Home/Tag:publishing

On shelving–and unshelving–the book of my heart

By |2020-08-13T21:55:12-05:00August 20th, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Writers on Writing|Tags: , , , , |

by Rebecca Kim Wells In 2015 I reached a major milestone in my writing career: I signed with a literary agent. The book I had written was a dark fairy tale-inspired YA fantasy, drenched with blood and magic and lies and quests. It was also a book featuring a queer main character and romantic relationship. I saw no reason for this to be a problem. It was true that there weren’t that many queer YA books out there (especially not published by major US publishers), but there were some. [...]

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The Path to Publication: Writing the Queer Black Girls of Cinderella Is Dead 

By |2020-08-13T20:48:08-05:00August 17th, 2020|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: , , , , , , , |

by Kalynn Bayron I’ve always been a fan of genre fiction. From horror to fantasy to sci-fi. I love all things magical and atmospheric and bone chilling. I’m a writer because I was a reader, first. In those stories I found ghosts, mythical creatures, people with impossible powers, aliens, orcs, fairies, elves, kings and queens. What I didn’t see was Black people or queer people. Until I discovered Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, Audre Lorde, and Octavia Butler I didn’t see Black women centered and I didn’t see queer people being treated with care and concern, [...]

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Gay YA Agent Spotlight #4: Susan Graham

By |2020-03-28T13:40:30-05:00October 27th, 2016|Categories: Publishing People|Tags: , , , , |

Today on our Agent Spotlight series we have Susan Graham from Einstein Literary! Susan shares some great information in this interview and we were thrilled to have her! (And it's always fun to find agents who identify on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum and who are seeking LGBTQIA+ middle grade, hint hint, querying writers!) Hello! Thank you for participating in our Agent Spotlight series! We're excited to have you. Can you tell us how you got started agenting? This question feels a bit surreal since I just started taking on projects in the last few months after a few years [...]

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Never Sellout Your Heart

By |2020-03-28T13:41:40-05:00May 21st, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: , |

by Adam Silvera When my agent and I went on submission with More Happy Than Not, I expected editors to reject the book. I wasn’t wrong. I’m not some pessimist who believed publishers would pass on my book simply because it was my book. This certainly isn’t the case for all the editors, but a couple of them—their names and houses to remain unnamed—didn’t think the character’s homosexuality was really the best move for this book and essentially wanted me to rewire my narrator’s heart. More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera (SoHo Teen, June 2015) [...]

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A Girl Like Me

By |2020-03-28T13:42:03-05:00March 14th, 2015|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: , , |

With more publishing options out there than ever before, and many stories of success and failure on every front, how do you know which path is right for you? Traditional, indie, and self-publishing all have their pros and cons. It’s important to know what to expect with each one, but it’s even more important to know yourself and your project. Know your strengths, your limitations, and your relationship to the project. Each project is different. What is an ideal publishing route for one might not be for another. In a feature I wrote on publishing, author Steve Almond [...]

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The Question of Queering the Mainstream Novel: A Conversation with authors Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith

By |2020-03-28T13:42:21-05:00December 5th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Author Interview|Tags: , , , , , , |

The story behind the story is sometimes, as they say, stranger than fiction. Stranger is the title of a Viking November release by Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith and, if you read this book, as I did (when Rachel asked me, in my paranormal YA novelist persona Tate Hallaway, to blurb it,) you might not think much more beyond how awesome and captivating a story of superpowers and survival in a post-apocalyptic future it is. Stranger (Viking Juveline, 2014) This book, however, almost didn’t get published.  Sure, okay, you’re thinking, lots of great books don’t get published, what’s [...]

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The Magic of Rhyming Words (And the Agony of Titling Books)

By |2020-03-28T13:42:39-05:00September 15th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog|Tags: , |

By Juliann Rich Choosing a title is one of the hardest parts of writing a book for me. Seriously, I’d rather write thirty additional chapters than one word or a few words for a title. TOTAL AGONY. A good title needs to communicate the core of the book, catch readers’ attention, and leave them wanting to dive in to see if the book fulfills its promise. Easy-peasy, right? Wrong. It’s bloody hard to do well. In fact, I thought I’d never figure out the title for the sequel to Caught in the Crossfire (originally titled in my mind [...]

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Interview with author Shannon LC Cate

By |2020-03-28T13:42:41-05:00July 24th, 2014|Categories: Archive, Author Interview|Tags: |

Today we have author Shannon LC Cate talking about race and gender histories, the importance of small-press or self publishing, and of course, her book Jack. Find out more about Jack here! Question: Why did you choose the particular time and setting? (Post Civil War, New York and Arizona?) What about that time and those places interested you, or served the story? SHANNON LC CATE: I studied this period during my graduate work in American literature. When I write historical fiction, I tend to naturally choose the last quarter of the 19th century because of my familiarity with that [...]

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Finding an Audience

By |2020-03-28T13:43:02-05:00June 14th, 2011|Categories: Archive, Author Guest Blog, Guest Blogs, Writers on Writing|Tags: |

I've looked at stories, characters, plot devices, layering, the writer's mission, and some of the tropes around gay YA and genre fiction this past month or so, but left to examine among many other aspects of writing is audience. Not all writers seek publication, and that's fine, but for those of us who want to get our words communicated to the world outside our heads should understand our options, the market, and readers' expectations. In no particular order: Get your work in line with your mission—Looking to write crossover or mainstream YA novels? Then there needs to be [...]

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