Yay! I made the final cut for a collection!

When I read Rita Golden Gelman’s Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World in 2005, I immediately wanted to know more about the fascinating author. Actually, what I really wanted to do right after reading the book was to sell all my stuff, pack a backpack and start living a nomadic life like hers. I had travelled around in South East Asia and Europe for most of 2002 and was very keen on adapting that lifestyle full time. After I calmed down a bit, I logged on to Rita’s website instead of listing all my possessions on Craigslist. What I found is that she’s a fantastic inspiration as well as a fabulous writer. I sent her a note through email and to my surprise she emailed me back with gracious advice about traveling and writing. On the website, I also saw a note about a collaborative travel essay/cookbook project and after some encouragement from my critique group, I sent in a submission. I wrote about my first American Thanksgiving and included the recipe for the chocolate cake I baked for the dinner.

Since then, Rita and Maria Altobelli (who writes about living in Mexico and maintains http://www.mexicoinsmallbytes.com/) selected which essays they liked best, tested all the recipes, found an agent for the project, who then found a publishing house. Today I found out that our editor for Random House’s Crown division picked my essay to be included in the book. The working title of the book is Break Free, Break Bread, Break Rules: Stories and Recipes from the World at Large and should be out next year. All the proceeds, including the advance, will be used for scholarships for vocational education for high school graduates living in the slums of New Delhi.

Today is a very, very happy day.

Posted in Agents & Editors, Authors I Admire, Essays, Firsts, Inspiration, Non Fiction Writing, Submissions & Queries | Comments »

First Manuscript Request

Haven’t been posting for a while, but that’s because I’ve been busy with new and wonderful things.

My friend Jere and I traveled to the beautiful Whidbey Island for their writers’ association’s annual conference—and what a great conference it was. The fantastic nature, the excellent volunteers, and the intimate and casual atmosphere made this my favorite conference ever.

One of the reasons I’m so partial to it is because while pitching for an agent, I got my first FULL MANUSCRIPT REQUEST ever for Paved Paradise. So, that’s what I’ve been working on. Even though the manuscript was completed and reviewed by my writers’ group (twice) I still couldn’t let it go without doing some polishing and final edits.

More about the conference later—now back to grading my students’ finals and catching up on sleep.  

(Moved from my old blog: http://writingvalkyrie.blogspot.com.)

Posted in Agents & Editors, Conferences, Firsts, Submissions & Queries | Comments »

First Rejection

I am officially a writer! I have received no less than two rejection letters, both from agents, and both very nice.

Considering that I have submitted my manuscript–each on the receiving person’s invitation–to three agents and one editor, I think two personal responses is a pretty good result. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m of course bummed that these are rejections, but if you talk to any published writer, they’ll tell you about the massive amounts of rejections they got before publishing.

I’m very proud of my two. One is from a senior agent at a big name house in New York. It’s a hand-written note starting: “This novel certainly has potential, however, it just isn’t right for me.” Now, maybe my writing sucks and the agent is just being nice, but I don’t care. I’ll take any encouragement where I find it.

The second was received via email and is from a small north-west agency that is highly respected by both writers and other agents that I mentioned their name to. My favorite quote from it is: “Your writing is quite good, although it could still use a bit of polish. It is better than 90% of the manuscripts I receive!” The email also includes specific examples of how I should polish specific sections. How’s that for great constructive advice!? It was worth my stamp just to receive that.

Okay, back to the grinding stone. I’m polishing the manuscript and sending out more queries.

(Moved from my old blog: http://writingvalkyrie.blogspot.com.)

Posted in Agents & Editors, Rejections, Submissions & Queries | Comments »

My First Writing Conference

I went to my first writing conference ever last week, the PNWA conference. The whole writing group was supposed to go (all three of us) but my two partners chickened out. Actually, they had really good excuses for why they couldn’t go, but I had already paid my registration fee. After some mishaps about parking—the hotel wasn’t prepared for so many people driving their own cars—I settled in for my first workshop.

What I was expecting from this conference was a bunch of already established writers looking down their nose at us plebs that were trying to get an agent or editor to notice us. I also assumed that the publishing industry professionals would be snooty (they were after all, mostly from the east coast) and probably shoot most of us down before we managed to stammer out our name and the beginning of our elevator pitch. I’d read just about all of Anne Mini’s blog that had to do with preparing for a conference, but was super nervous about having to do any kind of pitching.

The conference was the complete opposite of my expectations. Every single person I met was extremely encouraging. The workshops were for the most part excellent and taught by writers that not only knew how to write, but also how to teach. Every writer I met, established or not, were chatty, interested, and interesting. The agents didn’t have any horns on their head and listened politely to any elevator and hallway pitch I attempted. Several of them gave me their cards and encouraged me to send them queries. The agents and editors I had scheduled appointments with, all (except for one who does not accept queries from unrepresented writers) asked me to send them pages.

I had a fantastic time and learned so very much. I’m definitely going back next year and would encourage everyone else that writes to attend a conference. I very much felt like I got my money’s worth. Before I was super nervous about meeting agents and editors, now I’m all nervous about sending them my stuff. I’ve already spent days rewriting and agonizing over manuscript pages and query sentences. Funny how trying to say something on only one page takes a lot longer to write than a full manuscript.

What was your first writing conference experience like? Did you meet your agent or editor at a writing conference?

(Moved from my old blog: http://writingvalkyrie.blogspot.com.)

Posted in Agents & Editors, Conferences, Firsts | Comments »