Upcoming Agent Spotlight Interviews & Guest Posts

  • Stuti Telidevara Agent Spotlight Interview and Query Critique Giveaway on 3/20/2024
  • Agent Rachel Orr and Author Cathy Carr Guest Post and Lost Kites and Other Treasures Giveaway on 3/25/2024
  • Paula Weiman Agent Spotlight Interview and Query Critique Giveaway on 4/8/2024
  • Hillary Fazzari Agent Spotlight Interview and Query Critique Giveaway on 4/22/2024
  • Miriam Cortinovis Agent Spotlight Interview and Query Critique Giveaway on 5/6/2024
  • Jenniea Carter Agent Spotlight Interview and Query Critique Giveaway on 5/8/2024
  • Caroline Trussell Agent Spotlight Interview and Query Critique Giveaway on 5/20/2024
  • Jenna Satterthwaite Agent Spotlight Interview and Query Critique Giveaway on 6/10/2024
  • Bethany Weaver Agent Spotlight Interview and Query Critique Giveaway on 6/24/2024

Agent Spotlight & Agent Spotlight Updates

  • Agent Spotlights & Interviews have been updated through the letter "H" as of 5/11/2023 and many have been reviewed by the agents. Look for more information as I find the time to update more agent spotlights.

AGENT SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW WITH KATELYN UPLINGER AND QUERY CRITIQUE GIVEAWAY


Today I’m thrilled to have agent Katelyn Uplinger here. She is a literary agent at D4EO Literary Agency.

Hi­ Katelyn! Thanks so much for joining us.

About Katelyn:

1. Tell us how you became an agent, how long you’ve been one, and what you’ve been doing as an agent.

I’m a newer agent, but I’m not new to the industry. I got my start as a freelance editor with indie authors, small presses, and Big 5 imprints. Once I decided I wanted to be an agent I spent about two years as an intern and assistant at agencies like Inklings Literary Agency and Folio Literary Management while continuing to edit. I joined D4EO in 2018 and I’m happy to be here. Right now I’m spending a lot of time building my client list.

About the Agency:

2. Share a bit about your agency and what it offers to its authors.

Bob Diforio launched D4EO Literary Agency in 1989 after a long career at the New American Library (NAL), now an imprint of Penguin Random House. Today D4EO is a full-service literary agency representing authors of a very broad range of commercial fiction and non-fiction for children, young adults, and adults. 

Books represented by the agency have topped the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists, and agency authors have received awards that include the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense and the Nero Award, as well as nominations for the Hugo Award, among many other notable successes.

With over 1,500 published books under contract, the agency has launched the writing careers of more than two hundred authors.

What She’s Looking For:

3. What age groups do you represent—picture books, MG, and/or YA? What genres do you represent and what are you looking for in submissions for these genres?

I represent YA and adult works. Genres I’m always looking for include science fiction and fantasy, romance, historical fiction and nonfiction, and horror. I do my best to keep my personal website up to date when it comes to what I’m looking for.

4.  Is there anything you would be especially excited to seeing in the genres you are interested in?

I love when historical crosses with other genres and I wish I got more historical fantasy and historical horror queries. I’m always looking for something creepy and fresh in historical and young adult. I’d also love to see more ancient history including the Stone Age like in the book Ivory and Bone by Julie Eshbaugh. In romance I’d love to see more romcoms whether in contemporary, historical, or something else.

What She Isn’t Looking For:

5. What types of submissions are you not interested in?

The majority of historical submissions I get are about WWI or WWII and I’ve gotten worn out on those. I like a good mystery included in a story, but I’m not the best choice for cozy mysteries, cop procedurals, or anything about the FBI, CIA, or terrorists. Military stories including military science fiction are also hard to sell me on.

Agent Philosophy:

6. What is your philosophy as an agent both in terms of the authors you want to work with and the books you want to represent?

I like authors who are committed, professional, and open-minded when it comes to revisions. As an agent I want to build long-term relationships with my clients so I want authors willing to put in the time and who aren’t easily discouraged. When it comes to books I love books that speak to me personally and aren’t afraid to be bold. 

Editorial Agent:

7. Are you an editorial agent? If so, what is your process like when you’re working with your authors before submitting to editors?

I am a very editorial agent. I usually take at least one editing round with my clients before going on submission. I send them an edit letter and make comments in Track Changes on the manuscript. We’ll take as many rounds of edits as a project needs before going on submission. My clients also have different revision processes which can change how we interact during revisions. Some bounce ideas off me and check in during revisions while others like to focus on edits with as little interruption as possible.

Query Methods and Submission Guidelines: (Always verify before submitting)

8. How should authors query you and what do you want to see with the query letter?

I can be queried via my Query Manager form here: http://QueryMe.Online/1328 I do not accept queries via email. I like to see the first three chapters and comp titles with the query. Everything I want is listed on the form.

9.  Do you have any specific dislikes in query letters or the first pages submitted to you?

I don’t like queries that focus on the author and themes more than plot because it often leaves me unsure of what the book is about. I want to know exactly what the plot is. Other than that I’m always looking for eye-catching concepts and great writing.

Response Time:

10. What’s your response time to queries and requests for more pages of a manuscript?

I try to respond to queries within six weeks. Right now on average it takes me anywhere from one day to three weeks to respond, so response time varies. I do my best to get back to authors on full requests within three months but that can change depending on my schedule. Around the holidays my response times tend to take longer.

Self-Published and Small Press Authors:

11.  Are you open to representing authors who have self-published or been published by smaller presses? What advice do you have for them if they want to try to find an agent to represent them?

I am open to representing self-published authors and authors form smaller presses. I’m looking to represent new books, not ones already published. I get a lot of queries on books that have already been published and I wish those authors would instead wait to send me the next one before publishing it. My advice is to query a new book and keep the letter professional without complaining about how hard self-publishing is or how much you didn’t like your small press.

12. With all the changes in publishing—self-publishing, hybrid authors, more small publishers—do you see the role of agents changing at all? Why?

I think the role of agents will stay fundamentally the same despite the small changes that may happen. In the end we are here to help authors build their careers and be their allies and I think that will always be useful for authors.

Clients:

13. Who are some of the authors you represent?

Anne Wagener, Alexandria Rogers, and Amy Wilson.

Interviews and Guest Posts:

14. Please share the links to any interviews and guest posts you think would be helpful to writers interested in querying you.

N/A
Links and Contact Info:

15. Please share how writers should contact you to submit a query and your links on the Web.

Find my query form here: http://QueryMe.Online/1328
My personal website: www.katelynuplinger.com

Additional Advice:

16. Is there any other advice you’d like to share with aspiring authors that we haven’t covered?

Don’t be afraid to get feedback and critique on your writing. Learning to take critique is one of the best skills you’ll learn as an author. Some of the most polished submissions come to me from authors with multiple critique partners as well as authors who are great revisers. Remember no writer is perfect. Everyone had to work hard to get their writing to the level you see in their books. It’s normal to feel embarrassed or scared when getting feedback, but it’s all part of the process.

Thanks for sharing all your advice, Katelyn.

­Katelyn is generously offering a query critique to one lucky winner. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower (just click the follower button if you're not a follower) and leave a comment through April 6th.  If your e-mail is not on your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter either contest. If you do not want to enter the contest, that's okay. Just let me know in the comments.
If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry. This is an international giveaway.

Profile Details:
Last Updated: 6/4/2020.
Agent Contacted for Review? No.
Last Reviewed By Agent? N/A.

Comment: 6/4/2020 update was just to confirm Ms. Uplinger is still an agent at her agency and open to submissions.

Have any experience with this agent? See something that needs updating? Please leave a comment or e-mail me at natalieiaguirre7@gmail.com

Note: These agent profiles and interviews presently focus on agents who accept children's fiction. Please take the time to verify anything you might use here before querying an agent. The information found here is subject to change.



SABINA KHAN INTERVIEW AND THE LOVE AND LIES OF RUKHSANA ALI GIVEAWAY


Happy Monday Everyone! Today I’m excited to have debut author Sabina Khan here to share about her YA contemporary/multicultural the love & lies of Rukhsana Ali. It is set in Bangladesh and sounds like a poignant story about family and being true to yourself.

Here’s a blurb from Goodreads

Seventeen-year-old Rukhsana Ali tries her hardest to live up to her conservative Muslim parents’ expectations, but lately she’s finding that harder and harder to do. She rolls her eyes instead of screaming when they blatantly favor her brother and she dresses conservatively at home, saving her crop tops and makeup for parties her parents don’t know about. Luckily, only a few more months stand between her carefully monitored life in Seattle and her new life at Caltech, where she can pursue her dream of becoming an engineer.

But when her parents catch her kissing her girlfriend Ariana, all of Rukhsana’s plans fall apart. Her parents are devastated; being gay may as well be a death sentence in the Bengali community. They immediately whisk Rukhsana off to Bangladesh, where she is thrown headfirst into a world of arranged marriages and tradition. Only through reading her grandmother’s old diary is Rukhsana able to gain some much needed perspective.

Rukhsana realizes she must find the courage to fight for her love, but can she do so without losing everyone and everything in her life?
 

Hi Sabina! Thanks so much for joining us.

1. Tell us about yourself and how you became a writer.


First of all, thank you so much for having me. So a little bit about me: I’m an immigrant from Bangladesh and I’ve now lived in North America for 26 years which is longer than I’ve lived anywhere else which includes Germany, where I was born and lived until I was 8, Bangladesh, where I spent my childhood and teens and Macao, where I completed my first 2 years of university. I live in British Columbia now with my husband and daughters and a puppy who is the centre of our world. I’m an educational consultant by day and work with students who are struggling with Math, Chemistry and other subjects at school. I became a writer because I was tired of never seeing characters who looked like me in all the books I read and then seeing that pattern continue as my daughters became readers.

2. I bet that you'll be able to really get inspiration from all the places you lived in your writing. Where did you get the idea for the love & lies of Rukhsana Ali?

When my daughter came out us a couple of years ago, we had a lot of conversations about other teens who were struggling about coming out to their families for fear of rejection or even worse, for their safety. I wanted to write a story about a Muslim teen who goes through all of the pain and difficulty of trying to stay true to herself but comes out stronger while also changing the hearts of the people she loves along the way. I wanted to highlight the many different mindsets within a single community and how there is much work to be done but that there are also many allies.

3. Your story is partially set in Bangladesh, and I know that you lived there once. How much did you rely on your own experiences and how much on research in using this as the setting for your story?

I relied mostly on my experiences growing up there. I lived there from the time I was 8 until I was 25 years old, so I have many meaningful memories that I cherish. I also have a lot of family still living there, so it’s easy to keep up with the changes that have occurred in the 25 years since I left.

4. That's great you could draw on your own experiences and those of family. Your story tackles some heavy issues, like being gay, dealing with traditional Muslim family values, and being forced into an arranged marriage that was not happy. How did you incorporate this all into your story in a way that was accurate, compelling, but not preachy?

I have some personal experience with being on the receiving end of discrimination and judgement for whom I decided to spend my life with, and a lot of those feelings made it into the story in some way or another. But I also wanted to make sure that readers were aware that no culture or religion is a monolith. Rukhsana finds unexpected allies within the Bengali Muslim community and struggles to make her American friends open their minds to try and understand her circumstances. A lot of the emotions are ones I and my family have felt living both here and in our respective homelands and I think it goes a long way towards being compelling if you’ve actually lived through something similar.

5. Share a bit about your main character, Rukhsana. Did her character development come easy to you or was it a struggle? Why?

Rukhsana’s character is based heavily on both my daughters, although her experiences are quite far
from anything my daughters have ever been through, so it wasn’t too difficult to write her in a natural way. And thankfully, my daughters gave me a lot of valuable feedback as I was writing her story. Some parts of her character are based on my own younger self, especially when she lashes out at the way she’s being treated by both her family and her friends.

6. Your agent is Hillary Jacobson. How did she become your agent and what was your road to publication like? 

I entered Pitch Wars in 2016 and was paired with an amazing mentor, Natasha Neagle, who helped me polish my manuscript and get it ready for the agent round. I had offers from several agents afterwards and after careful consideration I decided to sign with Hillary. It was undeniably the best decision of my writing career. Hillary is a highly intelligent, savvy and incredibly supportive advocate and I rely on her valuable insight every step of the way.

7. I've been hearing lots of good things about the pitch wars. Your book was released on January 29, 2019 in the United States. How did you promote your book both pre-release and when it came out both in British Columbia where you live and the U.S.?

I did an international pre-order campaign, giveaways, interviews and event appearances. I am fortunate to be working with a publisher like Scholastic, who have done so much to promote this book. I know that this is not always the case and I am immensely grateful to them for their unwavering support and incredible promotional efforts.

8. What do you think worked and what you do differently in the time from signing your contract with your publisher until your book’s release in terms of building your social platform and getting the word out for your book? 

I honestly can’t think of anything right now that I would do differently and even though it’s too soon to quantify, I’m sure every little bit helped in different ways and to a varying extent. I was already pretty active on Twitter when I signed and in the two years since then I’ve been fortunate to find a very supportive online community. We support each other and promote each other’s work as much as possible. I’ve relied on the encouragement and wisdom of my fellow debut authors as well as those who have already been on this journey.

9. What are you working on now?

At the moment I’m working on another YA Contemporary which deals with Islamophobia and immigration. Hopefully I’ll be able to share much more soon.

Thanks for sharing all your advice, Sabina. You can find Sabina here:

Sabina has generously offered an ARC of the love & lies of Rukhsana Ali. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower (just click the follow button if you’re not a follower) and leave a comment through March 30th. If your e-mail is not on your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter either contest.


If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry. You must be 13 years old or older to enter. The book giveaway is U.S. and the query critique giveaway is U.S. and Canada.


Here's what's coming up:

Monday, March 25th I have an agent spotlight interview with Katelyn Uplinger and a query critique giveaway

Wednesday, April 3rd I have an interview with debut author Gillian McDunn and a giveaway of her MG contemporary CATEPILLAR SUMMER and my IWSG post

Monday, April 8th I have an interview with debut author Swati Teerhadla and a giveaway of her YA fantasy THE TIGER AT MIDNIGHT

Wednesday, April 10th I have an agent spotlight interview with Mary Cummings and a query critique giveaway

Monday, April 15th I have an interview with author Tanya Drecker and a giveaway of her MG fantasy MUSIC BOXES

Monday, April 22nd I'm off

Monday, April 29th I have an agent spotlight interview with Devin Ross and a query critique giveaway

Hope to see you on Monday!






LUCKY LEPRECHAUN GIVEAWAY HOP



Happy Thursday Everyone! Today I am excited to participate in the Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop hosted by by BookHounds. I've got a lot of new releases to share with you this month.

IMPORTANT NEWS

Right now, there is no giveaway hop scheduled in April. If there isn't one, I'm planning to start a newly released MG and YA giveaway the third Friday of the month starting in April. So my first post will be on April 19th. It's a way for me to feature new books, and hopefully you all will want to stop by and enter the contest. I'll continue them if I feel there is enough of an interest.

I hope you find a book you like for yourself, a family member, or a friend in the choices offered. Don’t see a book you like? You can win a $10.00 Amazon Gift Card instead. I hope you'll all enter to win a book or gift card for yourself or as a gift for someone.

So here are your choices. I've got a combination of MG and YA books that I hope you're looking forward to reading. Remember, if you want an earlier book in any of these series, you can pick that instead as long as it doesn't cost more than the book here. You can find descriptions of these books on Goodreads.

 


 


 


 


 

 If you haven't found a book you want, you can win a $10 Amazon Gift Card.


To enter, all you need to do is be a follower anyway you want and leave a comment throughMarch 28th. If your e-mail is not on your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry. You must be 13 years old or older to enter. This giveaway is International.

Here's what's coming up:

Monday, March 18th I have an interview with debut author Sabina Khan and a giveaway of her YA contemporary/multicultural the love & lies of Rukhsana Ali

Monday, March 25th I have an agent spotlight interview with Katelyn Uplinger and a query critique giveaway

Wednesday, April 3rd I have an interview with debut author Gillian McDunn and a giveaway of her MG contemporary CATEPILLAR SUMMER and my IWSG post

Monday, April 8th I have an interview with debut author Swati Teerhadla and a giveaway of her YA fantasy THE TIGER AT MIDNIGHT

Wednesday, April 10th I have an agent spotlight interview with Mary Cummings and a query critique giveaway

Monday, April 15th I have an interview with author Tanya Drecker and a giveaway of her MG fantasy MUSIC BOXES

Monday, April 22nd I'm off

Monday, April 29th I have an agent spotlight interview with Devin Ross and a query critique giveaway

Hope to see you on Monday!

And here's all the other blogs participating in this blog hop:




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VICTORIA LEE, HOLLY ROOT, & TAYLOR HAGGERTY GUEST POST W/ THE FEVER KING AND QUERY CRITIQUE GIVEAWAY

Happy Monday Everyone! Today I'm excited to have debut author Victoria Lee here with her agents Holly Root and Taylor Haggerty to celebrate her YA fantasy THE FEVER KING. The magic sounds really unique, and it's great to see a fantasy with a male main character.

Here's a blurb from Goodreads:



In the former United States, sixteen-year-old Noam Álvaro wakes up in a hospital bed, the sole survivor of the viral magic that killed his family and made him a technopath. His ability to control technology attracts the attention of the minister of defense and thrusts him into the magical elite of the nation of Carolinia.

The son of undocumented immigrants, Noam has spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees fleeing magical outbreaks—refugees Carolinia routinely deports with vicious efficiency. Sensing a way to make change, Noam accepts the minister’s offer to teach him the science behind his magic, secretly planning to use it against the government. But then he meets the minister’s son—cruel, dangerous, and achingly beautiful—and the way forward becomes less clear.

Caught between his purpose and his heart, Noam must decide who he can trust and how far he’s willing to go in pursuit of the greater good.


Now here are Victoria, Holly, and Taylor!


Taylor and Holly to Victoria:


  1. Please tell us everything you know about psychology and the human brain in one paragraph. If that is too much, I guess we’ll settle for how does your research/teaching work influence your writing?
Probably the biggest influence is on my writing that stems from psychology/neuro research is my interest in character development. For better or for worse, I spend a lot of time thinking about why everyone in my books does what they do...including the villains. But I think there’s also an element of bringing psychology knowledge to inform how I structure a book, too. There’s a whole field of psychology that focuses on narrative and what we find most compelling or surprising or thrilling in a story. And when I’m reading a book I often find myself asking why I enjoy the parts I enjoy--or am surprised when I’m surprised--or bored when I’m bored. And a lot of times the answer is psychological--like: “I’m not personally experiencing enough cognitive dissonance from this book, so the tension feels manufactured.”

  1. You are the master of the writers retreat. What are the must-have ingredients for a perfect writing getaway?
Well, me and my writing friend have noticed a trend: every airbnb we’ve rented for a writing retreat has come complete with taxidermied animal heads. Is the presence of a couple skulls necessary to pound out a few thousand words a day? You tell me. I will say that whiskey comes in handy, as does the perfect soundtrack, carefully-scheduled breaks, writing sprints, and a cheeseboard.

  1. What do you do for self-care, given the demands of your two brilliant careers?
I have started doing Muay Thai, which is a style of martial arts. It’s been great for reducing my anxiety and building confidence. Plus, who doesn’t like to hit things sometimes?


I also really recommend bath bombs. Particularly the sparkly kind.

  1. What have you discovered about yourself as a writer during the writing of your second book?
I’ve learned that it’s really important to plot even more than I’m already plotting. By which I mean: I need a still-more-detailed outline, so I avoid those mid-book crisis moments of “shit, something else needs to happen before this next part, but I have no idea what.”


I’ve also gotten better at just letting myself push past awkward scenes and telling myself I’ll fix in revisions.

  1. You’re an *excellent* follow on Instagram. What accounts do you love to follow?
In terms of bookish accounts, my favorite is Tes at paperbackbones. She loves all the same books I do (Grishaverse, The Secret History) and her aesthetic is really on point.


I also recommend spinatale, booknerd_reads, and printedalphabet.


In terms of non bookish accounts: helena.moore’s style is incredible.

  1. One of the things we loved about your book was the setting. Can you tell us more about how you built the physical world of The Fever King, and how you balanced real locations with your alt-history worldbuilding?
So the book is set in my hometown, as y’all know, and so writing in this setting was very close to my heart. I very much started from that—the foundation of reality—and built the alt history world building on top of it. All the differences between the Durhams end up being subtle in some ways...but they have major ramifications.

  1. If your main characters, Noam and Dara, had to pick a crush from another novel’s cast of characters--who would their book-love be?
Noam would probably be in love with either Vasya from The Bear and the Nightingale or literally-Satan from The Master and Margarita.


Dara, on the other hand, would definitely go for a bad boy type like Ronan from The Raven Boys.

8. In The Fever King, your characters have to master the underlying scientific principles associated with their powers before they can make use of their magic. If you acquired witching powers today (ideally without the virus!) what powers would be 1) the most fun and 2) the most difficult for you to master?
“Without the virus” being the operative phrase! Hmm. Well, I think teleportation would be most fun because space is time so you could space travel and time travel. But it would probably also be the most difficult for me to master cause...physics. Ha.

  1. Without giving too much away, what can readers expect from the sequel, The Electric Heir?
Ummm. It’ll be very dark. And twisted. And I’m so sorry. I really am.


Victoria to Holly & Taylor:


  1. What is the most exciting part of being an agent for both of you?
Taylor votes for the joy of telling clients good news and the excitement of finding something new in the slush that you love and can’t wait to share with others. Holly thinks it’s getting a front-row seat when a book takes off and really finds its readers.

  1. What is the least exciting part of being an agent?
The endless, oppressive, never-ending tide of email. Too bleak? Just giving you our truth here. Ha!

  1. If you had to do any other job in the world, what would you be?
Holly has spent perhaps too much time thinking about this! But she’s still here, so clearly it’s all good. She would either go to medical school or run an adorable bra shop. Taylor would own a beachfront aerial yoga studio (ideally next door to Holly’s bra shop!).

  1. What does a day in the agent life look like for y’all?
Every day is a little bit different, depending on whether we’re trying to get a submission out the door,
go over a tricky royalty statement, close a new deal, or strategize about an upcoming marketing plan. In general though, we find that it’s really important to set and protect our priorities for the day, because there is so much work to be done that you could do nothing but react to your inbox all day. And some days that’s what happens, but if you’re only ever reacting, you can’t advance your clients’ goals as much as you want, and that’s one of the biggest ways we’re adding value for our clients. So striking a balance between responsiveness and accomplishing the important--rather than just the momentarily urgent--is a big part of the day to day balance.

  1. How do you know you’ve found an author you want to work with?
For Holly, it’s usually a book that moves me beyond the “should this be published?” and into “I have to be the one selling it.”  Taylor wants to connect with the voice above all else. For both of us, we really pride ourselves on working with wonderful humans--kind, compassionate, thoughtful--and so we’re also looking to get a feel for whether an author has a similar mindset.

  1. Do you see writing as a business? What suggestions do you have for authors about viewing themselves as entrepreneurs?
The IRS definitely sees writing as a business, and so to that we say: Keep your check stubs. KEEP YOUR CHECK STUBS. Seriously though, keep your check stubs. Every year we guide authors through tax season, and we have dealt with Schedule C ourselves too, so we speak from experience when we say the best thing you can do is right now, this very minute: designate a spot where you put every scrap of documentation related to money received or spent on your career as an author. If you’re next-level, also pop this data into a spreadsheet. Your book purchases, travel, commissions withheld by your agency, etc. are all deductible and keeping them all in one place is the best gift you can give your future self.

  1. What is your top advice for anyone who might want to become an agent themselves?
The best way to learn this job is to work in very close proximity to someone who is doing it. We both came up under the apprenticeship path--working for established agents as assistants, then taking on our own clients--so we’re biased toward it, but also it is a proven, great way to learn the business. It’s really hard to get the kind of deep insight we both benefited from working remotely, which I know is a challenge for many people interested in the field. If there are reputable agents near you, it can never hurt to email and make your case for why you would be an asset to their agency; agent your way into an assistant gig by pitching something (yourself, in this case) in a way that makes people want to get onboard! You might not hear back, but what if you get a job that opens every door?

  1. What is your top advice for writers who are a) querying; b) about to go on submission to editors; c) new debuts; d) established authors?
A: Be selective about who you send to and don’t settle for an agent who isn’t as great as what you and your work deserve.
B: Take up yoga and/or stock your wine cellar (i.e. find ways to take care of yourself through the process); start writing a new (unrelated) book.
C: Look for the joy in each milestone along the way instead of the fear. Remember that comparison is the thief of joy. Also, the Internet is forever.
D: Honestly all of the above! Ha!

  1. What are some non-client books you each read lately that you loved?
Circe by Madeline Miller, Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu, My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing, The Big Ones by Lucy Jones & On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

  1. Would you rather have to bathe in vanilla coke every day for the rest of your life, or wear only clothes made out of meat a la Lady Gaga?
VANILLA COKE. Very much the vanilla coke option. We are unanimous.

Thanks for sharing all your advice. You can find Victoria at:


Victoria twitter: twitter.com/sosaidvictoria
Victoria instagram: Instagram.com/sosaidvictoria
Victoria site: victorialeewrites.com

To find Holly and Taylor:


Root Literary site: rootliterary.com
Holly twitter: twitter.com/hroot

Taylor twitter: twitter.com/tayhaggerty

Victoria has generously offered a signed copy of THE FEVER KING and Holly and Taylor are offering a query critique for a giveaway. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower (just click the follow button if you’re not a follower) and leave a comment through March 23rd. If you do not want to be included in the critique giveaway, please let me know in the comments. If your e-mail is not on your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter either contest.


If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry. You must be 13 years old or older to enter. The book giveaway is U.S. and the query critique giveaway is International.


Here's what's coming up:

Monday, March 18th I have an interview with debut author Sabina Khan and a giveaway of her YA contemporary/multicultural the love & lies of Rukhsana Ali

Thursday, March 14th I'm participating in the Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop

Monday, March 25th I have an agent spotlight interview with Katelyn Uplinger and a query critique giveaway

Wednesday, April 3rd I have an interview with debut author Gillian McDunn and a giveaway of her MG contemporary CATEPILLAR SUMMER and my IWSG post

Monday, April 8th I have an interview with debut author Swati Teerhadla and a giveaway of her YA fantasy THE TIGER AT MIDNIGHT

Wednesday, April 10th I have an agent spotlight interview with Mary Cummings and a query critique giveaway

Monday, April 15th I have an interview with author Tanya Drecker and a giveaway of her MG fantasy MUSIC BOXES

Hope to see you on Thursday!