A Psychic Told Me to Finish Writing My Book

Hi friends,

Buckle up, this isn't your normal Agents & Books post.

A psychic told me to finish writing my book the other night.

My good friend Cristin and I bought tickets months ago to see an internet psychic at a comedy club on Long Island. I love anything a little woo-woo and have a car, so I was very much in for this adventure. It was dinner and a show at the very least, and some long-overdue friend time. 

It's a dark club and they cram us all in two by two, across from each other at long tables. Red checkered table cloths. We’re served our chicken piccata and side salads and cokes and they announce that we can write our name, birthday, and our burning question for the psychic on a slip of paper, that we then put in a locked box on the stage. As far as I know, the box didn't leave the stage. But maybe it does and I just don't see it.

I don’t exactly know what to write. I think they say something over the loud speaker about how the internet psychic is not a spirit medium, but maybe that came later. I did think about asking him if he knew if my deceased father was having a good time with my deceased aunts up in heaven, but I also didn’t really want to talk about my deceased father in a room full of strangers. We’re about ten miles from where I went to high school. I fully expect to run into someone I knew from back then, but I don't. 

So I write Kate [married name], May 4 [year], and will I get my novel published? And then I add that I wrote myself because I didn’t want him to be confused between the novels I sell as an agent and the ones I write as a writer. I put it in the box. My friend tells me later that she asks about her turtle’s happiness. I kinda wish he’d picked her, too. 

I couldn’t think of any question that wasn't asking about the future, that was non-predictive, which I think was what they were going for. At some point in the show, after the psychic does a few I can guess what you wrote on a card bits, he starts talking about his particular brand of clairvoyance–that he does know the future, but he can read your mind. He can’t tell you if the powerball ticket you just bought is going to win (a real reading from the night), but he did figure out that a woman in the back was thinking horny thoughts about Dee Snyder, an 80s rock star he didn’t even know about, and described as a “yassified Hulk Hogan.” That lady did not write on her card Judy, August 9th, Should I think horny thoughts about Dee Snyder? Judy reported at the end of her reading that she and a friend had been talking about him in the car on the way there. I don’t think he addressed any question she had. Some of the readings were like that. 

He told another woman that she should lead with the fact that she had a–sweet and very dumb–pit bull when she was looking for apartments, because all the landlords who were rejecting her now were sure to say yes if they met her loving dog. He told another woman that her husband does not love her cat as much as she does, but he doesn’t hate the cat either, and loves her because she loves the cat. He told another guy the Steelers are going to win the Super Bowl in 2032, though that was probably a guess. You heard it here first. 

It’s getting toward the end of the show, and I’m hoping either Cristin or I get called on before he wraps up, because, why not? We drove all the way from Brooklyn & Queens for this. And then he says, “is there a Kate here, born on the 4th, a Taurus?” And I say “oh god.” Everyone laughs. They hand me a microphone. This is what he says, according to my memory. (The person who offered to record it on Cristin’s phone DIDN’T HIT RECORD.) 

PA: You’re a creative person, but not like the person just before you. Are you a writer?

KM: Yes.

PA: And you haven’t finished your book yet?”

Me: Correct

PA: And you’re wondering if it’s going to get published, right?

KM: Yes. 

And then he goes on for a good five minutes about how I’ve always been a writer (yes) but I get caught up in the business of things (lol) and I need to just get back to what I love to do, which is writing, and not worry about all the stuff I can’t control. He said that I'm a person who “has to write things out to find out how I feel about them” and I say this exact thing all the time! Almost those exact words. I do, and I always have been. My feelings aren’t real until I write them down, and they’re certainly not organized, even in my mind. And he said it wasn’t the first book I’ve written but I also have a habit of not finishing things, which is a little true, but not totally true because I’ve finished quite a few books/novels, but I’ve also started many, many more of them. He said that while I was very attached to the business side of things (double lol) that if someone offered me $10,000 to never write again, I would turn it down immediately. I felt that so strongly when he said it, a visceral reaction. I would turn down a million dollars if it meant I couldn’t write again. I would rather write freely for the rest of my life even if I was certain I would never get published then trade any of that in for a book deal. I’m more certain about that than anything. He said I need to stop worrying about what I can’t control and get back to the thing I love and that is writing. 

And then Cristin says: “ASK HER WHAT SHE DOES FOR A LIVING?”

And I say I am a literary agent. And he says so you know all this stuff already!!! And he’s right. I know all this stuff. And he says and you’ve told all your clients this a million times! And he’s right about that, too. He absolutely read my mind. I mean, maybe he could intuit that. Maybe he got lucky. But he got lucky with every single reading he did that night, except for one lady where he said her birthday was on the 27th and it was the 22nd. He can’t predict the future and he can’t talk to dead people, but he can read the minds of people in bars and/or all of humanity, and that was worth the price of admission. 

What really stuck with me were these two things: 

1. That I have to write things out to know what I feel about them. I say this verbatim all the time, even to myself.
2. That I really know all this stuff already and I need to let go of what I can’t control. And get back to what I love, which is writing. 

He’s right. I love writing. I always have and I probably always will and I have to let myself love it and enjoy it and do it and revel in it outside of the fear that comes along with worrying about wether it gets published or not. Yes, I am just like every other writer out there, and I worry about this. If I can embrace that myself, and give it to other people, too, I think I’ll be successful beyond measure–whether I ever get published again or not. 

Cristin thinks he read the slips of paper before the show, and she's probably right. I want it to be true that he didn’t, because it’s more fun that way, and the excitement I felt as he was reading me for filth is something I’ll hold on to for a while. It was electric. Amazing. Incredible. I am honestly at a loss for words on how to really describe it. But even if he did read them, he still said my inner most words back to me–I have to write things down to know how I feel about them–and he told that lady he was thinking about a yassified Hulk Hogan that started with a D. Neither of those things he could have known. I think he did read my mind. And with that, I’m going to start reading my own mind, and get back to writing. Because I’ve known it all along. 

I'm not really interested in whether you think this reading was real or not, if you think anything woo woo is real or not. I hope your heart is filled with the truth you believe. I believe in signs and intuition and things we can't explain, and this experience was all those things. On the drive home, I came up with the perfect first line for the novel I'm working on. See you later, I gotta go write.

Happy publication day to Alix E. Harrow for her first short story collection, The Slantwise Histories! Go read it and tell me "Mr. Death" isn't the most devastating thing you've ever read. Don't miss her on tour, either!

And read Alix's newsletter about how she learned how to write short stories here. "If you can't get a store-bought MFA, homemade is fine."

OXOXOX,

Kate

Who am I and what is this? This is Agents & Books, a twice-weekly newsletter about writing, publishing, and the creative life. I've been an agent for 20 years, most of it at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency, and I'm the author of two books: Write Through It: An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life (Simon Element, 2025) and a picture book called Pay Attention to Me!, with illustrations by Rob Justus (Sourcebooks, 2026). If you haven't already, become a subscriber today. $5 a month or $50 a year. Same price since 2019! Need to unsubscribe? Look here.