Big Writing Announcement!
I’ve been waiting years to write this post.
Last week I signed with with a literary agent! I am incredibly excited to announce that I am now represented by Natascha Morris of The Tobias Literary Agency.
It’s been a long road to get here, and I am definitely taking a beat to celebrate this big step in my writing career. I am self aware enough to know that the stories I want to tell are not the safest or the easiest to market. I have a feeling that in addition to the time I needed to hone my craft, I spent longer in the query trenches because my stories are complicated, peculiar, and have a strong point of view.
This is not to diminish how much improvement I needed as a writer from when I first started writing. My first manuscripts are truly cringey to reread. But it’s such a gift to have found a champion for my oddball books who gets what I am trying to do. And it’s a gift to be able to keep writing the books of my heart, telling stories that feel vital and important to me. I did not leave my office job to make safe, trendy art.
I hope to have more good news and books to share in the future. In the meantime, a few tips from my querying experience:
Get a critique group! A good critique group. Ideally, this will be with other people writing in the same genre with roughly the same level of experience as you. If one group doesn’t fit, try again until you find people who are supportive and push you to improve.
The best way to deal with inevitable rejection is to always have a new project to get excited about. As soon as you send out your first batch of queries, you should begin drafting the next new thing.
Keep writing what you are excited to write. Don’t chase trends— they move too quickly to catch. If you stick to your passions, trends with catch up to you! And if you think you’ve missed your moment, be encouraged that trends cycle and your time will come again.
Writing picture books is not easy, like some people assume. It’s fun, but it’s not easy. Capturing a child’s attention and captivating their imagination takes real work, research, and revision.
Resources that helped me:
The Austin, TX SCBWI. Not all chapters are created equal, but the folks running the group in ATX are absolutely incredible. The membership there was worth every penny and more.
The 12 x 12 Picture Book Challenge. They are a large community with rich knowledge and experience that are helpful to writers at all levels of their career. Their steady stream of webinars and challenges continue to keep me writing.
QueryTracker. I would be an organizational mess without querytracker to manage who I’ve queried with what manuscripts.
My Public Library. In order to keep writing I have to consume a massive amount of books. Books for kids (mentor texts and learning picture book conventions), books for adults (creative inspiration), books for research (rabbit holes I travelled through for accuracy on the topics that appear in my books).
