unlike her associates who routinely shared strident leftwing views on all manner of subjects, was anything remotely political.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018A Voice of Unity, Equality, and One that Is On the Side of Social Justice\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As writer Kat Rosenfield has detailed in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vulture.com\/2017\/08\/the-toxic-drama-of-ya-twitter.html\">The New Yorker<\/a>, the world of young adult fiction has become an increasingly toxic whisper network wherein anonymous burner accounts torpedo the careers of agents and authors for such offenses as writing about characters of another color or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.publishersweekly.com\/pw\/by-topic\/industry-news\/people\/article\/83469-three-agents-resign-after-red-sofa-literary-owner-s-tweet.html\">calling the police<\/a> on Black Lives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Literary agent Colleen Oefelein knows a lot about living under the uncomfortable glare of a media spotlight she never sought. In 2007, she was working as an Air Force captain and chemical engineer when her boyfriend\u2019s ex, equipped with a drilling hammer and an 8-inch folding knife, attacked her in an airport parking lot. The incident made news around the world because Oefelein\u2019s boyfriend (now husband) was an astronaut, as was his former lover, who was charged with attempted murder and kidnapping. The story became known as \u201cThe Astronaut Love Triangle, and involved details so outlandish \u2014 like the fact that the perpetrator allegedly wore a diaper to save time \u2014 it eventually inspired a 2019 movie starring Natalie Portman.It was a harrowing period and one she\u2019d never want to relive, but in a way, Oefelein tells me now in a soft voice that belies the tough, commanding jobs she\u2019s had in the past, that experience prepared her for the next time she would face a swarm of negative headlines. The second attack came in the form of a cancellation mob.A New CareerAfter the trial against her assailant was over, Oefelein and her husband relocated to Wasilla, Alaska, a region of glassy lakes and snow-capped mountains, where she began to process her trauma through journaling. That turned into writing a memoir, which eventually led her to publish a novel. Through the process, Oefelein learned the ins and outs of the publishing industry. As a high-energy literature lover, she realized that along with being an author, she had the ideal skills for helping other would-be writers find homes for their work.She spent the next few years working for a small, startup agency. But when it closed in 2018 due to the owner\u2019s illness, she gratefully accepted a position as an associate with the Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency (JDLA), an established boutique outfit with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Looking at their roster of clients that included bestselling authors like \u201cElf on The Shelf\u2019s\u201d Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell, and celebrities like Ed Asner and Tippi Hendren, Oefeleien thought big things might be on the horizon. She gave little thought to the fact that she didn\u2019t share her new employer\u2019s politics.\u201cI knew the first time I talked to [owner Jennifer De Chiara] that she was on the Left,\u201d Oefelein tells me. \u201cShe was very, very proud of having met the Clintons. She talked about that a lot.\u201dIn general, Oefelein finds politics boring, but she is a Christian, and if pressed to describe her ideology, she says she considers herself a moderate conservative who leans left on a few issues. So she wasn\u2019t exactly enthusiastic about how partisan her colleagues were, and she disliked the amount of time they wasted bashing President Trump during meetings: \u201cI kept thinking, \u2018Man, I have things I need to do. Can we just get back to business?\u2019 It was a little frustrating.\u201dFurther frustrating was when, in January, an open letter began circulating in the publishing world calling for agents and editors to pledge not to work with any member of the Trump Administration or anyone associated with it. Three of Oefelein\u2019s coworkers signed and were encouraging others to do the same.Privately, Oefelein thought, \u201cI\u2019m not signing a petition to not work with people. That\u2019s ridiculous,\u201d she recalls. She also thought, \u201cWow, you know, what a way to really alienate a segment of the market.\u201dStill, she kept her objections to herself and threw her energy into attracting quality authors and manuscripts, something her agency advised her to use social media to accomplish.\u201cI\u2019m not really a big social media user,\u201d Oefelein shares, \u201cBut in our one of our monthly discussions our guidance was that we needed to do more to connect to people more on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and stuff like that.\u201dThus, when a comedian she followed on Twitter mentioned that he was going to Parler and Gab because he appreciated their commitment not to police speech, Oefelein thought the platforms sounded like new opportunities to reach untapped talent. In November 2020, she opened accounts herself and began cross-posting the same content she put on Twitter and Facebook, offering free manuscript critiques and describing the kinds of books she was interested in representing \u2014 mostly romance and young adult novels.What she never posted, unlike her associates who routinely shared strident leftwing views on all manner of subjects, was anything remotely political.\u2018A Voice of Unity, Equality, and One that Is On the Side of Social Justice\u2019As writer Kat Rosenfield has detailed in The New Yorker, the world of young adult fiction has become an increasingly toxic whisper network wherein anonymous burner accounts torpedo the careers of agents and authors for such offenses as writing about characters of another color or calling the police on Black Lives Matter looters. Oefelein\u2019s crime was opening that Parler account.On January 25, the day after her birthday, she woke up to a message from De Chiara:Dear Colleen:I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve heard, but Twitter is blowing up with negative tweets about JDLA, all in response to your joining Parler and Gab.\u00a0 All of this presumably happened late last night, and I found out about it through emails at 7 am this morning from assistants and agents who are following all of it on Twitter.\u00a0 Not a nice way to wake up on a Monday morning.\u00a0\u00a0I don\u2019t care about anyone\u2019s political affiliations, but if it will adversely impact my agency, then I do, and I must take swift action.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry, but we have to part ways.Oefelein, an early riser, saw it at 4:30 A.M. Alaska time. After sifting through the many tweet threads mentioning her name, she was able to pinpoint the source of the storm. A secret account by the name of @YAWhispers had tagged Chiara with a screenshot of Oefelein\u2019s announcement that would-be authors could find also find her on the new free-speech-friendly platforms. \u201cDoes @JDLitAgency know or care that one of their agents frequents alt-right social media like Parler and Gab,\u201d the account asked.Other Young Adult authors and wannabes began pelting the agency with replies (many since deleted) condemning Oefelein with claims like, \u201cThese specific platforms (Parler\/Gab) are gathering places for white supremacists\/Nazis.\u201d Competing agent Beth Phelan, who has been embroiled in other \u201csocial justice\u201d pile-ons, amplified the discussion, eventually warning everyone who had mobbed Oefelein that Rosenfield was writing about the incident.\u201cHey all [Kat Rosenfield] tweeted about the whole colleen\/parler thing so if you tweeted or replied or anything just a heads up in case you wanna lock or delete,\u201d Phelan said, before adding, in an implication that Rosenfield\u2019s reporting might endanger them, \u201cStay safe.\u201dChiara, without so much as calling Oefelein to discuss the matter, immediately agreed that Oefelein had been wrong to open accounts on platforms known for welcoming conservatives. (Note, The Daily Wire reached out to Jennifer De Chiara and did not receive a response).\u201cThe Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency was distressed to discover this morning, January 25th, that one of our agents has been using the social media platforms Gab and Parler,\u201d she said. \u201cWe do not condone this activity, and we apologize to anyone who has been affected or offended by this.\u201d A minute later she added, \u201cThe Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency has in the past and will continue to ensure a voice of unity, equality, and one that is on the side of social justice.\u201dLess than an hour after that, she announced that Oefelein had been fired \u2014 all before Oefelein even had a chance to check her email. Suddenly, with Newsweek calling her for interviews and Tucker Carlson asking her to come on his show, Oefelein, through no fault of her own, once again found herself in the spotlight.Having been through a terrible media ordeal once in her life, Oefelein was, at first, tempted to withdraw and hide from the uproar, especially when the mob began mocking the suffering she\u2019d endured in 2007. \u00a0Friends called her, incensed on her behalf.\u201cYou need to know that they\u2019re bringing up your crime and making fun of it \u2014 they\u2019re laughing because you were a crime victim!\u2019\u201d Oefelein remembers her friends telling her. \u201cAnd I was like, \u2018Well, of course they are. They\u2019re awful people. I already know that.\u2019 But my friends were outraged.\u201dGiven the invasive callousness with which the press treated her and her husband at that time, Oefelein finds it difficult to talk to reporters even now. \u201cWhenever I get calls for stuff like this, I get a migraine,\u201d she explains to me quietly. \u201cI mean, I still struggle with PTSD, and I used to get physically ill for days before talking to the media. It was just like this feeling of dread like, \u2018How are they gonna twist what I say this time?\u2019\u201dAnd after spending more than a decade rebuilding their life, she expected her husband to tell her they should unplug and go camping while the cancellation drama played out without them. Instead, to Oefelein\u2019s surprise, he encouraged her to tell her story.\u201cHe just told me, \u2018This is something you really need to speak out about because this is happening to a lot of people,\u2019\u201d Oefelein recalls. She decided, for the cause of free speech and for sake of her clients, to grit her teeth and push back.Though, she was fairly sure she no longer had any clients.Refusing to Be Cancelled\u201cSo I went on Tucker and just kind of publicly told everybody that, yes, I was I was this awful, social justice failure,\u201d Oefelein jokes. \u201cAnd I didn\u2019t know where it was gonna go after that. I was kind of looking forward to maybe doing other things.\u201dHer clients, however, didn\u2019t want her to do other things. Though she explained her fears that she would be blacklisted by editors and publishing houses, every single one asked Oefelein to continue representing them.\u201cThey said, \u2018We want you to stick with us,\u2019\u201d she remembers. \u201cAnd they all wrote emails to Jennifer [De Chiara] the next day because their contract was with her, not me, and said, \u2018We\u2019re terminating our agreement, effective immediately.\u2019 So I thought, okay, well, I guess I have my own agency now. We\u2019ll just plug away at this and see what happens.\u201dStill, she was by no means confident that the rest of the publishing industry would prove so honorable. Despite the vitriol she\u2019d received on Twitter, a number of other agents, authors, and editors reached out to express their outrage at how she\u2019d been treated. But those messages were private \u2014 making deals with her publicly might be another matter.What Oefelein found was that, if you\u2019re courageous enough to stand up to noisy pockets of extreme illiberalism and keep going, even the mainstream publishing industry can still provide plenty of people more focused on producing great art than policing their colleagues\u2019 views.\u201cSure enough, I\u2019ve sold two books already,\u201d Oefelein shares, a solid number for a brand-new agency whose first order of business was pressing on through a P.R. nightmare.The first, a middle grade historical adventure by Jared Agard titled \u201cDread Watch,\u201d released in September. The second, a Young Adult fantasy by Brielle Porter was announced in Publisher\u2019s Weekly on July 7 and will debut in Spring 2022.Oefelein says she hasn\u2019t noticed any difference in her professional communications with editors or other agents, though, perhaps unsurprisingly, some who are friendly with her in more formal communications have unfollowed her on social media.\u201cI even had one of my author friends say to me, \u2018I have to unfollow you on Twitter, but I\u2019m still following you on Facebook. And we\u2019re still friends, right?\u2019\u201d she chuckles. \u201cAnd I was like, \u2018I\u2019m not really sure. I don\u2019t even know how to answer that.\u2019\u201d That said, she\u2019s resolved not to dwell on the people who have disassociated from her on social media. \u201cTwitter is not real life, right? Those people are not your friends,\u201d she says. \u201cI have a real life; I have real friends, a real family, I focus on those.\u201dOefelein, who has a degree in German, was also a linguist during her time in the Air Force, and she recalls seeing a monument next to the opera house in Bebelplatz square in Berlin. Known as \u201cThe Empty Library,\u201d it\u2019s dedicated to the books that were burned in the Nazi era. The image of vast, empty shelves sunk in the ground among 18th century cobblestones has always stayed with her.\u201cWhy burn books?\u201d she wonders aloud. \u201cI always felt like such a thing is a sign of a decaying society and never could have guessed then that it might happen here. When you when you prevent people from hearing or reading different points of view, it\u2019s never a good thing. I always thought the publishing industry\u2019s job was to ensure that all of those perspectives are available. So when you see this move to eliminate, not just some, but all perspective on a certain political side from the very people who are supposed to be the guardians of ideas, what can I say\u2026\u201d she trails off. \u201cIt\u2019s scary.\u201dThe views expressed in this opinion piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1051009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1051009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1051009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1051009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1051009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}