Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.
I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.
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My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.
Thank you for your consideration of my manuscript, THE WOMEN WHO RESCUED THEMSELVES, a work of fiction complete at about 120,000 words. That word count is very high, especially if you are submitting to a small press, which is the feeling I am getting here. I chose your press because you are willing to accept unagented, unsolicted submissions, and per your description, you are open to the kind of book I've written. What kind of book have you written? There's no genre here, you just say that it's fiction.
There are three women. The stakes are high for each one of them. You definitely need a better hook. Saying there are three women is not interesting, it's just a cast list. Don't say the stakes are high - anyone can type that. Illustrate that the stakes are high. A disabled, suicidal lesbian stands to lose her life. The woman in love with her stands to lose her love. A battered woman stands to live a life imprisoned by violence and denigration. Their separate paths cross on Bluerock Farm, a place of refuge where each one breaks out of their own self-imposed prison, where they become more powerful than they could possibly have imagined. This is well written, but it's not telling us anything about the plot. Why do each of them stand to lose these things? How do these plots intersect? The query needs to establish these things -- What does the main character(s) want? What stands in the way of them getting it? What will they need to do to overcome the obstacles, and what is at stake if they don't? Your query needs to convey the plot, this does not. Also, this sounds like it's a "quieter" novel, character driven as opposed to plot driven, and if that's the case a 120k is quite likely an inflated word count.
I am a 73 year old disabled, retired nurse practitioner. I broke my back after a fall from a horse. Though lucky enough to avoid paralysis, I was confined to a wheelchair, and then a walker. Now I walk with sticks, and sometimes I don’t need those. I’m married for 43 years to the same woman, have grown children and two cats. I can infer that your bio relates to the content of the novel in certain ways, but this is still a lot of extraneous info taking up space that would be better spent on conveying your plot.
This is my first novel. Other publications include: Author, “What Barbara Taught Me.” 1989. short story in California Nursing Review (out of print, clips available). Author, poetry. 1996. Women’s Voices, Sonoma County Women’s Resource Network. Author, poetry, Assisi:An Online Journal of Arts and Letters, St. Francis College, Brooklyn, NY Fall 2011-Spring 2012."Come Through" and "I heard morning opening". Same here, taking up too much space. I would instead use a generic line such as, "I've had multiple articles and poems published in journals such as... The mystery of fiction is that the story tells itself. I didn’t set out to write stories of representation, but my characters said otherwise. Perhaps lesbians with disabilities will become more visible in the literature. And if even one woman understands that she is worth more than what society says she is, this novel will have been worth all the trouble. This isn't useful to the query. You need to collapse your bio and publishing history into each other and shorten both considerably, and leave much, much more room for your plot in order to convey the answers to the questions I laid out above.