You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed, or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hi, this is Michael Sulfurblatt, and this is Bookworm.

This afternoon, I'm here with Sandy Dykstra, Sandra Dykstra,

of the Sandra Dykstra Literary Agency, which is where is that?

That is based in Delmar, California.

And Sandy is the very rare thing, a West Coast literary agent who really is a literary agent, that is to say she cares about books.

Many of the literary agents here are very fine, but their primary business is with movie scripts.

And Sandra has just had the remarkable occurrence before.

She discovered a first writer, Amy Tam, the author of The Joy Luck Club,

saw the book through its completion.

It began as only three chapters.

And now the book is approaching number three on the bestseller lists in Los Angeles, in New York, all of the lists.

It's an amazing book.

Michael, I'm sorry to brag, but it's number one in San Francisco, has been for a month, number two in Los Angeles, and it will be number three in the New York Times bestseller list.

Oh, that's great.

How did you find the original stories?

You know, I told you I once had a radio show when I started as an agent,

and one of my first guests was John Loudon of Harper and Row,

and he said to me that the publishing game is a funny one.

There's a group of unwashed, unpublished, unprofessional authors, and they're chasing editors and agents.

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