Writing for Young Adults

Here's an amazing article from writersdigest.com on writing for young adults.  I found it very informative, click here. 

New Agent

About Rachael: Rachael Dugas (@RachaelDugas on Twitter) joined Talcott Notch Literary as an associate agent in June 2011. She earned her BA in English from Ithaca College in 2010 and worked as an intern at Sourcebooks and at online food magazine www.poortastemag.com before assuming her current position.

She is seeking: Rachael represents cookbooks and young adult, middle grade, and adult fiction in the contemporary, paranormal, women’s, and romance genres. She would love to receive more cookbooks(especially with a unique perspective, distinct voice and sense of place, and stellar marketing platform), beautifully written historical and/or literary fiction, really terrific memoir, and fun, contemporary YA or adult fiction, especially pertaining to food or the performing arts.

How to contact: The best way to reach Rachael is via editorial (at) talcottnotch.net, with ATTN: Rachael Dugas somewhere in the subject line (and we ask you do include your first 10 pages in the body of the email). Please visit www.talcottnotch.net for additional information regarding submissions.

Thanks to writersdigest.com for the new agent information. You can find their link to the right under favorite links.

New Agent

About Renee: Several years in the editorial department at Random House’s Colorado division provided Renee with the opportunity to work with bestselling and debut authors alike. After leaving Random House, she came toKT Literary in early 2013 to cultivate her passion for YA literature. Drawing on her editorial experience, she loves digging into client manuscripts and helping authors shape the best story possible. You can follow her on twitter @Renee_Nyen.

She is seeking: Young Adult and Middle Grade fiction. “I’m always interested in YA historical fiction, mystery, sci-fi, and thrillers, but genre is not as important to me as strong prose and compelling characters.”

Submission Guidelines: Please submit a query letter with the first three pages of your manuscript pasted in the email to queries (at) ktliterary.com.

Thanks to writersdigest.com for the new agent information. You can find their link to the right under favorite links.

Building Your Platform

Thank you to writersdigest.com for the following article. You can find their link to the right under favorite links.
A major buzzword floating around the publishing world these days is “platform.” There’s a lot of question about what it means and whether or not authors really need to have one. Writer’s Digest publisher Phil Sexton says theimportance of having a platform ultimately depends on your goals for your book.

If you’re a writer who strives for commercial success and a wide audience of readers, then, yes, platform most certainly matters. It makes no difference whether your ultimate goal is indie or traditional publishing; if you want your book to be competitive in the marketplace, you must consider how you can reach out and generate excitement among readers. Having a platform will help you do just that.

Essentially, your author platform is the means through which you are able to spread your message. It’s based on your connections and influence. Therefore, building your platform involves fostering relationships, establishing your expertise, and building an effective means of communicating with your target audience.

There are many ways to go about this. And the path you take should depend on your own set of skills, the message you want to share and the specific audience you want to reach. Here are a few ideas to consider:

• Build a Website and Blog: Carve out a space online that’s all your own. Use your author website and blog as a place to post articles that establish your expertise in your field. Share news about your book, speaking schedule, upcoming interviews, etc.
• Be Active on Social Media: Developing a social media network is critical to establishing an ongoing method for communicating with your target audience. Whether you choose to use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or all of the above and more, just be sure you’re taking full advantage of at least one of these incredible online relationship-building tools.
• Network at Industry Events: Try hosting a book signing or putting your title on display at book fairs and other events. By giving yourself the opportunity to get your book circulating and to interact directly with new readers, you can start to gather a network of fans.

Punctuating Dialogue

So, today in our writing group, a question on how to punctuate dialogue came up.  Follow this link, and it may answer some of the questions you may have.

Lady of the Links

It's official! Lan's new name is now the Lady of the Links.

Here are a few of the beauties she sent our way:

Contest and Agent News

What Agents Want

And a lingering question out there is-What is steampunk, again? Help us out with by commenting with your answers and perhaps links to sites with great explanations of genre (we know there are millions of them-genres-out there).

Welcome New Members

What a fantastic meeting of the minds we had today! Here is a quick recap.

Source http://myquoteshome.com/

Jenny has met with us once, but we are going to count this as her official return! She has been furiously, or at least maddeningly, editing thousands of words out of her YA manuscript.  Her goal is to make the transition from YA to middle grade. 

Ryan shared the concept of story engineering and the three layers of a story-or was it a character?  I missed it... hopefully he can share that here as a post or a comment. His kids are a great inspiration for him and we all agreed writing with his kids as character is a lovely idea.  He is currently planning two very different stories.

Lan just entered her synopsis and first ten pages into the Writer's League of Texas' manuscript contest.  We wish you luck, but your work stands for itself and we know your agent/author review will be fantastic-AND you will be a winner!

Katie is about three quarters through with her YA manuscript and is happy to see the end in sight.  She needs a swift kick in the butt to keep going!

A couple topics to keep up with:

picture from amazon.com
 illustrations by Valerie Bouthyette

• Contest sponsored by Writer Digest-15th Free Dear Lucky Agent Contest 
• Using professional editors before sending queries and pages to agents
• Self publishing using Kindle (woot woot Ryan!) Isaiah the Dinosaur Hunter by Ryan Bender
• Adding a second meeting each month (now the 2nd and last Sunday) and may change the location to the European Cafe on Fort Hood Rd.

Shout out: please share your favorite writing website/writer's tool as a comment. I've added mine to the links list on the right. Yours will be added there as well.