THE ANNUAL AGENT ROUNDUP

WRITERS HELPING WRITERS SINCE 1920

FACING THE
MYSTERIOUS
How to Plan Reveals to
MAKE READERS GASP

6 WAYS to Stress Test

Your Plot Twist

How Deep Characterization

Can CREATE PAGE-TURNERS

Read the winning story of the

23RD ANNUAL WD SHORT
SHORT STORY AWARDS

LYDIA KIESLING ON
EMBRACING THE MYSTERY
OF THE WRITING PROCESS
W D I N T E RV I E W

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2023
WritersDigest.com Chuck Wendig
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING
AUTHOR DISCUSSES GENRE-HOPPING,
FEAR AS A MOTIVATOR, AND
HIS NEW BOOKS
 SUBMISSION COACHING
Everything You Need to Know
to Get Published
WITH AMY COLLINS

Acquisition editors and agents have specific things they need to convince
publishers to offer an author a contract. There is so much more to getting
an agent or publishing deal than just writing a good book. This 6-week
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FEAT U RE S

FACING THE
MYSTERIOUS

28 44
WRITER’S DIGEST TWISTY BUSINESS
2023 ANNUAL LITERARY How to stress test a plot twist.
AGENT ROUNDUP BY JEFF SOMERS

21 literary agents share what kind of

submissions they’d like to see in their
inboxes and their querying preferences.
48
BY AMY JONES WRITING OUR WAY
INTO (AND OUT OF)
40 DARK FORESTS
Using deep characterization for propulsive
THE BIG REVEAL storytelling.
Write a compelling story by understanding BY JENNIFER GIVHAN
when and how to reveal crucial information
to readers for maximum impact. ON THE COVER
BY TIFFANY YATES MARTIN 2 8 The Annual Agent Roundup
4 4 6 Ways to Stress Test Your Plot Twist
4 0 How to Plan Reveals to Make Readers
ERRATUM: The editors of WD offer our apolo-
IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: YOSUKE HASEGAWA

Gasp
gies to Kimberly Wenzler whose name was inad- 4 8 How Deep Characterization Can Create
th
vertently left off the 10 Annual Self-Published Page-Turners
E-book Awards list of winners in the May/June 5 8 Read the winning story of the 23rd
2023 issue. Wenzler’s book Seasons Out of Time Annual WD Short Short Story Awards
won first place in the contemporary fiction category. 2 4 Lydia Kiesling on Embracing the Mystery
Congratulations, Kimberly! of the Writing Process
5 2 WD Interview: Chuck Wendig

2 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023

 SEP TEMBER /OC TOBER | VOLU ME 103 | NO. 5

I N K WE L L

8 MEETING THE PRESS

52
THE WD INTERVIEW:
BY SAIDA PAGÁN

10 PLUS: Worth a Thousand Words • Château de

Monte-Cristo • Poetic Asides • Write It Out

CHUCK WENDIG CO L UM N S

The New York Times bestselling author

18 INDIELAB: The 3 Phases of Book Signings
discusses genre-hopping, fear as a motivator,
BY DEL HOWISON
and his new books.
BY KRISTIN OWENS 21 INDIE AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: Jerri Williams
BY AMY JONES

2 2 WD 101: Demystifying the Author Website

BY WHITNEY HILL

2 4 WRITERS ON WRITING: Lydia Kiesling

2 5 MEET THE AGENT: Dani Segelbaum • Carol
Mann Agency
BY KARA GEBHART UHL

2 6 BREAKING IN: Debut Author Spotlight

BY MICHAEL WOODSON

6 2 YOUR STORY: Blue Agave #122

6 8 AGENT SPOTLIGHT: Michael W. Bourret • Dystel,
Goderich & Bourret, LLC
BY KRISTY STEVENSON

7 0 ON NONFICTION: Milking the Cow, Part 1

58 BY DON VAUGHAN

7 2 PUBLISHING INSIGHTS: Unlocking the Mysteries

TWO HOURS AND THREE of Publishing a Successful Book
YEARS: THE LIFE OF A BY ROBERT LEE BREWER

SHORT SHORT STORY 74 LEVEL UP YOUR WRITING (LIFE): Use Time

to Enrich Your Writing—and Your Writing
New Zealand-based writer and first-place Experience
winner of the 23rd Annual Writer’s Digest BY SHARON SHORT
Short Short Story Awards shares the personal
76 BUILDING BETTER WORLDS: Celebrations
experience that inspired her story.
BY MORIAH RICHARD
BY MICHAEL WOODSON
7 8 FOR ALL AGES: When Mystery and Mythology
Collide
N E XT D R AF T
BY MICHAEL WOODSON

6 5 KILL WITH YOUR CRITIQUE … THE GOOD WAY 8 0 FRONTLIST/BACKLIST: A Matter of Trust
BY RYAN G. VAN CLEAVE BY AMY JONES

PLUS: 4 Learn by Example 5 Editor’s Letter 6 Contributors 8 8 Creative Quill

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WritersDigest.com I 3
LEARNBYEX AMPLE
Setting the Scene
COMPILED BY JESSICA STRAWSER

Place Time
The gaily dressed As they ran, a brisk sea breeze bal-
men and women looned out their skirts and sent
barely filled half Kitty’s hat tumbling wildly along the
of Memorial sand. They chased it and laughed
Stadium’s raked until their sides hurt, and for a few
seating, but they carefree moments, the prospect of
sat together, a waterfall of German invasion was forgotten. That
wool suits and polyester neckties, was the exasperating thing about the The night air has that early-autumn
cut-out dresses and ruffled pillbox war. It was everywhere and every- spooky feel to it. Damp spiderwebs,
hats, cascading down toward a bul- thing, and yet it was nowhere and the feeling of something coming to
wark of patriotic bunting. nothing. It was an impossible riddle, an end before you’re truly ready to
—Love and Other Consolation Prizes, a puzzle without a solution. leave it.
Jamie Ford (historical fiction) —The Last Lifeboat, Hazel Gaynor —Wrong Place Wrong Time, Gillian
(historical fiction) McAllister (thriller)
Broadway is a street; it is also a
neighborhood, an atmosphere.
—Summer Crossing, Truman Capote
Tension
A balloon of silence expanded in Bird wavers in the doorway …
(literary fiction)
the room. It started small, and with Sadie, he calls. Sadie. Come on.
every breath it got bigger and bigger The rain hisses as it falls, like a
All the roofs had green shingles.
until the silence practically squeezed thousand tiny snakes, and where it
If you climbed into the hills and
my father and me against the walls hits, the ground writhes. It needles
looked down, it looked like some-
with its explosive potential. the dirt, punching holes that widen
body had tossed a handful of green
—A Sudden Light, Garth Stein to craters that fill and swell into
plastic Monopoly
(contemporary fiction) ponds. It ricochets off the gravel
houses into the air
driveway and off the steps, jumping
and let them land
ankle high. Off Sadie, who still sits,
where they would.
faithful, stubborn, eyes fixed on the
—Esme Cahill Fails
path to the road, until she is soaked
Spectacularly,
to the skin and finally comes inside.
Marie Bostwick
—Our Missing Hearts, Celeste Ng
(women’s fiction)
(literary fiction)

Jessica Strawser (JessicaStrawser.com) is editor-at-large for WD and the author of five novels, most recently the People magazine pick The
Next Thing You Know. Her sixth novel, The Last Caretaker, is forthcoming in November from Lake Union.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO LEARN BY EXAMPLE? We want to hear from you! Email your ideas for future topics to cover here to
wdsubmissions@aimmedia.com with “Learn by Example” in the subject line. You might see yours in a future issue of WD.

4 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023

 EDITOR’SLETTER
AN ACTIVE INTEREST MEDIA PUBLICATION

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Amy Jones

SENIOR EDITOR
Embracing the Mysterious
Robert Lee Brewer Writing a novel or short story feels a bit like
MANAGING EDITOR
solving a mystery—even if you’re not writing
Moriah Richard a capital-M genre Mystery. But it’s a mystery
EDITORS
you’re creating while trying to solve it, mak-
Sadie Dean ing things infinitely more challenging (or fun).
Michael Woodson
Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, at some
ART DIRECTOR point, you have to figure out the solution to
Wendy Dunning
your character’s problems, even if the ending
EDITORS-AT-LARGE leaves something for readers to decide.
Tyler Moss
Jessica Strawser
Before that, though, you need to decide if
the mystery that is your story is worth telling.
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Jane K. Cleland, Bob Eckstein, Is this a story that I want to spend time creating? Is this a story I want to know
Jane Friedman, Sharon Short, the answers to? Would other readers be interested in this story? While the
Elizabeth Sims, Jeff Somers,
Kristy Stevenson, Kara Gebhart Uhl,
third question only matters if you intend to share your work, the other two
Ryan G. Van Cleave, Don Vaughan, questions are ones that entice you down the path of drafting and revising. If
Ran Walker
you’re at all like me, “no” is usually the answer—until recently. While I would
MARKETING DESIGNER most certainly like other readers to be interested in the story I’m drafting, I
Samantha Weyer
know they won’t be yet. The mystery—capital-M genre Mystery—isn’t quite a
COMPETITIONS MANAGER mystery at this point; it feels too obvious, which makes it, well, a mystery to
Tara Johnson
me. But for the first time, I’ve said “yes” to the first two questions: I want to
VP GENERAL MANAGER spend time finding the answers to the scenarios I’ve created.
Taylor Sferra
And that is the joy in facing the mysterious endeavor that is writing, to
find the idea worth exploring, and sometimes, agonizing over. If you get
WRITER’S DIGEST
stuck along the way, turn to the articles in this issue. Tiffany Yates Martin
EDITORIAL OFFICES
shares tips for the most effective ways to reveal crucial information and clues
4665 Malsbary Road
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242 to your readers, without being annoyingly cryptic or giving too much away.
writers.digest@aimmedia.com Jeff Somers offers six techniques for putting your plot twist to the test, to see
if it will stand up to your biggest critics (and fans): readers. Novelist Jennifer
BACK ISSUES Givhan takes you on a metaphorical journey into the dark forest of discover-
Digital back issues are available for ing who your characters are and what makes them tick.
purchase at WritersDigestShop.com.
On the business side of things, the September/October issue always fea-
tures our roundup of literary agents who are accepting submissions. This year,
CUSTOMER SERVICE 21 agents share what they’re looking for and help demystify parts of the pub-
2143 Grand Ave., Des Moines, Iowa, lishing industry all writers should know about.
50312 subscriptions@aimmedia.com
or call: (800) 333-0133 The WD Interview for this issue couldn’t be a more perfect fit: horror/thriller/
speculative fiction author Chuck Wendig. He spoke at length with contribu-
PRIVACY STATEMENT
tor Kristin Owens about his new nonfiction book, Gentle Writing Advice (WD
Active Interest Media HoldCo, Inc. is
Books, June 2023), and how he explores his own fears through his writing.
committed to protecting your privacy. For Finally, the team at WD would like to offer our congratulations to Mary
a full copy of our privacy statement, go to
Francis, winner of the 23rd Annual Short Short Story Awards. Her story “Mrs
aimmedia.com/privacy-policy.
Singh is in her wedding sari again” is tender and moving, and we hope you
PHOTO © JASON HALE PHOTOGRAPHY

COPYRIGHT: 2023 by Active Interest

Media HoldCo, Inc., Des Moines, Iowa.
enjoy reading it as much as we did.
This publication may not be reproduced, Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a mystery to finish creating …
either in whole or part, in any form without
written permission from the publisher.
Yours in Writing,
Printed in the USA

WRITER’S DIGEST MAGAZINE IS A REGISTERED

TRADEMARK OF ACTIVE INTEREST MEDIA.

WritersDigest.com I 5
C ONT RIB UTO RS

JENNIFER GIVHAN (JenniferGivhan.com) is a

Chicana writer from the Southwestern desert and the
recipient of the Southwest Book Award and fellowships
from the NEA and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices.
Her third novel, River Woman, River Demon, appeared
on Amazon’s Book Club and “CBS Mornings” and was
featured as a national Together We Read library pick. Her
PRESIDENT HOME GROUP
writing has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation,
Peter H. Miller
POETRY, TriQuarterly, Boston Review, The Rumpus,
Salon, and many others. You can follow her on Instagram
PRESIDENT MARINE GROUP
@jenngivhan, Facebook at Jenn Givhan, and Twitter Gary DeSanctis
@givhanjenn for inspiration, prompts, and real talk about
the publishing world and life as a mama writer. CTO
Brian Van Heuverswyn

LYDIA KIESLING is the author of The Golden State, a CFO

2018 National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree, Stephen Pompeo
and a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.
Her second novel, Mobility, was published by Crooked VP EVENTS

Media Reads in August 2023. Her essays and nonfiction Julie Zub

have been published in outlets including The New York

ADVERTISING SALES DIRECTOR
Times Magazine, The New Yorker online, and The Cut.
Heather Glynn Gniazdowski

DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION
Phil Graham

AIM MARKETING SERVICES

Amanda Phillips
KRISTIN OWENS holds a Ph.D. in higher education
and is an award-winning faculty member. Now a full-time DIRECTOR OF RETAIL SALES
writer in sticky southwest Florida, Kristin has more than Susan A. Rose
100 bylines as a contributor for celebrated magazines such
as Wine Enthusiast and 5280. She holds certifications VP CIRCULATION
Paige Nordmeyer
with the Court of Master Sommeliers and Cicerone and
travels the world writing about wonderful wines, beautiful
HR DIRECTOR
beers, and surprising spirits. Her personal essays have won
Scott Roeder
honorable mention for the 2018 New Millennium Writing
Awards, awarded finalist for the 2019 New Letters’ award CHAIRMAN
in nonfiction, and included in RISE!, Colorado’s Book of Andrew W. Clurman

KIESLING HEADSHOT © ERICA J MITCHELL OWENS HEADSHOT © THE IMAGE GROUP

the Year 2020. Her debut novel, Elizabeth Sails (Rising
Action Publishing), launches in fall 2024. CHAIRMAN EMERITUS
Efrem Zimbalist III

SAIDA PAGÁN is a Los Angeles-based journalist,

writer, and media coach who has reported and media ADVERTISING
trained authors and other professionals throughout the
U.S. Saida has received several awards including multiple ADVERTISING SALES

Los Angeles Press Club awards, Golden Mike awards, REPRESENTATIVE

Pam Stine (540) 773-8052
NATOA awards, and a team coverage Emmy. She was
pstine@aimmedia.com
also a finalist in the 2011 Writer’s Digest Annual Writing
Competition. Saida enjoys reading, walks along SoCal ADVERTISING SALES COORDINATOR
beaches, and dining with family and friends. Follow her Julie Dillon (715) 257-6028
on Twitter: @SaidaPagan and Facebook: Saida fax: (715) 997-8883
Pagan Media. jdillon@aimmedia.com

6 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023

 DEADLINE:
SEPT. 15, 2023

   
11 TH ANNUAL

 
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Meeting the Press
10 Tips for Your Best-Ever Media Interviews
BY SAIDA PAGÁN
Y
our writer’s dream has finally
come true. Your book has
made the bestseller list,
you’re scheduled to do signings all
over the country, and your publi-
cist has even set up media tours in
every major city. What more could an
author ask for?
Before you answer, take a moment
to reflect. While the book signings
will probably be a piece of cake, how
about those TV, radio, podcasts, and
print interviews? Are you ready to
speak eloquently about almost every
imaginable aspect of your book—
even the most controversial chapters
or characters?
How would you respond if an
aggressive reporter goes off topic and
tries to take you down a rabbit hole
by connecting your book to some
hot-button issue? Would you be able
to maintain your composure even
as the bright lights glared, cameras
zoomed in, and the press corps stared
you down?
I talked to a group of media
experts, publicists, and seasoned
authors to compile a list of best prac-
tices to help give writers the tools
8 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
they need to stay on message, control
the interview, and confidently meet
the press each and every time.
PREP, PREP, AND PREP
SOME MORE
Just as a writer might prepare for a
book signing by anticipating audi-
ence questions, try to think about
which questions might be asked of
you. But more importantly, what are
the key messages you want the audi-
ence to take away from the interview?
Publicist Beth Parker says authors
have to ask themselves why anyone
would be interested in what they’ve
written. “They basically have to
have an elevator pitch for their
book,” Parker says. “When I’m doing
media training with my authors, I
talk to them about what are the five
things they want to get across in an
interview—no matter what question
you are asked.”
Grant Faulkner, writer and co-
founder of the online journal 100
Word Story and executive director of
National Novel Writing Month, has
been on both sides of the microphone
conducting hundreds of interviews
for his podcast, “Write-minded.” He
says writing an actual script of what
you might say is the first step.
“Really think about how you want
to position your book,” Faulkner
explains. “Think about your [particu-
lar] talking points.”
Scott Summerfield, a media
trainer and co-founder of SAE
Communications, suggests creating a
sort of Q&A scenario.
“I try to anticipate all the tough,
snarky, challenging questions that an
interviewer can ask me as well as the
easier ones,” Summerfield advises.
SUPPORT YOUR MESSAGES
WITH STORIES
In media training jargon, these state-
ments are called “proof points.” They
explain what sets your book apart by
telling readers what’s new, exciting, or
interesting about your content.
“They will bring the key messages
to life,” Summerfield explains. “What
does your book mean for me?”
Parker says authors need to hit
on a couple of different points: “Like
this is newsworthy because of ‘xyz.’ If
there is some sort of breaking news
tie-in, they’d want to talk about what
those things are.”
BE BRIEF—REALLY BRIEF
We’ve all heard about shortened
attentions spans in today’s digital
world, and because electronic news
segments are typically less than two
minutes long, craft your responses to
anticipated questions into 10–20 sec-
ond soundbites.
“Really think about how you can be
brief and focused and make the best
case for your book,” Faulkner suggests.
Experienced interviewers will ask
for more information if needed.
“There is no right or wrong way
to do this,” Summerfield says. [But] if
you continue talking for 2–3 minutes,
your audience will check out and
possibly your interviewer will check
out as well.”
PRACTICE, PRACTICE,
PRACTICE
While some people might just be
naturally good when it comes to giv-
ing good interviews, rehearsing a bit
before the media opportunity is the
smartest way to ensure good results.
Practice with a professional media
trainer or simply role-play with a
trusted friend.
“Have them ask you 10 or so ques-
tions and see how you do,” Faulkner
says. “You start to notice which
notes resonate and which notes don’t
resonate.”
Author Stuart Gibbs, known
for children’s book series such as
FunJungle and Spy School, advises
writers to use their experience
answering questions at book signings
as a kind of “media workshop.”
“The questions that you get asked
at a small bookstore event will prob-
ably be similar to the topics that the
media is going to [ask],” Gibbs says.
SUGGEST YOUR OWN
QUESTIONS
The business dynamics of today’s
newsrooms often result in reporters
being sent on multiple stories each
day with little advanced notice about
what they are going to cover.
Although some interviewers may
have read your book, chances are,
many others have not. Why not turn
this into an opportunity to suggest
some possible questions they might
ask, questions which are aligned with
your key messages?
Summerfield tells his clients to
make suggestions during the pre-
interview session if it seems like the
right thing to do. For example, you
might say: “I’ve been getting a lot
of questions from my readers about
[whatever]. I provide this in my
book,” Summerfield said.
RESEARCH THE NEWS
ORGANIZATION
What kind of interview can you
expect? What kind of news is a par-
ticular outlet known for? You can find
out a lot by going online and reading
the reporter’s previous stories.
Bestselling author Lisi Harrison’s
series for middle-grade and young
adult readers include The Clique
and Graveyard Girls. “I would really
research the person [who] is inter-
viewing me to find out what their
point of view is and come up with
some questions that they might ask,”
Harrison explains. “Get a sense of
what they represent.”
SETTING GROUND RULES
AND STAYING ON TOPIC
Sometimes reporters will still want to
talk about something that you would
rather not discuss. In some instances,
the questions might naturally flow
from the conversation you are having
and at other times, the reporter may
have an agenda.
If you get the sense that interview-
ers might ask controversial or unre-
lated questions, you might want to
make it clear to news organizations
that you are only prepared to talk
about your book.
Parker has advocated for more
than a few of her clients in this way.
“If there was something they defi-
nitely don’t want to talk about, I can
tell the producers that these par-
ticular topics are off limits,” Parker
said. “And if those topics come up, I
reserve the right to stop the interview
in the middle.”
Even if an organization gives you
an idea of the direction of the inter-
view, don’t be surprised if you are
never asked about those topics. “That
can throw you,” Gibbs warns.
Either way, it’s usually in your best
interest to pivot back to the mes-
sages you want to convey, rather than
engage in a conversation that will dis-
tract from the topic of your book.
“Wherever the media person is
going with the interview, which may
not be in the direction you want to
go … figure out how to sort of get it
back to what you want to be talking
about,” Parker recommends.
You may also choose to respect-
fully decline to talk about an unre-
lated topic. One example might be:
“I appreciate the question, but we are
here to talk about the exciting new
book,” Summerfield suggests. “We
can certainly talk some other time
about other issues.”
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
Staying on message can be easier said
than done, because there are times—
even if warned not to ask about a cer-
tain topic—a reporter will go ahead
and ask anyway.
WritersDigest.com I 9
 “I was caught off-guard,” said
Harrison when recounting one of her
most memorable media interviews.
Harrison’s books had been selling
very well, so she didn’t think twice
when various news organizations
reached to do a report. “I thought it
was a celebration of the series and its
success,” Harrison recalled.
Harrison said that in the begin-
ning, one interviewer had a pleasant
demeanor, but later, the questioning
took on a more serious tone.
“As if I were personally responsible
for corrupting kids and perpetuating
materialism … all the things that my
book was intentionally speaking out
against,” Harrison recalls.
Harrison says she maintained her
composure and stayed on message,
but was surprised that the interview
had gone in that direction.
Worth a Thousand Words
“As seen on TikTok…”
Bob Eckstein is a New Yorker cartoonist, NY Times–bestselling author, and adjunct professor
at NYU. His new book is The Complete Book of Cat Names (That Your Cat Won’t Answer
to, Anyway).
10 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
Writer and filmmaker Esmeralda
Santiago, best known for her mem-
oir When I Was Puerto Rican, has
also had her share of surprise ques-
tions. She describes one interview
where a reporter had been asking all
the typical questions but toward the
end, suddenly asked her to comment
about a sensitive political issue which,
according to Santiago, had nothing to
do with her book.
“Just out of nowhere, he wanted to
spring this on me to see how I would
respond. I really felt that it was so
unfair,” Santiago recalls.
Santiago says she gave a brief
answer and pivoted back to her book.
“You just have to be prepared, but
always return to your story—your
book—why you’re there,” Santiago
reminds new writers.
VOICE TONE AND BODY
LANGUAGE MATTER
Communication research shows that
media audiences consider more than
just the words you say in an interview.
They are watching your body language
and listening to your voice tone to
make meaning of your message.
Summerfield advises his clients
to come into the interview with a
“Neutral, pleasant look … and even if
you are rattled, don’t get defensive.”
“Be the best version of yourself,”
Parker tells her clients. “Don’t be
antagonistic. Don’t be a diva.”
LOOK YOUR BEST
While no one is suggesting a writer
become a fashionista if they aren’t
already one, the truth is your clothing
and personal grooming matter. “You
will be judged by how you’re dressed,”
Santiago says.
Consider classic styles that have
longevity. “I don’t wear things that
in another five years, I’m going to be
saying, ‘I can’t believe I wore that,’”
Santiago chuckled.
FINAL WORDS OF WISDOM
However you choose to dress and
whether the interview is going in the
right direction or off the rails, there
is one vitally important thing to keep
in mind: You are there to market your
book and nothing more.
So be prepared, have fun, and
make the most of it, because at the
end of the day, the media opportunity
belongs to you.
Saida Pagán is a Los Angeles-based jour-
nalist, writer, and media coach who has
reported and media trained authors and
other professionals throughout the U.S.
Over the years, Saida has received several
awards including multiple Los Angeles Press
Club awards, Golden Mike Awards, NATOA
awards, and a team coverage Emmy.
 EA RLY- B IR D
D EA DLI NE
SEPT. 1, 2023

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Château de Monte-Cristo
Literary Tourism, Part 2
BY ZACHARY PETIT

J
uly 25, 1847. Le Port-Marly, just
outside Paris.
Alexandre Dumas had sent
out a mere 50 invitations to his
party—but naturally, some 600 peo-
ple show up.
It’s a testament to his larger-than-
life character … and a development
the author likely takes in stride (with
great pride). Tables dot the lawn. A
gratuitous feast is prepared. Dumas’
pet monkeys frolic about. As André
Maurois would detail in a biogra-
phy a century later, “Radiant, Dumas
circulates among his guests. His coat
glitters with crosses and badges; his
brilliant waistcoat is festooned with a
heavy chain of massive gold; he kisses
the beautiful ladies and tells marvel-
ous stories the whole night. Never has
he been happier …”
All the while, the incredible castle
he now calls home looms over the
proceedings. And rightly so—for this
is a housewarming party.
Sometimes, life reflects art. But in
the greatest literary destinations and
writer homes, the line between the
two all but disappears. Here, Dumas
has quite literally become the Count
of Monte Cristo.
Dumas first came to Paris in 1823, soon sprang forth from Dumas’ pen, spending recklessly. Though he rev-
when he was 21. He had no money, alongside hordes of other characters. eled in the Parisian social scene, the
but he had a penchant for words— By the end of his life, The Guardian brilliant, bloviating author yearned
and before becoming the novelist he estimates he had banked more than for a place to hunker down and
is remembered as today, he achieved 4,000 primary characters, 9,000 sec- write—and one day when he was
notoriety as a playwright. By the ondary ones, and 25,000 walk-ons walking between Saint-Germain-
IMAGE © I, JPGO

mid-1830s, newspaper serials had across hundreds of books. en-Laye and Versailles, he found it
taken off, and The Three Musketeers Money and fame followed, Dumas on a hill overlooking the Seine. He
and The Count of Monte Cristo excelling at both: being famous, and tasked the famous French architect

12 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023

 Hippolyte Durand with building his
dream house atop it.
As The Washington Post detailed
in 1986, “Upon hearing Dumas
describe the elaborate house he
envisioned … Durand supposedly
exclaimed, ‘But all that will cost you a
fortune!’ ‘I certainly hope so,’ a beam-
ing Dumas was said to reply.”
When it came to the design of the
house, Maurois notes, “he wanted all
the styles that had ever struck him.
He mixed Gothic with Renaissance,
Mozarabic with Scandinavian. An
Arabian minaret emerged from a
Henri II façade. The Troubadour
nudged the Oriental. The white and
gold drawing room must be as ‘large
as the drawing rooms at Versailles.’”
Dumas handed over the cash—
said to be hundreds of thousands of
francs, or millions today—and soon
enough, he had his castle.
In it, he paid homage to the
world’s great writers, arranging
friezes of Shakespeare, Homer, and
others around the ground floor. Not
IMAGES © V.FELLONI/MONTE-CRISTO
to be left out, Dumas had his per-
sonal motto—“I love those who love
me”—carved above the entrance to
the home. (The eagle-eyed visitor
may also notice his monogram in the
Château’s turrets, as well.)
While the home is an unabashed
celebration of its creator and finan-
cier, it wasn’t his idea to name it
“Château de Monte-Cristo.” Rather,
the home’s director, Frédérique Lurol,
says an actress once came to visit
Dumas from Paris, and her carriage
driver had no idea who the author
was. She told him he had written
The Count of Monte Cristo—“And
the driver said, ‘OK, you’re going to
see the Count of Monte Cristo,’” and
brought her to her destination, think-
ing the count was in fact a real per-
son. Dumas found the story hilarious,
and the castle had a name.
Within the walls of his newly
dubbed Château, Dumas excelled at
bankrolling a coterie of hangers-on.
He was said to have an open-door
policy for fellow creatives in dire
straits, and cumulatively, they racked
up several hundred thousand francs
a year. Included in that bankroll: the
wants of his many mistresses (by some
accounts, around 40). Dumas was
known to woo them in the home’s
extravagant Moorish Salon, with
stucco sculptures and arabesques
handcrafted by Tunisian artists he had
coaxed home from his travels abroad.
Still, he came here to work, and
work he did. But he didn’t just sit
down inside the home to do so.
Rather, he commissioned the build-
ing of a miniature Gothic castle (yes,
it even has a moat), and dubbed
it Château d’If—the name of the
gloomy island prison where the
titular Count of Monte Cristo is
detained. Contrasting the opulence
of the main home, Lurol says it con-
tained just a desk, chair, fireplace,
and bed.
“It’s like a jail, but a very beautiful
jail,” she says with a laugh.
Dumas would work from morning
to night, but it’s not known what he
wrote here. Lurol says the list might
include the Three Musketeers sequel
Twenty Years After and La Dame
de Monsoreau. Regardless, Dumas’
works are writ large on the façade of
the structure, where carvings include
Edmond Dantès of The Count of
Monte Cristo discovering his trea-
sure; Henry III; and the titles of 88 of
Dumas’ works.
“He printed his soul on this
façade,” Lurol says.
His favorite dog, Pritchard, also
makes an appearance, carved directly
into a doghouse. And speaking of
animals: The grounds’ rolling British-
style gardens played home to a
stocked aviary, as well as a cavalcade
WritersDigest.com I 13

of other dogs, a cat, three monkeys,
parrots, a golden pheasant (named
Lucullus), a rooster (Caesar), as well
as a vulture named Jugurtha initially,
and later Diogenes; Maurois writes
that Dumas claimed to have brought
the latter back from Tunis at an
expense of 40,000 francs, or around
$253,000 today.
He continues: “Pleasantly enter-
tained by the squeaks and squeals of
this menagerie; encircled by sheaves
of paper—blue (on which he scrawled
his novels, rose (on which he dashed
off his articles), and yellow (on which
he tenderly traced poems dedicated
to his odalisques)—Monte-Cristo had
everything with which to be divinely
happy.”
… For two years, anyway.
Of all those taking advantage of
the count, unfortunately none seem
to have been an accountant. In the
end, Dumas was bankrupted by his
own largess—and the Revolution
of 1848, which killed business at
the theater he had opened not long
before, staging a nine-hour version
14 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
of one of his novels, among other
performances.
Château de Monte-Cristo—
described by Dumas’ friend Honoré
de Balzac as “one of the most deli-
cious follies ever built … the most
royal chocolate box in existence”—
began to fade, piece by piece, in 1848.
First, creditors took the furniture,
the art.
They took poor Jugurtha/
Diogenes, now valued at a mere
15 francs.
Eventually, they came for the
castle itself.
While Dumas’ output remained
unphased and he continued to pro-
duce the work that would further
cement his legacy, the Château fell
into disrepair. By 1969, the proper-
ty’s owner planned to raze it to make
way for 400 homes on the site—until
The Syndicat Intercommunal de
Monte-Cristo and the Société des
amis d’Alexandre Dumas formed
and joined forces to save it. (As The
Washington Post reported, it was
“an 11th-hour campaign—in true
cliffhanger style that would have
delighted the author.”) The prop-
erty was completely restored (King
Hassan II of Morocco even financed
the Moorish Salon refurbishment),
and by 1994 it fully opened to
visitors.
Last year, 29,000 visitors took in
its flamboyant majesty. Today the
home serves as a period museum
with rooms dedicated to Dumas’ fam-
ily, his mastery of cooking, his travels,
and all manner of literary output.
Still, in the end, one wonders:
How did he react to his dream home
being ripped from him after a mere
two years?
Lurol says he didn’t mourn it.
“We know that he was very happy
to have created what he wanted,” she
says. “And then life goes on.”
Like Dumas’ best works, Château
de Monte-Cristo burned with inten-
sity—and then he was off to the next
thing. The next serial. The next chap-
ter. The next adventure carved into
that mini Gothic castle.
Ultimately, as Dumas writes in
The Count of Monte Cristo: “On what
slender threads do life and fortune
hang …!”
Château de Monte-Cristo is
open year-round, and is located
at 78560 le Port-Marly, France.
For more, visit Chateau-Monte
-Cristo.com.
Zachary Petit (ZacharyPetit.com) is a
IMAGES © V.FELLONI/MONTE-CRISTO
contributing writer at Fast Company and
a freelance journalist whose work has
appeared in WD, Smithsonian, National
Geographic, National Geographic Kids, and
many other venues. He is currently writing
The Moon & Antarctica for Bloomsbury’s
33¹⁄³ book series.
short SHORT story
COMPETITION

To make a long story (really) short...

We’re looking for writing that’s bold, brilliant, and,
most of all, brief.
Submit your best stories that are 1,500 words or fewer. You
could win $3,000 in cash, a trip to New York City for the
Writer’s Digest Annual Conference, and an interview for a
feature article in our magazine.

Early-Bird Deadline
November 15, 2023

Regular Deadline
December 15, 2023

Enter online at
WritersDigest.com/SSS
 No matter what you write, a bit of poetic license can be a valuable asset to any writer’s arsenal.
BY ROBERT LEE BREWER
3 POETIC PUZZLE PIECES FOR
PROMPTING POEMS
In my last column, I focused on how
to create and play with structure in
poetry—and shared the evolution of
a poem that changed structure from
one collection to the next. However,
structure is only one piece in the puz-
zle of putting together a poem. There
are quite a few more puzzle pieces
available, and the fun (or frustrating)
thing about poetry is that sometimes
they fit—except when they don’t.
Rhyme
Many people think of rhyme (or the
repetition of same vowel sounds)
when they think of poetry. I’ve prob-
ably used the words moon, June, and
swoon more times in first drafts than
is healthy. But there’s a reason why
poets and readers of poetry gravitate
toward rhyme. The echoing sounds
are pleasing. Ending lines with
rhymes is nice, but don’t overlook the
opportunity to use internal rhymes,
which are rhymes in the beginning or
middle of a line.
PROMPT: Write a poem with at
least two rhymes for every two
lines, whether the rhymes happen
at the end of lines, in the middle,
or are even side-by-side words.
Robert Lee Brewer is senior editor of WD and author of The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms.
SHARE YOUR POETIC VOICE: If you’d like to see your poem in the pages of Writer’s Digest, check out the Poetic Asides blog
(WritersDigest.com/write-better-poetry/poetry-prompts) and search for the most recent WD Poetic Form Challenge.
16 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
Alliteration the paved path to a pond / filled with
Alliteration is another sonic trick sleeping koi.”
poets can use in their poems to great It’s easy to see the alliteration of
effect. In fact, it’s such a powerful tool paved, path, and pond—but I also
that nonpoets love to use it as well slipped in another “p” in the middle
in marketing copy, article titles (like of sleeping as well as echoing the “k”
the one for this piece), and comic sound in walk and koi, not to men-
book character names (Lois Lane, tion a few “th” sounds. Consonance
Bruce Banner, and Wally West spring can sometimes be more subtle than
to mind, but there are so many oth- alliteration and rhyming, but it
ers). Alliteration is when you repeat doesn’t make it any less effective.
consonant sounds at the beginning
of words. As with rhyme, the echoing PROMPT: Write a poem that
sounds are pleasing. attempts to use multiple instances
of consonance in every line.
PROMPT: Write a poem that
features at least some alliteration
in every single line.
DON’T FORGET
ASSONANCE!
Like consonance with consonant
Consonance
sounds, assonance is the repeti-
One often overlooked poetic puzzle
tion of vowel sounds anywhere in
piece is consonance, which actu-
the word. Using assonance in your
ally includes alliteration—but is also
poems can create a pleasing sonic
so much more. Consonance is the
effect that’s more subtle than end-
repetition of consonant sounds any-
rhyming a bunch of words (like
where in the word, whether it’s the
moon, June, and swoon).
beginning, middle, or end. In fact,
one way to write a slant rhyme is to
offer up different vowel sounds but
keep the same ending consonant
sounds—like rhyming back with
truck. If I lift a line from the poem
BREWER ILLUSTRATION © TONY CAPURRO
I featured last month, we can see
consonance in action: “They walk
 Write It Out
Writing prompts to boost your creativity.
BY MORIAH RICHARD

H
ave you ever been low on
inspiration for a story and
wished you could pick one
out of a hat? Well, I can’t give you
that, but I can give you this list of
prompts. Roll some dice to select one
character, one setting, and one plot,
then let your pen run wild. You can
come back again and again to mix-
and-match your ideas.

CHARACTER
1. A beleaguered employee on the
verge of retirement.
2. A therapist who specializes in
grief counseling.
3. Someone who is graduating from
high school tonight.
4. A security guard on their first
night of a solo shift.
5. Someone who has been tasked
with cleaning out the hoarded
home of a recently deceased
distant relation.
6. An artist who is convinced they’re
about to make their big break.

SETTING 6. A playground at the boarded-up 4. Your character has just run into
1. A quaint, suburban neighborhood elementary school. someone who looks exactly like
where nothing is as picture- them.
perfect as it seems. PLOT 5. Your character finds a strange
ILLUSTRATION © GETTY IMAGES: ALEXEY YAREMENKO

2. An office building after hours,
with one section of motion-
activated lights still lit.
3. A graveyard where certain
headstones have recently
gone missing.
4. The local diner where everyone
comes at least once a week.
5. A grocery store just before closing.
1. Your character is experiencing a
strange sense of déjà vu—which
is odd, because they swear that
they’ve never been here before.
2. Your character witnesses a murder,
but all evidence has disappeared
by the time the police show up.
3. Your character has just received a
confusing (and ominous) email.
object with a note addressed to
them: Guard this with your life.
6. Your character has just discovered
that they’ve made an incredibly
significant mistake. WD
Moriah Richard is managing editor of WD.
Follow her on Twitter @MoriahRichard93.

WritersDigest.com I 17
 INDIELAB
New rules. New strategies. New paths to success.
The 3 Phases of Book Signings
O
nce upon a time, a long,
long time ago, publishers
would send their authors
out on a bookstore tour to publi-
cize their new book. A driver would
meet them at the airport and shuttle
them to the hotel and bookstore.
The authors would speak, maybe
do a reading, and then greet their
fans and sign copies of their book.
Then one day, the dragon publishers
began devouring each other. Money
became tighter as profits slumped.
COVID darkened the land, and
people stayed home. Many authors
turned to self-publishing, feeling
that since they weren’t receiving
extra perks (like book tours), at least
they could control their own destiny
publishing their own works, moving
faster than the normal glacial speed
of traditional publishing houses.
The fairy tale days of the book tour
were over … and eventually, authors
came to realize that they not only
missed tours and the interaction
with fans that they provided, but
they still needed them.
But how does one set up an in-
store book signing? What is the
proper etiquette for this? How do
18 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
you begin? As the bookstore owner
of Dark Delicacies in Burbank,
Calif., for the last 30 years and an
award-winning editor/author, I’ve
seen book signings from both sides
of the table. Let’s break down the
three timeframes: (1) Setting up an
event with a bookstore; (2) What to
expect the day of the signing, along
with what is expected of you; (3)
Post event and follow-up. If all goes
off as planned, it may be the spark
that kicks off a successful book
release. A little common sense and
understanding of these events can
get you a long way.
SETTING UP A SIGNING
The most important thing of all is to
have a book. Sounds silly and basic,
doesn’t it? But you’d be surprised
how many times that fails. This is
one of those points where publish-
ers help you out. If they are repu-
table and give you a release date,
the odds are your book will be out
on that date. Sometimes they can
even arrange a special early release
for a launch event. Work with your
representative. It’s important. If you
self-publish (print-on-demand, or
BY DEL HOWISON
POD), I suggest that you have your
book in hand before you line up
a signing. Many times, books are
delayed or there are mistakes in the
book you are sent, and you have
to have the printer redo them. You
want to get this right because if you
cancel a signing, you may not get
a second opportunity to have that
same bookstore sponsor an event.
Do you have a local book-
store? That’s a good place to start.
Bookstores love the local angle.
But even with that “in” make sure
the store and your book are the
right fit. Your romance novel may
not be greeted with enthusiasm at
the science-fiction store down the
street. Always investigate the store,
whether in person or online, before
trying to line up a signing. That goes
for any store, local or not.
Make it personal. Find out who
in the organization handles signings
and events. Do they prefer a face-to-
face meeting to set it up or will an
email or phone call work? Ask. Be
polite. Bookstores are always ready
to work with authors. Once you
make that connection, consider the
following:
 Find out what the bookstore
will do to publicize the event and
what they expect from you. At Dark
Delicacies, I use social media to get
the word out (Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, our email newsletter,
etc.), plus we do in-store postings of
the event and have a signings event
calendar on our website along with
handouts. But just because we use
all our outlets doesn’t mean you
shouldn’t also use yours. Your social
media reaches an entirely different
audience of friends and colleagues
than we reach with ours. Getting the
word out is key to a successful event.
Push it more than once prior to the
signing, and make people aware of
the event.
Ask what the bookstore will
provide and what you can and can-
not bring. Will the bookstore have
something for you to drink, like
water or coffee? Are you allowed to
bring any food, such as candy, to
hand out? Can you bring buttons,
stickers, or bookmarks with your
information on them? Check with
the store first. We’ve had authors
show up with cupcakes and had
to make them put them away. The
same goes for pizza. Greasy fingers,
icing, and books are not a good
combination.
Is the store ordering the books
or do you have to provide them? If
you bring them, is the store sell-
ing them and taking a percentage,
or are you supposed to have change
and a credit-card reader for your
cell phone? I have run events both
ways. It depends on how the books
are published. Talk to the store. Also
ask if you can bring previous books
to sell that the store might not have
on hand. If you are going to bring a
banner or poster board of the cover
art, make sure the bookstore has
a way to hang or display it. They
make great photo opportunities for
pictures of you with the customers
which can later be posted on your
blog or website.
DAY OF THE SIGNING EVENT
Arrive on time. That means early.
How early depends on how elabo-
rate your setup might be. Do you
have a banner to hang up? Are you
setting out your own books and
giveaway paraphernalia? Sometimes
you may arrive at the bookstore
and find they aren’t as prepared as
you might hope. Do you need an
extra chair for a spouse or guest
you might have mentioned in your
nonfiction book? One of the worst
things is to arrive at exactly the
signing time and then the people in
line wait while you set up.
Did you arrange to do a read-
ing along with the signing? Make
sure that setup is conducive to your
plans. Find out who your contact
person is for the day of the signing
and work with them. Sometimes
messages get crossed. Give yourself
time to work out any glitches. Poorly
run signings don’t bring return cus-
tomers. Be upbeat. Be polite. Work
with the store and the customers.
Maybe you have favorite pens you
like to sign with. Bring them. Don’t
expect the store to provide anything
beyond a table and chairs and you
won’t be disappointed. Most estab-
lishments will bend over backwards
to make this event go off without
a hitch.
When signing, engage with the
customers. Don’t just put your
head down and sign the book. Be
friendly. Don’t spend time talking
to somebody else at the table while
If all goes off as
planned, [a book
signing] may be the
spark that kicks off
a successful book
release. A little
common sense and
understanding of
these events can get
you a long way.
signing. The customer wants to feel
special. Have Post-its for people to
spell their names and double-check
the spelling if you are personalizing
a book. A misspelled name is a big
no-no. Offer a signup sheet to add
folks to your blog mailing list.
WHEN IT’S OVER
Thank your hosts. Leave on a high
note. Let them know if you are
working on any future books. Clean
up your area (i.e., take away what-
ever you brought in with you). Take
the host’s card and stay in touch. If
your book is POD, follow-up in a
couple of weeks to see if they need
to restock the title and offer them
signed copies. Bookstores talk to
each other. You want them to sing
your praises and it will be happy
ever after.
Del Howison is a journalist, author, and
a Bram Stoker Award-winning editor.
His dark Western novel The Survival of
Margaret Thomas was short-listed for
the Peacemaker Award given out by the
Western Fictioneers.
WritersDigest.com I 19
INDIELAB | WORKSHEET

Plan Your Book Signing

1. At what bookstore(s) would like to do a signing? List the contact person and their preferred
method of communication.

2. How will the bookstore sell your book? Do you need to bring copies with you?

3. What promotion/marketing will the bookstore do?

4. What is your own promotion/marketing plan?

5. Aside from a table and chairs, what will the bookstore provide?

6. What supplies or promotional materials do you need to bring with you?

7. Are your website and e-newsletter mailing list up-to-date for post-event site visits and
newsletter sign-ups?

20 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023


Pay to Play; Greedy Givers; FBI
Myths and Misconceptions; FBI
Word Search Puzzles (Police proce-
durals and FBI nonfiction reference;
Money Pit Press)
WHY SELF-PUBLISH? Initially, tradi-
tional publishing was the goal for
my debut FBI crime novel, Pay to
Play. A literary agent with Curtis
Brown, Ltd., who I met at a pitch
fest session, offered me represen-
tation. However, I was devastated
when he couldn’t sell the novel. My
agent and I still believed in my gritty
and raw story about a flawed female
FBI agent investigating corruption
in the Philadelphia strip club indus-
try. When he suggested the literary
agency assist me in self-publishing
it, I agreed. I refused to bury the
manuscript in a drawer. The story
had a redemption theme, so I wrote
a sequel to complete my main char-
acter’s arc. I knew a traditional pub-
lisher wouldn’t be interested in book
two in the series, so I indie pub-
lished that one, too.
I’ve also indie published two
nonfiction books. I knew I had a
ready-made audience for these FBI-
focused books and felt comfortable
using the self-publishing option.
Jerri Williams
INDIE PUBLISHING APPEAL? … I am
intimately involved in every single
aspect of publishing my books. I
select my editors, cover designer, beta
readers, publishing platforms, mar-
keting tools, and promotional venues.
Having full control means taking 100
percent responsibility for the success
or lack of success of the book. That
kind of pressure is not for everyone.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE? Keeping up
with new technology and services.
It’s important to keep up with media
articles and podcasts to learn about
the quickly evolving indie publish-
ing industry.
WISH I’D KNOWN: [That] indie pub-
lishing was an option. If I had, I
would have been disappointed, but
not heartbroken, when my first lit-
erary agent couldn’t sell my debut
novel. We celebrate amazingly suc-
cessful indie films and indie music,
but indie publishing is only now
being highlighted as a legitimate
publishing pathway.
MARKETING STRATEGY: I’ve never
used paid advertising to market
my books. That’s because I have a
secret weapon: my podcast, “FBI
Retired Case File Review.” … Since
INDIELAB | AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT
BY AMY JONES
the main characters in my books are
FBI agents, I decided to produce and
host a podcast featuring interviews
with retired FBI agents to introduce
potential readers to my books. Now
more than seven years later, the pod-
cast has nearly 300 episodes which
have been downloaded nearly 9 mil-
lion times. [It’s] about true crime
cases, but I invite listeners who are
also interested in crime fiction to join
my reader team where I share infor-
mation about my author journey,
recommend books, and review an
FBI TV show or movie for teachable
moments on how to create authentic
FBI plots and characters.
My nonfiction book, FBI Myths
and Misconceptions: A Manual for
Armchair Detectives is my best-
selling book. … I realized what most
people knew about the FBI came
from popular culture. FBI Myths
and Misconceptions debunks 20
clichés and falsehoods about FBI
personnel and procedures by pre-
senting educational reality checks
supported by excerpts from the
FBI website, quotes from retired
agent guests from the podcast, and
reviews of popular films and fiction
featuring FBI agent characters.
This book has led to me present-
ing about creating authentic FBI
characters to writer’s groups and at
conferences, and to contracts as an
FBI consultant on TV shows such as
Class of ’09 on Hulu and the upcom-
ing Duster on Max with creator and
executive producer J.J. Abrams and
showrunner LaToya Morgan.
WEBSITE: JerriWilliams.com WD
Amy Jones is editor-in-chief of WD.
WritersDigest.com I 21
 WD101
Making sense of the publishing world.
BY WHITNEY HILL
Demystifying the Author Website
O
ne of the biggest things
writers hear about is the
importance of build-
ing a platform. Generally, this has
been translated as “grow a big social
media following.” While “writer
lifts” and “follow trains” seem like
an easy way to build a platform, it’s
not enough. First, inflating follower
counts with people who likely aren’t
interested in buying your books
doesn’t do you any favors. And sec-
ond, authors who focus exclusively
on growing social media followings
open themselves to risk—as we’ve
seen with the recent upheaval
on Twitter.
However, platform can also be a
strong organic search presence to
grow monthly web traffic, which
takes time to develop. This is why
setting up a website earlier in your
writing journey and not relying only
on social media is so important.
WHY AUTHORS NEED
WEBSITES
While social media offers a relatively
quick and easy way to set up an
online presence, none of us actually
owns our place there. We—our data
and attention—are the product, and
22 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
the terms of service can shift at any
time. Additionally, social media
was originally social networking,
intended to connect people and
not necessarily to drive sales
or entertain.
Having a website not only pro-
vides a single location for engag-
ing with you, but it also opens new
opportunities for discovery and
creates a space you own for sharing
everything you’re working so hard
on. It serves as your online hub for
the three big Cs of the web: content,
communication, and commerce.
A single site can host your:
• Video, image, and text content,
including blogs and book info
• Lead generation efforts (e.g.
newsletter sign-ups)
• Online store
• Bio and other key information
about you
• Areas of expertise or openness
to opportunities
• Contact information, which
would include social media
Before getting started, here are a
few things to consider.
DOMAIN: Think about what you
want to be found for and what your
long-term needs may be. Many
authors find themselves adding
other income streams, like freelance
writing or speaking, as they progress
in their writing careers. Choosing
YourNameBooks.com as your
domain might limit the understand-
ing people have of what you offer.
Choosing YourBookSeriesName
.com as your domain separates you,
the author, from your online sign-
post, and assumes you will only
ever write books in that series. Give
yourself flexibility to grow, pivot, or
stop doing something in the future
without having to set up or close
a website.
BUDGET: Having your own web-
site can be free, or you can spend
hundreds of dollars per year for
something with fancy features. If
you’re planning to pay for your
ILLUSTRATIONS © GETTY IMAGES: SUDOWOODO, GMM2000
website from your writing income,
keep in mind that this income will
fluctuate with demand shifts related
to seasonality and trends—not to
mention macroeconomic conditions
like inflation.
FUNCTIONALITY: Knowing what
you want to use your website for
will help determine what kind of
functionality you need for it. If all
you want is an “about” page and a
list of your work, you can get away
with a simple website. But if you
want to collect emails or sell books
on your site, you’ll need to decide
whether you want to do that via the
website itself or a third party. You’ll
also need to consider any financial
and legal obligations for your juris-
diction, like taxes for sales or data
protection laws for gathering visitor
data (including web analytics and
emails). You can always start small
and add features and functionality
as you need them.
OPTIONS FOR GETTING
STARTED
Setting up a website doesn’t have
to be expensive. Platforms like
WordPress allow you to get started
for free if you’re willing to figure
out some things yourself, although
you’ll need to pay if you want to
have your own domain and hosting.
A mid-range option would be
something like Squarespace, which
costs more up front but reduces the
amount you need to figure out to do
things like add a store or connect
an email service. Platforms like this
often have a WYSIWYG (“what you
see is what you get,” pronounced
whizzy-wig) editor that allows you
to edit the text and design of your
site with drag-and-drop modules, so
you don’t need to know any code to
build a nice website.
The most expensive option is
usually hiring a web developer to do
a custom website. While this could
be a good choice for those with dis-
posable income and zero interest in
learning how websites work, it is a
big up-front investment that may
not be the right choice if you’re just
starting out. You could also do a
hybrid option, where a web designer
creates a website for you in a plat-
form like WordPress or Squarespace
and then hands it off to you for
ongoing management.
In addition to getting started
with the website itself, there are
factors to consider for the ongoing
maintenance, growth, and con-
tent management, including search
engine optimization (SEO), content
updates, and managing forms or
stores. These can be hired out or not
done at all. But if you intend to have
your website as the powerhouse
behind your digital marketing, it’s
worth thinking about whether you
want to learn at least the basics for
yourself before getting started.
PUTTING YOUR WEBSITE
TO WORK
Investing the time and money into
a website means it’s important to
make it work for you. There are a
few ways to do this.
ANALYTICS: If you use an analyt-
ics platform, you can gather infor-
mation about who’s visiting your
site once you have enough traffic.
This can help you get a better idea
of who your audience is and inform
everything from design choices to
what you write next. It can also help
with ad targeting.
LEAD GENERATION: Adding
opportunities to sign up for a
newsletter is just one way to build
up an email list. You could also
offer downloads like free e-books
or guides, host webinars, or share
exclusive bonus content. Just
remember to keep your offering
focused on your audience. Many
writers create content for other
writers (both on social media and
on their websites), and then won-
der why it doesn’t sell their fiction
books. If your goal is to sell your
novels, then think about what kind
of extra and exclusive content read-
ers would enjoy. Also be sure to
match the amount of information
you’re asking for to the value of
the offer.
SALES: Depending on which
website builder you use, you might
have the option to include a store
or membership subscription as part
of your plan. If not, you might need
to set up on a separate platform like
Payhip. Having your own store sup-
ports you in the same way having
your own website does. If a third-
party retailer like Amazon or Barnes
& Noble went away or suspended
your account, you’d still be able to
sell your own books. Not only that,
but direct sales mean you keep most
or all of what you charge.
If these additional steps seem
overwhelming, that’s OK! Take
things slow. The great thing about
building your own website is that
you can decide what you need
and when.
Setting up your own website can
seem overwhelming and unneces-
sary. However, the greater control
over online presence and expanded
opportunities for discovery and
sales make it well worth it for writ-
ers intending to sell their work. WD
Whitney Hill (WhitneyHillWrites.com) is
the author of the Shadows of Otherside
fantasy series and the Otherside Heat
paranormal romance series. Her books
have won the grand prize in the 8th Annual
WD Self-Published E-Book Awards and
made Kirkus Reviews’ Top 100 Indie Books
list. You can find Whitney hiking in state
parks or on Twitter and Instagram @write_
wherever.
WritersDigest.com I 23
WRITERSONWRITING
Lydia Kiesling
I
was about a third of the way
through my second novel when
the pandemic started, but I
didn’t know it. I knew I had no plot,
just a series of scenes and inter-
ludes, and that I also had a 2-year-
old and a 5-year-old at home, no
childcare, and nowhere safe to take
them. For several months, the thou-
sands of words I had accumulated
of the project sat dark on my laptop.
I couldn’t bring myself to address
them, even in those precious
moments when the children were
occupied, because I didn’t know
The Story.
I’d approached my first novel as
a mysterious thing to be wrested
out of my consciousness, guided
only by a vague idea of a place and
feeling I wanted to describe, and
a notion that I needed to sit down
and produce 1,000 words every day.
Because that strategy had eventu-
ally resulted in a novel, I tried to go
about my second novel the same
way. I wrote and wrote, started over
three times, and waited for a story to
appear. With my first novel, the full
story announced itself maybe two-
thirds of the way through the writ-
ing. When the pandemic started, the
second novel was embryonic. For a
while it just sat, and every so often, I
thought about it mournfully.
After five months of grim grind-
ing through intensive pandemic
parenting, our preschool reopened,
and I booked a cheap cabin an hour
outside the city where I lived to
spend three days writing. Writing
24 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
was not, in my previous life, some-
thing I always enjoyed or looked
forward to—more like something
I knew I needed to do and enjoyed
having done. But I had been strug-
gling at home, and so the writ-
ing became bundled up with the
opportunity to escape my domestic
situation. I arrived at the tiny cabin
and immediately sat down to write
on the rickety garden table, the sun
shining down on me. It felt like
It was that trip where I understood a
drinking water from a spring in the
major shift my character needed to
middle of the desert.
make, one that would organize the
Ten thousand words poured
book and give a narrative purpose
out, and because I had been so
to the hitherto aimless meander I
parched—spiritually speaking—I
had been taking through one wom-
let my consciousness do whatever
an’s life. I was now addicted to the
it wanted, rather than worry about
idea of finishing this book. I went
my lack of story. I ended up writing
away again the following month,
scenes in a completely new location
thanks to an encouraging co-parent.
that I personally as a writer wanted
And then in June, September, and
to be in, putting my character some-
January, and then, miraculously, it
where I’d never thought to put her
was done, or done enough. I sold
before. I got a vacation, and my
the book in March of 2022.
character did, too. This expanded
Even now, with my children
my understanding of who she was
physically in school and my soul
and what motivated her. (I, appar-
less hemmed-in, I sometimes yearn
ently, was motivated by leaving my
for the feeling of escape that charac-
family and being able to do what-
terized this pandemic writing pro-
ever I wanted for three days.)
cess. I hope I’m not writing my third
I went home and strapped in for
book in the same circumstances,
the year of online kindergarten for
but I hope I can remember its les-
my oldest—an experience that left
sons: trust my imperfect process and
everyone miserable. From August
embrace the mystery that is writing
to March, I didn’t open the docu-
a story into being. WD
ment. Then in the spring I decided
to escape again. I went back to the
same cabin, now with snow on the Lydia Kiesling is the author of The Golden
ground, and typed up a storm, let- State, a 2018 National Book Foundation
ting my pent-up brain do its thing. “5 under 35” honoree, and Mobility (2023).
 MEET THEAGENT
BY KARA GEBHART UHL

Dani Segelbaum
CAROL MANN AGENCY

D
ani Segelbaum was born and raised in Minneapolis ABOUT ME
and has been a voracious reader for as long as she “I make handcrafted ice cream.”
can remember. Studying journalism and politi-
“The farmer’s market is my
cal science, Segelbaum graduated from Boston University’s happy place.”
College of Communication and began her publishing career “I have a dog named
as an editorial assistant at HarperCollins Publishers, focusing Dottie.”
primarily on highly designed nonfiction titles. Prior to joining
Carol Mann Agency in 2021, she got a taste for agenting as a FAVORITE
literary assistant at New Leaf Literary & Media, working with
DRINK: Coffee QUOTE: “I am a strong
established and debut authors. believer in listening and
LIVING AUTHORS:
“I love collaborating and working with authors to achieve learning from others.”
Colson Whitehead,
their dreams,” Segelbaum says. “In both fiction and nonfic- Hanya Yanagihara, Ann —Ruth Bader Ginsburg
tion, my goal is to always work with authors from diverse Patchett, “… too many PLACE: Wild Rumpus Books
backgrounds. I’m drawn to writing that is voice-driven, highly to choose from!” in Minneapolis, “Not only
transporting, and features unique perspectives and marginal- DEAD AUTHORS: Edith is it a fantastic bookstore
ized voices.” Wharton, “I read Ethan but you’ll also find dogs,
Frome in middle school chickens, and other
You can find Segelbaum online at CarolMannAgency.com and fell in love with her assorted creatures roaming
and on social media @danisegelbaum. writing.” the shop. It’s magical.”

LIFE IN A NUTSHELL
CLIENTS “Midwesterner, dog lover, always reading,
JUDITH L. PEARSON , author of Crusade to Heal America: The often baking.”
Remarkable Life of Mary Lasker (Mayo Clinic Press, forthcoming
2023)
MOST PROUD MENTOR OR
AUDREY INGRAM , author of The River Runs South (Alcove Press, OF ROLE MODEL
forthcoming 2023)
“Starting my own “My dad. He is always
MATT EICHELDINGER , author of Matt Sprouts and the Curse of list and making the a phone call away when
Ten Broken Toes (Andrews McMeel Publishing, forthcoming 2024) decision to become I need advice. He often
a full-time agent. It’s says, ‘Try not to get
scary but incredibly discouraged. It will all turn
SEEKING rewarding.” out OK. Trust me.’”
Nonfiction with an emphasis on politics, women’s
issues, popular culture, and current events. Also,
memoir, narrative nonfiction, lifestyle, and cookbooks. PITCH TIPS
Literary and upmarket adult fiction including debut, historical, “Include comp titles. They are super important.”
rom-coms, mysteries, and women’s fiction. “Be concise. Sometimes less is more.”
“Include a short author bio. I want to
QUERY PET PEEVES know who you are.”
ILLUSTRATIONS © GETTY IMAGES: FLEAZ

“Not following directions. My submission guidelines

are on the CMA website.” DREAM CLIENT
“Querying me with a genre I do not rep.” Michelle Obama
“When an author only talks about themselves and not the book.”

Kara Gebart Uhl is a writer, editor, and author of Cadi & the Cursed Oak (Lost Art Press).

WritersDigest.com I 25
BREAKINGIN
Debut authors: How they did it, what they learned, and why you can do it, too.
Rachel Runya
Katz
Thank You for
Sharing
(Romance, September,
St. Martin’s Griffin)
“A chemistry-filled childhood
friends to enemies to lovers debut
romance about two people forced
to confront their pasts to save both
their relationship and careers.”
WRITES FROM: Currently, Seattle,
but I wrote TYFS while living in
Durham, N.C. PRE-TYFS: In college,
I took some creative writing classes,
but I mostly wrote short stories.
TYFS is the first full-length novel
I’ve ever written, and the idea for
the first scene popped into my head
when I was deep in a contemporary
romance novel binge in early 2021.
TIME FRAME: I started writing this
book in 2021 before the COVID
vaccine was available. I do scien-
tific research, which requires me to
be at work in person, so my lab-
mates and I were working in shifts
to avoid close contact. I would go
into my early shift, pack as much
work into as short a period of time
as I could, and then go home to eat
and read. Later, write. Because I was
very isolated at the time, I was able
to spend a lot of my time writing. I
think the first draft was only three
to four months of work. ENTER THE
26 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
AGENT: My agent is Jessica Mileo at
InkWell Management, and I found
her through good old-fashioned que-
rying. I liked her agency, thought that
both the book I already had and the
books I’d want to write in the future
fit perfectly into her manuscript wish
list, and from her social media pres-
ence, I thought I’d like her as a per-
son. I was right! BIGGEST SURPRISE:
Learning to navigate writing as a
business as well as an art has been an
adjustment—your book doesn’t just
need to be good, it needs to be mar-
ketable. WHAT I DID RIGHT: I wrote
what I wanted to write and got lucky
that some publishing professionals’
tastes overlapped with mine. The big-
gest thing beyond that is I was willing
to accept feedback. The very first ver-
sion of TYFS didn’t sell on submis-
sion, and Jessica and I worked to craft
a more “hooky” premise and plot. I
implemented those changes, and the
book sold a few months later. WHAT
I WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY: I
would have made an outline before
I started writing. With my second
book, I’m learning that it helps quite a
bit. ADVICE FOR WRITERS: Sprinting!
BY MICHAEL WOODSON
I learned this tip from Ava Wilder.
When I need to write but I’m feeling
unsure where to start, I set a timer
for 20 minutes and just write, no dis-
tractions, no stopping to think, no
editing as I go. It really helps me turn
off the part of my brain that con-
stantly worries about whether what
I’m writing is good, which can ulti-
mately inhibit my creativity and my
productivity. NEXT UP: I’m working
on my next book, which is set to be
published in 2024. It features a sap-
phic couple and a road trip. WEBSITE:
RachelRunyaKatz.com
Em X. Liu
The Death I
Gave Him
(Science fiction,
September, Solaris)
“A locked room thriller retelling of
Shakespeare’s Hamlet.”
WRITES FROM: Toronto PRE-DEATH:
KATZ PHOTO © PATRICK WILSON
I’ve had a fascination with Hamlet
since high school. Coming up with
different interpretations of the
story—Hamlet, but in the Soviet
Union; Hamlet, but as a Chinese
 drama; Hamlet, but in space!—had
been a creative exercise of mine for
a while leading up to this novel.
TIME FRAME: I started drafting in
my third year of undergrad in the
middle of my lab year. I was work-
ing on my biochemistry thesis at
the same time. TDIGH is largely
speculative, but the lab environment
(claustrophobic, tense, every moment
brimming with either possibility
or disaster) is all based on personal
experience. ENTER THE AGENT: My
agent Penelope Burns is usually the
first person who sees my drafts these
days, and I trust her taste implicitly.
We first connected through a pitch-
ing contest, actually for [a] fantasy
novel that didn’t end up panning out.
When I queried her with TDIGH, she
remembered that first query and was
happy to see newer material from me.
So, it happens! When agents say they
would love to see future projects, they
really do mean it. BIGGEST SURPRISE:
The best and most reliable thing to
develop is a good ear for your own
work. I don’t mean to say to never
listen to anyone! But I’m more con-
fident in my own vision these days,
which helps me incorporate feed-
back to honor the version of the
novel I set out to write, rather than
simply to make someone else happy.
WHAT I DID RIGHT: I made amazing,
supportive, and talented friends who
made the journey less harrowing,
and I kept writing. WHAT I WOULD
HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY: The pub-
lishing journey for TDIGH ended
up being longer than I thought
it would be … but honestly, I am
grateful for the time it took because
SANDERS PHOTO © DAVID CHOY
it really allowed me to build com-
munity and adjust my expectations.
And it gave me the time to develop
my voice as an author, to really fig-
ure out—at least for now—what I
want the shape of my career to look
like. ADVICE FOR WRITERS: The only
rule I have is to “do things for rea-
sons”—writing at its root is putting
down a series of words, one after the
other, and which words you choose
in which specific context is going to
inform how an audience perceives
the embedded meaning. NEXT UP:
I’m currently working on my second
novel—a sci-fi epic about a galactic
dynasty and those plotting its down-
fall, where the emperor’s centennial
invites a mix of loyalists, rebels, and
ambitious traitors to the same lonely
space station. Essentially, it is a
court drama, but in space. WEBSITE:
EmDashLiu.com
Shannon
Sanders
Company
(Story collection,
October, Graywolf Press)
“Company is a collection of 13
linked short stories following three
generations of one family of Black
entrepreneurs, academics, and flail-
ing millennials.”
WRITES FROM: Silver Spring, Md.
(near Washington, D.C.) PRE-
COMPANY: … I had published a
few short stories, some of which
wound up appearing in the first
draft of Company, in various
literary magazines by the time
Graywolf acquired the manuscript
in December 2021. TIME FRAME: I
started these 13 short stories around
2016; the title story was one of the
earliest ones I wrote. As of spring
2020, I had around six completed.
I wrote most of the individual
stories quickly, in a few days each
(not including edits)! But as the
pandemic turned everything upside
down, I found myself working
full-time from home without
childcare (and expecting twins
…), and things slowed down
considerably. ENTER THE AGENT:
My agent Reiko Davis (of DeFiore
& Company) actually approached
me! In early 2020, I learned that my
story “The Good, Good Men” (the
first story in Company) won a PEN/
Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for
Emerging Writers. Reiko … reached
out to me shortly after the award
was announced, asking whether I
was working on a book-length work.
BIGGEST SURPRISE: … What a long
process it is. After I signed the deal
with Graywolf, there were months
when I didn’t yet have edits to work
on, no cover art to consider, nothing
but anticipation. … I had to learn
how to have a new relationship with
the book, which I’d been working on
steadily for years at that point. WHAT
I DID RIGHT: I got incredibly lucky
with the PEN/Dau prize, which
helped me catch the attention of my
agent. That was largely out of my
hands, but one thing I did right was
to request that the magazine that
published my debut story nominate
me during that awards cycle. … The
magazine was happy to nominate
me, and the win brought some nice
attention to them too. WHAT I WOULD
HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY: I’d make
sure to have another project to
actively work on during some of the
quieter stretches of the publishing
process. ADVICE FOR WRITERS:
Follow the heat. Write what excites
you and use the pleasure of writing
to find momentum. NEXT UP: I’m
working on a novel. WEBSITE:
ShannonSandersWrites.com WD
Michael Woodson is the content editor
of WD. Find him on Twitter @MWoodson
Writes.
WritersDigest.com I 27
 FACING THE MYSTERIOUS

WRITER’S DIGEST 2023 ANNUAL

IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: YOSUKE HASEGAWA

LITERARY AGENT ROUNDUP

21 literary agents share what kind of submissions they’d like to
see in their inboxes and their querying preferences.
BY AMY JONES

28 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023

 here’s a lot to consider
T before querying, including
researching which literary
agents are right for you, hunting
down their querying preferences,
and making sure your submission
materials are at their most polished.
This roundup aims to make things
easier by finding agents open to sub-
missions and getting the details you
need to see if they’d be a good fit for
you. The agents listed here represent
a variety of genres in both fiction
and nonfiction, have a wide variety
of experience, and have different
agenting styles, so you can consider
who might work best with you.
This year, we asked the agents
to demystify something about the
publishing industry or what it’s like
to work with an agent. Even if you
don’t find your dream agent in this
roundup, these bits of advice and
tips for writers may help you refine
what you’re looking for and how to
ask the right questions when you do.
EDITOR’S NOTE: While we make
every effort to ensure the infor-
mation presented is accurate
at the time of printing and that
agents will be open to submis-
sions when this issue is on sale,
unexpected changes or closures
may occur.
Kelly Bergh
(she/her)
Lucinda Literary
NEW YORK, N.Y.
LUCINDALITERARY.COM
@KEL_BERGH
NONFICTION INTERESTS: Smart takes
on mind/body/spirit topics—every-
thing from teaching the tarot to cul-
tivating creativity to figuring out how
to live your dharma. Think hippy-
dippy but make it science. My ideal
authors are professors and journalists
who are comfortable both conduct-
ing research and translating dense
data into language we can all under-
stand. I’d like to help make esoteric
topics more approachable. RECENT
SALES: I opened to queries in May,
so I’m currently knee-deep in refin-
ing proposals to submit to editors.
DOES NOT WANT: I am not interested
in fiction at this time, and I’m not
the best fit for true crime or biogra-
phies. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Please
review the categories I represent on
my Manuscript Wish List profile at
ManuscriptWishList.com/mswl
-post/kelly-bergh. If you believe your
work matches what I represent, visit
LucindaLiterary.com/submissions
for instructions on querying me.
DEMYSTIFY THIS: Most agents don’t
have a holier-than-thou attitude. We
love books as much as you do, and
we want to represent authors who are
not only writing good books, but who
are also pleasant to work with. When
querying agents, speak to us like peo-
ple, not gatekeepers. The more per-
sonable you are toward us, the more
helpful we want to be to you.
Amy Elizabeth
Bishop (she/her)
Dystel, Goderich
& Bourret
NEW YORK, N.Y.
DYSTEL.COM
@AMYLIZBISHOP
FICTION INTERESTS: Upmarket fic-
tion, book club fiction, stories with
an element of mystery or suspense,
and fiction from BIPOC and AAPI
authors. I want stories written by,
about, and for women, especially
women from communities whose
stories aren’t told. I need a pro-
pulsive plot married with beauti-
ful writing. I’d love more upmarket
and book club fiction generally, but
specifically from women of color,
especially ones that are capers, joy-
ful romps, and family dramas. I
want more immigrant stories, more
stories set in the aftermath of a big
event. If you can marry art and sci-
ence, I’m interested. NONFICTION
INTERESTS: Nonfiction that deals
with contemporary issues or dis-
cussions, pop science, psychology,
sociology, cultural criticism, female-
driven historical narrative nonfic-
tion. RECENT SALES: Water Moon
by Samantha Sotto Yambao; In the
Land of Ten Thousand Mountains
by Helena Rho; Nine Months in
Manzanar by Tracy Slater; Yellow
Fever Hustler by Kaila Yu; Catch
Her If You Can by Annie Reed.
DOES NOT WANT: Cozy mysteries,
political/legal thrillers, crime fic-
tion, novels involving PI’s or the
military, picture books, middle-
grade (MG), high fantasy, or super
literary or experimental work.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Please use
QueryManager—queries sent via
email will be deleted. You can find
instructions at: QueryManager.com
/query/amylizbishop. Please note
that our agency shares material
internally, so if we think your work
could be a good fit for another
agent here, we’ll pass it on to them.
Therefore, we ask that you do not
submit to multiple agents at the
agency or re-query other DG&B
agents if one turns you down.
DEMYSTIFY THIS: Your query is
not the be-all and end-all. It is an
important step in the process—a
thoughtful query letter indicates to
WritersDigest.com I 29
FACING THE MYSTERIOUS
us that you’re taking this process
seriously, have done your research,
and could be a good, dedicated part-
ner to work with. But what matters
to us is the work—you can write
a brilliant query letter, but if your
pages aren’t polished or where they
need to be, it won’t matter.
Lauren Bittrich
(she/her; Hon:
Miss)
Lucinda Literary
NEW YORK, N.Y.
LUCINDALITERARY.COM/
@LAURENBITTRICH
FICTION INTERESTS: Dark fiction, any-
thing particularly twisted or disturb-
ing (think Baby Teeth and Mexican
Gothic), but I also love narratives
that grapple with mortality and the
fragility of life. I love compulsive
reads with strong women characters
causing trouble for powerful men.
NONFICTION INTERESTS: Similar to
my taste in fiction, I love the strange
and unusual in the nonfiction space.
Exploring offbeat and taboo topics
(mortuaries, the death and dying
industry—think Caitlin Doughty),
ghosthunter memoirs—anything
that people will say “Huh, yeah,
never thought I wanted/needed to
know about that,” is for me. I tend to
gravitate toward writers with uncon-
ventional lives who have stories
about them. I love a fellow oddball
with an excellent sense of humor
who isn’t afraid of or apologetic
about who they are. That said, if I
think a story is particularly impor-
tant and timely, I’ll chase it. Lucinda
Literary is lovely because it lets me
chase projects I feel will make the
literary ecosystem (and hopefully
30 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
our society) a better, more equitable
space. We’re a pretty justice-minded
group. RECENT SALES: I co-repped
a title that went to Post Hill Press
called Women Who Walk with my
excellent colleague, Connor Eck. It’s
a self-help book by Sara McElroy
for women who want to pave their
own professional paths by leaving a
job that no longer serves them and
finding one that will. … In a book
I always like to pitch as “Friday
Night Lights” meets Big Little Lies,
Break the Glass by Olivia Swindler
went to Lake Union and is about
a collegiate sports scandal where
four women find themselves in the
middle of an internal investigation
that threatens to upend their lives. I
also just sold a book to Page Street
Kids called At the End of the River
Styx by a powerhouse writer named
Michelle Kulwicki. It’s part queer
love story, part meditation on grief
and sacrifice, and entirely smart.
DOES NOT WANT: Biographies, his-
tory books, and anything that skews
a little academic. I think those take
a special kind of reader, and even
though I find them personally inter-
esting, I don’t feel confident enough
to represent them the way they
deserve. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: We
accept submissions only through
QueryManager and don’t respond
to phone, social media, or printed
queries. To submit to any of LL’s
agents, please click their name on
our website to access the agent’s
individual QueryManager form.
Please only submit to one of us at a
time, and please don’t send anything
to our personal or business emails
(or social media) unless explicitly
requested. DEMYSTIFY THIS: I always
say finding an agent is like dat-
ing. Sometimes it takes 10 queries,
sometimes it takes 100, but rejection
is rarely because we think you’re a
bad writer—we just don’t think we’re
the best fit. So, don’t get discouraged
when it feels like everyone around
you is receiving offers and you’re
still querying!
Alicia Brooks
(she/her; Hon:
Ms.)
The Jean V. Naggar
Literary Agency
NEW YORK, N.Y.
JVNLA.COM
@ALIREADER
FICTION INTERESTS: Fiction from
which I can learn something enrich-
ing, new, and feel transported. I
relish literary fiction with high
concepts, original voices, and imagi-
native structure that has the poten-
tial to be picked up by book clubs.
Other genres that excite me include
historical fiction, upmarket fiction,
speculative fiction, horror, magi-
cal realism, thrillers, and YA fiction.
NONFICTION INTERESTS: I have an
everlasting love of memoir, curios-
ity about narrative nonfiction from
writers with diverse backgrounds,
and a fervor for pop culture. RECENT
SALES: The Resurrectionist: A YA
Novel by Kathleen Allen (Roaring
Brook Press, spring 2025); A Play
About a Curse: A Novel by Caroline
BITTRICH HEADSHOT © LOGAN PRATT PHOTOGRAPHYY
Macon Fleischer (Clash Books,
March 2025); The Cheesemaker’s
Daughter: A Novel by Kristin
Vuković (Regalo Press, August
2024). SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Visit JVNLA.com and click “How
to Submit” for details. DEMYSTIFY
THIS: It often takes persistence and
patience—from the agent and the
 author—before a deal is made. The
submission process is subjective. It’s
my job to make the right match for
my clients. This involves a lot of net-
working, so I can get to know edi-
tors’ tastes.
Even if an editor falls in love with
a submission, though, they don’t
always get their editorial board’s
buy-in to make an offer. Many
times it has come down to my being
extremely persistent and optimistic
that my authors’ projects will find a
good home.
Johanna V.
Castillo (she/her)
Writers House
NEW YORK, N.Y.
WRITERSHOUSE.COM
@JCASTILLOBOOKS
FICTION INTERESTS: Adult histori-
cal, book club, and upmarket fiction.
NONFICTION INTERESTS: Narrative
nonfiction about unexplored historic
events or hidden historical figures are
my favorite. RECENT SALES: Two non-
fiction projects and a beautiful histor-
ical novel. My clients include authors
such as Isabel Allende, Reyna Grande,
Naina Kumar, Armando Lucas
Correa, and Samanta Schweblin.
DOES NOT WANT: Poetry, hard sci-
ence fiction, fantasy, strong horror.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: If you think
I would be interested in your work,
please send me your query letter and
the first five pages (or up to the first
chapter) of your manuscript in the
CASTILLO HEADSHOT © LORI BARRA
body of an email (no attachments,
please) to jcastillosubmissions
@writershouse.com. DEMYSTIFY THIS:
You don’t need to have previously
published work or have an MFA to
become a published author.
Jemiscoe “Jem”
Chambers-Black
(she/her)
Andrea Brown
Literary Agency
CALIFORNIA
ANDREABROWNLIT.COM
@JEMISCOE
FICTION INTERESTS: MG, YA, and
adult manuscripts. I would love to
see an MG rom-com where comedy
meets first crushes, first hand-
holding, and first kisses. In YA, I’m
open to finding more contemporary
with a strong emotional hook and
I’m really excited about thrillers.
In adult, I love love stories, so I am
wide open for romance. I’d also
love to find mystery, and maybe
some thriller, in this age group as
well. RECENT SALES: A romance
titled Let’s Call a Truce by Amy
Buchanan, a picture book inspired
by Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in
Time’s famous quote, “Stay angry,
little Meg,” titled Stay Angry, Little
Girl by Michelle Jing Chan, and
another picture book titled Perfect
Is Not Perfect by Laan Cham,
about a perfectionist panda who
realizes there might be something
special hidden in imperfection.
DOES NOT WANT: I’m not the best
editorial partner for science fiction.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: You can
find the submission guidelines for
our agency here: AndreaBrownLit
.com/submissions. DEMYSTIFY THIS:
Not every agent or agency is cut
from the same cloth. Meaning, some
agents are editorial and some are
not. Some share their submission
lists and some don’t. Neither is right
nor wrong. However, I believe all
client-agent partnerships should
be collaborative and reciprocal. To
have the healthiest partnership,
and because publishing can be a
hard, slow journey, make sure you
understand what type of agent you
are looking for. During your initial
call, ask hard questions. I know
you’re nervous. But guess what? So
are most agents; we want to work
with you and we’re hoping you say
“yes!” There is a lot of work to write
and sell your book, so make sure
their business practices align with
what you need to feel confident
and succeed.
Farley Chase
(him/his)
Chase Literary
Agency
NEW YORK, N.Y.
CHASELITERARY.COM
FICTION INTERESTS: Novels about
people (or orcs, for that matter)
struggling to come to terms with
their circumstances, whether it’s
their family, their community, their
work, or how they see themselves.
It can be anything or anyone (even
orcs), but it needs to be describ-
able in one sentence. Yes, the query
will be longer than the one sen-
tence, but an author does them-
selves and their readers a great
service if they can take control of
that first impression and demon-
strate an awareness of how to distil
their work at the top of the query.
This is what the agent will do when
seeking out editors for your book
and what publishers will do when
selling it in to stores and for review.
Agents (and editors) have all the
time in the world to read great fic-
tion. Agents and editors don’t have
all the time in the world to read
WritersDigest.com I 31
FACING THE MYSTERIOUS
meandering queries. Give your-
self an advantage and commit to
something concise and compelling
at the top of your query. I’m keen
to see material from authors of all
backgrounds and points of view,
especially marginalized. (Maybe
not orcs, though). I’m keen to see
graphic novels, too. NONFICTION
INTERESTS: Narratives with begin-
nings, middles, and ends that tell
us something new about something
we think we know. I love memoir,
journalism, history, natural his-
tory, science, military, business,
or travelogue. I love expertise that
helps me understand the world or
a subject better. As with fiction, I’m
keen to see material from authors
of all backgrounds and points
of view, especially marginalized.
Graphic novels in nonfiction are of
real interest. RECENT SALES: Finding
Olmsted: A Journey Through the
Slave South and the Untold Story
of Central Park by Sara Zewde
(Scribner); All the Beauty in the
World: The Metropolitan Museum
of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley
(S&S); Outer Sunset: A Novel by
Mark Ernest Pothier (University
of Iowa Press); Hidden Systems:
Water, Electricity, the Internet,
and the Secrets Behind the Systems
We Use Every Day by Dan Nott
(Random House Graphic). DOES
NOT WANT: YA novels, sci-fi, pic-
ture books. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Fiction queries ideally begin with
a one-sentence pitch line and
two paragraphs of description.
Please include the first 5–10 pages
of the novel beneath the query.
Attachments and links are too
risky to open so don’t rely on them.
Nonfiction queries require more
information about the author’s
32 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
background, writing experience,
and expertise. Ideally queries show
a familiarity with my list and the
marketplace. Visit ChaseLiterary
.com and click “Submissions” for
details. DEMYSTIFY THIS: The pro-
cess of finding an agent is nearly
identical to the process of an agent
finding that author a publisher.
The process of finding a publisher
is nearly identical to the process a
publisher undertakes to find your
book a readership. All of us need
to be extremely clever about how
we try to persuade readers to spend
their time and money on our sto-
ries. And that starts with the writer.
Reiko Davis
(she/her/hers;
Hon: Ms.)
DeFiore and
Company
MANHATTAN
DEFLITERARY.COM
IG: @REIKODAVIS
FICTION INTERESTS: High-concept,
genre-bending literary fiction;
character- and idea-driven fiction
steeped in a specificity of voice
and place; family sagas and
coming-of-age stories that grapple
with identity and belonging and
portray diverse lived experiences;
poets exploring other forms; MG
novels that are contemporary
realistic, historical, or grounded
sci-fi/fantasy—and often have
a community activism bent.
NONFICTION INTERESTS: Memoir
and narrative nonfiction that
explore social justice, issues of race
and gender, and the history and
experiences of women and people
of color; journalistic narratives
that read like fiction or that use an
intimate personal story as a lens
for a larger issue or analysis; MG
nonfiction in the areas of mental
health, science, political activism,
environmentalism, and narrative
history; select adult illustrated
humor books, graphic memoir,
and guided journals. RECENT
SALES: White House Clubhouse, a
debut MG series by Sean O’Brien,
former speechwriter to then-Vice
President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill
Biden (Norton Young Readers);
Company, a debut linked story
collection by PEN/Robert J. Dau
Short Story Prize winner Shannon
Sanders (Graywolf); and Mayor
of the Tenderloin, an immersive
narrative about community activist
Del Seymour and his innovative
organization Code Tenderloin in
San Francisco, by oral historian
Alison Owings (Beacon Press).
DOES NOT WANT: Genre category
fiction (romance, thriller, mystery,
sci-fi/fantasy) or highly prescriptive
nonfiction. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
I ask to see a query letter and
an author bio. For fiction and
memoir, I also want to receive the
first 20 pages of the manuscript
pasted in the body of the email.
For nonfiction that’s not memoir, I
also want to receive the proposal’s
overview and a competitive analysis
section pasted in the body of the
email. DEMYSTIFY THIS: The querying
process can feel overwhelming
to writers, and I understand how
challenging it must be to sift
through the vast number of literary
agents and agencies. The key is
identifying the right resources
to research agents thoroughly so
you’re informed and targeting
agents for a specific reason. The
quality of your research will serve
you better than the quantity of
agents you query. Consider a
month-to-month subscription
with Publishers Marketplace,
Jane Friedman’s excellent blog,
publishing guides like Courtney
Maum’s Before and After the Book
Deal, and magazines like Writer’s
Digest and Poets & Writers. And, of
course, closely reading individual
agents’ pages on their website and
following them on social media.
Connor Eck
(he/him)
Lucinda Literary
MANHATTAN
LUCINDALITERARY.COM
@CONNORECK11
FICTION INTERESTS: All of it, with an
emphasis on adult and YA. I cherish
character, plot, and voice equally.
I love to be surprised and wowed.
NONFICTION INTERESTS: Journalistic
works, narrative nonfiction, and
big ideas. RECENT SALES: Artful
Intelligence by Dr. David Weitzner,
Women Who Walk by Sara McElroy,
This Won’t Help by Eli Grober, and
Pig in Jeans by Brenda Li. DOES
NOT WANT: Religion, cookbooks,
new adult, and picture book texts.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: A query
letter and the first 10 pages for
fiction, or full proposal for non-
fiction, via QueryManager. Visit
LucindaLiterary.com/submissions
for more details. DEMYSTIFY THIS:
Landing an agent or book deal is a
huge accomplishment but it isn’t a
happily ever after thing. It’s the start
of a business venture with peaks and
valleys. If you continue to grow as a
writer, “hook” generator, and entre-
preneur, you have a chance at a
long career.
Amy Thrall Flynn
(she/her)
Rubin Pfeffer
Content
CHESTNUT HILL, MA
RPCONTENT.COM
FICTION INTERESTS: Books for chil-
dren and teens up to age 14. I
seek work that speaks directly to
children and their diverse lived
experiences. I believe in literature
as a means of connection and am
drawn in by engrossing storytelling
and beautiful writing. For picture
books, I am looking for author-
illustrators/writers with a strong
sense of how art and text work
together. Picture books with layers
of interest and meaning that hold
up to repeated readings. Humorous
chapter books including innova-
tive formats. Character-driven MG
novels including graphic novels.
Contemporary realistic fiction,
compelling historical fiction, and
verse novels. Themes and perspec-
tives that are fresh and exciting.
Exploring all the feelings: shining a
light on the joy, pain, and beauty of
life. Also humor and fun! The top
three things I always look for are:
distinctive writing style and voice,
strong character development,
emotional connection/take-away.
NONFICTION INTERESTS: Books for
children, from concept and board
books for the very young, to pic-
ture book biographies, to STEM/
STEAM offerings for readers up
to age 12. RECENT SALES: They Hold
the Line by Dan Paley (Chronicle),
Chip by Federico Gastaldi (Little,
Brown/Ottaviano), Enemies in
the Orchard by Dana VanderLugt
(Zonderkidz), Threads by Lina
Maslo (FSG/Macmillan), The
Rescues: Finding Home by Tommy
Greenwald and Charlie Greenwald
(Red Comet Press), There’s Always
Room for One More by Robyn
McGrath (Simon & Schuster/Paula
Wiseman Books), and more. DOES
NOT WANT: Not interested in high
fantasy or sci-fi, horror, or work
for adults. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Send queries and manuscript sub-
missions to amy@rpcontent.com.
For picture books, I like to see the
complete manuscript and a cover
letter, as well as a link to the artist’s
portfolio if applicable. For longer
works, please provide the first 50
pages and synopsis. Visit our web-
site for submission guidelines at
RPContent.com. DEMYSTIFY THIS:
… Keep on writing—not only to
develop your craft but also to stay
inspired and engaged after you
submit a project for consideration.
Start thinking about your next
idea, research your interests, watch
documentaries, or go to the “new
releases” shelf at your local public
library. Critique groups and con-
ferences (such as those put on by
SCBWI) are so helpful. The oppor-
tunities for feedback and learning
provide support and shared com-
munity. Stay up-to-date on book
reviews in journals such as The
Horn Book and study books that
are getting great reviews. The sub-
mission process takes time—try to
remember how subjective the busi-
ness is, and to nurture your pur-
pose and joy in creating.
WritersDigest.com I 33
FACING THE MYSTERIOUS
Cole Hildebrand
(he/him/his)
Jean V. Naggar
Literary Agency
NEW YORK, N.Y.
JVNLA.COM
@CHILDEBRAND000
FICTION INTERESTS: Contemporary
literary and experimental work,
and novels that blur genre elements
in surprising or unconventional
ways. I am drawn to character- and
voice-driven stories that play with
form and narrative structure, told
with distinctive, breathtaking prose.
What engages me is not so much
the basic plot of a story, but the
unique ways that story is told, from
structure to POV to narrative voice.
My favorite books are ones that crack
open the possibilities of fiction and
transfigure human experience into
something unfamiliar yet utterly
convincing. While I’m always open
to being surprised, specific interests
include coming-of-age stories; queer
erotica; body horror grounded
speculative fiction; surrealism;
marginalized or underrepresented
perspectives; explorations of
disability and chronic illness;
stories about found families; books
about art; books connecting the
personal and political; emotionally
or thematically potent short stories;
complex narrative structures and
ambitious concepts; and books
with an absurd or off-beat sense
of humor. NONFICTION INTERESTS:
Narrative and/or investigative work
including journalism that engages
with social justice and radical
thought through personal narrative
and historical illumination; intimate
cultural studies; books that correct
the historical record; rousing calls to
34 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
action; memoirs with experimental
narrative and formal structures;
compelling environmental studies;
well-researched books on mental
health; books that center queer
experiences; stories about labor
organizing and housing justice,
immigration justice, and PIC
abolition; anti-colonial and anti-
capitalist viewpoints; any book
that shifts readers toward new and
empowering perspectives. DOES
NOT WANT: I am not the best person
for prescriptive nonfiction such
as business/finance or cookbooks,
though I am open to self-help geared
toward LGBTQ+ readers, as long as
the project approaches self-help from
a non-individualistic perspective.
I am not interested in espionage,
crime, or narratives centering the
military or police. SUBMISSION
GUIDELINES: Visit JVNLA.com to
submit your query, under the “How
to Submit” tab. If you’re emailing
your query directly, please put Query
+ Title in the subject line. DEMYSTIFY
THIS: One thing I’d like to stress is the
importance of making sure an agent
shares your vision for your project,
and for your career, before accepting
representation. An agent may express
their love for your manuscript and be
eager to take you on, but the choice
to accept an offer of representation
is yours and should be made only
when you feel certain that the agent
is the right fit. It’s standard for an
agent to give an author two weeks
to consider the offer before making
an informed decision. (If an agent
pressures you into accepting their
offer immediately, that is a red flag,
and shows a lack of respect for your
free will.) During this time, authors
should let all other agents they’ve
submitted to know that they have an
offer and give these agents a deadline
to respond. Talk with as many of
them as you can—agents need to sell
themselves to you as the best fit for
a long-term partnership. Ultimately,
it should be someone who you
feel understands (and has actually
read) your work, who has a clear
and aligned vision for positioning
it and submitting it to editors, and
who wants to take you on for your
career. It’s easy to get caught up in
the excitement of an offer, but it’s so
important to approach this process
with a commitment to your personal
and artistic integrity.
Rachel Letofsky
(she/her)
Cooke McDermid
Literary
Management
TORONTO, ONTARIO
COOKEMCDERMID.COM
@RACHELLETOFSKY
FICTION INTERESTS: Literary fiction,
commercial fiction, historical fic-
tion, mystery, horror, thriller; YA,
MG; fantasy, spec fic, and contem-
porary in each category. NONFICTION
INTERESTS: Pop-culture, creative
nonfiction, memoir, essay collec-
tions—all nonfiction that makes
you think and feel. RECENT SALES:
A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan
Power (adult literary fiction); Never
Whistle at Night ed. by Shane
Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
HILDEBRAND HEADSHOT © BROOKE HOFFMAN
(anthology); White Lies by Eternity
Martis (satire); a body more toler-
able by jaye simpson (poetry); The
Beauty of Us by Farzana Doctor
(YA); Detention by Marty Chan
(MG); Blood, Bannock, and Beads
by Amber Boyd (creative nonfic-
tion); This Book Is a Knife by Lori
Fox (creative nonfiction). DOES
NOT WANT: Religious nonfiction,
anything promoting hate speech,
violence, or negativity, previously
self-published works, romance (but
rom-coms are of interest), and hard
sci-fi. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Please
see my QueryManager listing or
Cooke McDermid’s website for sub-
mission guidelines. DEMYSTIFY THIS:
Always speak to an agent before
considering working with them.
Ask lots of questions! We welcome
them! I encourage aspiring writ-
ers, or authors who are looking for
new representation, to connect with
my existing authors to learn more
about their working experience with
me, and I’m happy to make these
connections. I never put pressure
or a strict timeline on new authors
to sign with me. … Every author
and project is unique, and there is
no “one-size-fits-all” approach. The
author/agent relationship is a collab-
orative one, and that spirit should
be apparent from the get-go. Some
agents are more editorially focused
than others, so consider which
approach works best for you.
Kesia Lupo (she/
her; Hon: Ms.)
The Bindery Agency
COLORADO SPRINGS
THEBINDERYAGENCY.COM
TW: @KESLUPO
IG: @KESIALUPOAUTHOR
FICTION INTERESTS: Original fantasy,
accessible science fiction, paranor-
mal or creepy horror, thrillers (espe-
cially if they have a twist!), dark
academia, and basically all stories
that help me escape or make me
question everything. I’d love to see
some romance in my submissions
pile, too. I majored in history, so
am also open to historical fiction,
as long as it’s done in a fun and
accessible way. I’d like to repre-
sent stories for MG, YA, and adult
readers. NONFICTION INTERESTS:
Narrative nonfiction with broad
appeal—I love books about psychol-
ogy and big political, cultural, or
historical topics. RECENT SALES: I’m
a brand-new agent at the time of
writing (six weeks in), so I haven’t
made any sales—yet! However, I’m
an ex-senior editor with 10 years
of experience, largely in the U.K.
children’s and YA market. Books
I’ve acquired, discovered, and/or
edited include major award win-
ners like Asha and the Spirit Bird by
Jasbinder Bilan, international rights
stars like The Loop by Ben Oliver
or The Fandom by Anna Day, and
U.K. bestsellers like The Last Chance
Hotel by Nicki Thornton and Tin
by Pádraig Kenny. DOES NOT WANT:
Horror relying heavily on gore,
“heavy” science fiction (with loads
of tech detail), or any nonfiction
that’s overtly spiritual/religious in
nature. I’d be interested in novels in
verse but otherwise I’m not looking
at poetry right now. In terms of age
groups, I’m not representing picture
books or any children’s fiction for
kids younger than MG. SUBMISSION
GUIDELINES: I prefer to receive que-
ries via QueryTracker—you can find
me here: QueryTracker.net/agent
/15349. (Sometimes I may close
in order to catch up!) Otherwise,
please follow the submission guide-
lines on the Bindery website to
submit via email. DEMYSTIFY THIS:
Writers are often surprised to find
how slow publishing moves! The
length of time between acquisi-
tion and publication is generally
a year, but it can be 18 months or
even longer depending on factors
such as scheduling or production
issues, the length of time required
for editing, and whether your pub-
lisher is “proofing” (printing early
copies for promotional purposes).
As such, the experience of being
a published writer involves a lot
of waiting. Move on to your next
project as quickly as possible to fill
that waiting time productively and
distract yourself from the dreaded
email refreshing. (As a published
writer myself, I have been burned by
unproductive “waiting time” more
than once …)
Maeve
MacLysaght
(she/her)
Copps Literary
Services
DENVER, CO
COPPSLITERARY.COM
@MMMLYSAGHT
FICTION INTERESTS: MG, YA, adult,
and graphic novel projects from
BIPOC, queer, and marginalized
folks taking on genre fiction in
new and exciting ways. My favorite
stories usually have a fantastical
element, a tight plot, and either
murder, making out, or both.
I’m particularly looking for more
non-western speculative fiction or
horror, unabashed maximalism, and
dark but hopeful stories. RECENT
SALES: Bingsu for Two by Sujin
Witherspoon (Union Square, 2024);
Dead Girls Walking by Sami Ellis
(Abrams, 2024); RAISE HELL! by
Ray Nadine and Jordan Alsaqa
(Comixology, 2024); Hans Vogel
Is Dead by Sierra Barnes (Dark
Horse, 2023); SPARKS by Revel
WritersDigest.com I 35
FACING THE MYSTERIOUS
Guts (Dark Horse, 2024). DOES NOT
WANT: Stories based on unexamined
biases and prejudices, characters
that lack authenticity in their voice,
low stakes, and fantasy worlds that
assume sexual assault as a default
outcome. I’m not usually a great
fit for alien stories. SUBMISSION
GUIDELINES: I accept submissions
only via QueryManager. Links to
that, as well as my tastes, client
list, and upcoming events, can be
found on Twitter or my website:
EMlysaght.com. DEMYSTIFY THIS:
Nothing in publishing is personal.
It’s a common assumption that
generic feedback is a personal
slight, but more often it means the
agent didn’t have a strong editorial
vision for the project, without
which their specific feedback might
actually be detrimental to your
project. Learn what you can from
any feedback generously given, but
don’t begrudge or be offended by its
absence.
Trinity McFadden
(she/her; Hon:
Ms.)
The Bindery Agency
COLORADO SPRINGS
THEBINDERYAGENCY.COM
IG: TRINITYJMCFADDEN
FICTION INTERESTS: Select children’s
picture books and in select sus-
pense, upmarket, literary, and book
club fiction. NONFICTION INTERESTS:
While my interests are broad, I’m
especially seeking to promote
under-represented voices with
growing platforms. I value excel-
lent writing combined with fresh
ideas, especially around messages
of liberation. If a book can help a
36 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
reader understand themselves or
the world in a new or better way,
I’m intrigued. My specialties include
compelling practical and narrative
nonfiction in categories including
social and culture issues, feminism,
religion and spirituality, history,
biography, reportage, subcultures,
and mental health and wellness.
RECENT SALES: A Well-Trained Wife:
My Escape From the Christian
Patriarchy by Tia Levings; Habits
for Healing: Reclaim Your Purpose,
Peace, and Power by Nakeia Homer;
No One Taught Me How to Be a
Man: A Transgender Perspective on
Non-Toxic Masculinity by Shannon
T. L. Kearns; Nothing to Fear:
Demystifying Death in Order to
Live More Fully by Julie McFadden.
DOES NOT WANT: Historical romance,
board books, or works on conserva-
tive politics. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
I prefer for queries to be sent to me
via QueryManager.com
/TrinityMcFadden.
Jen Nadol (she/
her; Hon: Ms.)
The Unter Agency
BRONXVILLE, N.Y.
THEUNTERAGENCY.COM
@JENNADOL
FICTION INTERESTS: Primarily adult
and YA contemporary stories.
My tastes lean to the commercial
(but not genre) vs. literary and I
gravitate toward mysteries, thrillers,
and darker plots. I love rom-coms,
too, but if the plot is too familiar
or the voice doesn’t leap off the
page, they’re tough to place. I
enjoy historical fiction (Beverly
Swerling’s City of Dreams and
Philippa Gregory’s books are among
my faves), but am particular in this
space and would be most interested
in gripping plots based on historical
fact; I’m rarely interested in World
War fiction or the American West. I
take on the occasional sci-fi project,
but am not a fantasy fan. So if it’s
SFF, it’s probably not for me. I
also represent select MG projects.
NONFICTION INTERESTS: Mostly
memoir and narrative nonfiction.
I like to be told a story so am not
a great fit for things with a more
academic or prescriptive bent.
Platform is important in nonfiction.
If you’re not a celebrity or known
expert on the topic, the writing has
to be excellent and the topic both
unique enough that it hasn’t been
explored before and relevant enough
to appeal to a wide audience. A
lot of people have amazing stories
to tell, but a publisher has to see
a way to successfully market a
book to a lot of people to justify
acquisition. RECENT SALES: Melissa
Bond’s memoir Blood Orange
Night; Samantha Larsen Hastings’s
historical mystery series beginning
with A Novel Disguise and her
Regency romance series that
starts with The Marquess and the
Runaway Lady; Stephanie Kiser’s
memoir about her time as a nanny
to NYC’s 1 percent (title TBD); Cliff
Lewis’s MG We the Future; Andrew
Bridge’s narrative nonfiction The
Child Catcher. DOES NOT WANT:
Picture books or chapter books. I’m
not a good fit for fantasy, most sci-fi
(but I do like science-y sci-fi à la
The Martian, Blake Crouch, etc.),
academic/prescriptive nonfiction,
most things described as “offbeat”
or “quirky.” I’m also not interested
in books with Alzheimer’s/dementia
themes (fiction or non). My MG
taste is really narrow since it aligns
with my taste overall for darker,
pacey, voice-y stories; the younger
end of this spectrum doesn’t usually
resonate with me. I don’t really
take on fantasy, and contemporary
“issues” have been explored a lot
in MG, so there’s isn’t a ton in this
category that’s a match for me.
But never say never! SUBMISSION
GUIDELINES: Send a query along
with up to 10 pages pasted in the
body of an email to jen.nadol
@theunteragency.com. DEMYSTIFY
THIS: A lot of times when I pass
on a query, there isn’t anything
“wrong” with it. It’s a tough truth
of the business that no agent sells
every project we take on. Sometimes
it’s something to do with clear
market conditions—an imprint is
overbought in a category or current
events have made a plot element
undesirable and the author and I
can’t figure out a way to revise … In
reading queries and pages, that’s the
bar I’m using to evaluate:
• Is it voice-y enough to capture
an editor’s attention? Is the writ-
ing good enough?
• Is there an urgent plot goal that
propels the story? Are there
meaningful subplots/secondary
character goals that give the plot
fullness and depth?
• What makes this story signifi-
cantly different from any other
book already on shelves?
Projects don’t have to be perfect to
find an agent—one of my favorite
parts of the process is working with
an author on revision—but they
have to be special in some unique
and compelling way, because that’s
what it takes to find a publishing
home. Sometimes they are special,
but I don’t have the experience or
vision to successfully guide them.
Dana Newman
(she/her;
Hon: Ms.)
Dana Newman
Literary
LOS ANGELES
DANANEWMAN.COM
TW: @DANANEWMAN
IG: @DANAMNEWMAN
FICTION INTERESTS: Literary and
upmarket fiction, including domes-
tic suspense/thriller. Historical
fiction about individuals whose
extraordinary stories haven’t been
told. Engrossing novels with strong,
emotionally truthful voices involv-
ing family dynamics, relationships,
love, complex moral or social issues,
multicultural or LGBTQ+ characters,
or the experience of being different/
otherness. NONFICTION INTERESTS:
Practical nonfiction in the areas of
health and wellness, mind-body-
spirit, popular science, lifestyle, food,
business, and parenting; narrative
nonfiction including memoir, biog-
raphy, history, pop culture, current
affairs, social justice, women’s issues,
and sports. Authors who are original
thinkers offering a fresh or unique
perspective, with established plat-
forms. RECENT SALES: A business/
personal development book about
reinvention by the CEO of a major
global retailer; Since She’s Been Gone
by Sagit Schwartz, a thriller in which
a therapist in recovery from an eat-
ing disorder finds out the mother she
thought she’d lost 25 years ago is still
alive and keeping dangerous secrets.
DOES NOT WANT: Religion, poetry,
screenplays, romance, fantasy, horror,
paranormal, science fiction, chil-
dren’s books. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Submissions are accepted via email
only; include the word Query in
the subject line and the title of your
work. Please send a one-page query
letter, which identifies the category of
your work, the title, the word count,
and provides a brief overview of
your project, credentials, and previ-
ous publishing history, if any. If we’re
interested, we’ll ask for a complete
book proposal which should include:
a project overview, chapter outline, a
brief bio, a description of competing
books and how your book is unique,
and the first 10–15 pages of your first
chapter. For fiction, if interested we’ll
request a synopsis and the first 20
pages. DEMYSTIFY THIS: Writers some-
times think that having an agent
represent their work guarantees the
book will sell quickly and be suc-
cessful. But there are so many factors
that affect the publication process,
and a whole team of people who are
involved at different steps along the
way. Publishing is a highly subjec-
tive, ever-evolving business, and the
reasons why a book may or may not
sell don’t necessarily reflect on the
quality of the writing or the ability of
the agent. It’s essential to embrace the
rejection, collaboration, and unpre-
dictability in the journey.
Nicole Payne
(she/her;
Hon: Ms.)
Copps Literary
Services
DENVER, CO
COPPSLITERARY.COM
@TNICOLEPAYNE
FICTION INTERESTS: Stories that have
an amazing voice, killer plot, magi-
cal words, and a uniqueness that
can’t be matched; YA and adult
fiction novels that specialize in
romance, contemporary fiction,
WritersDigest.com I 37
FACING THE MYSTERIOUS
mystery, suspense, thriller, sci-
ence fiction, and fantasy. I’m also
searching for more diverse voices
and stories. NONFICTION INTERESTS:
Science-based books, especially in
biology and forensics, as well as
medicine, travel, and cookbooks.
RECENT SALES: There’s one in the
works I can’t announce yet. DOES
NOT WANT: Early readers, picture
books, MG, political novels, erotica,
or short stories/novellas. SUBMISSION
GUIDELINES: I only accept queries
through QueryManager.com/query
/npayne. For fiction, please sub-
mit only finished, polished novels.
Include an attention-grabbing query
letter that includes word count,
genre, comparative titles, writing
credentials, synopsis, and the first
20 pages. For nonfiction, please
submit a complete nonfiction pro-
posal including a chapter outline,
author credentials, positioning and
market considerations, comp titles,
and 2–4 sample chapters. Take the
time to proofread your work and
make sure your submission materi-
als are properly formatted (Times
New Roman, 12pt., double-spaced).
DEMYSTIFY THIS: An author-agent
relationship is a special thing. It’s
so wonderful taking on an author
and helping bring their book baby
to the world. But I feel like there’s a
misconception that agents are fairy
god-people that make every author’s
book wish come true. While we try
to be by leaving no stone unturned,
our agent “wands” are at the mercy
of the current market. Even if we
want to sell our authors’ every book,
there’s no guarantee we will. I’ve
heard several agents say deals are a
mix of talent with luck. So, we keep
trying, keep open and honest com-
munication between our authors,
and wait.
38 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
Max Sinsheimer
(he/him)
Sinsheimer Literary
WASHINGTON, D.C.
SINSHEIMERLITERARY.COM
IG: @MSIN10
NONFICTION INTERESTS: A wide range
of adult nonfiction, with a particu-
lar interest in food, travel/adven-
ture, memoir, popular science, true
crime, history, and social issues.
I’m particularly interested in more
journalistic nonfiction that weaves
a personal narrative into a larger
societal story. For instance, Mario
Alejandro Ariza’s Disposable City
is about how inadequately prepared
Miami is for the inevitable sea-level
rise. But his pitch began with his deci-
sion to move back to Miami and buy
a home in the city he grew up in, only
to realize that many of the properties
he viewed would literally be under
water within a 30-year mortgage
term. Climate change can feel like a
distant threat, but Mario managed to
make it concrete and immediate. That
approach of finding a personal hook
into a wider issue will get me every
time. RECENT SALES: Matt Gatton’s
The Shadows of Socrates, a historical
whodunnit that focuses on Socrates’s
personal entanglements with both the
state religion and the Peloponnesian
War to reveal who set him up to be
executed and why; Mark Johanson’s
Mars on Earth, a travelogue about
an expat searching the otherworldly
Atacama Desert of northern Chile for
a deeper understanding of the forces
that have shaped both his relation-
ship to his partner and to his adoptive
homeland; Evan Rail’s The Absinthe
Forger, a (light) true-crime narrative
that pieces together the deceptions of
an absintheur whose forged bottles
of historic, pre-ban absinthe fooled
many of the world’s top collectors for
years. DOES NOT WANT: Prescriptive
nonfiction, except for cookbooks and
some limited health books. Anything
that dwells on the existence of God or
miracles (I’m probably not the right
agent for spirituality themed works
generally). Motorcycle and hiking
memoirs. A relative’s autobiography
or memoir that you are helping them
write or query. (Family histories make
wonderful gifts, but unless your rela-
tive is a public figure there is very
little commercial appeal!) SUBMISSION
GUIDELINES: Email me at max
@sinsheimerliterary.com. Write
Query and the title of your book in
the subject line. In the body of your
email tell me briefly who you are
(including your publishing history—
don’t be dissuaded if you are a debut
author!), a short pitch, plot synopsis/
overview, target readership. Attach
your full book proposal as a PDF,
including 1–2 sample chapters. Please
do not query me without a book pro-
posal. DEMYSTIFY THIS: Just how ridic-
ulously long the submissions process
can take! I’ve certainly had books
snapped up by editors in a few weeks,
mostly through preempt offers, but
3–6 months seems to be the norm,
and several of my sales were on
submission for over a year. That’s why
it’s important to discuss your pre-
ferred style and frequency of com-
munication when you are deciding
on an agent. Are you hoping for, say,
a biweekly check-in throughout the
submissions process? An update from
your agent only when there is positive
movement? Or maybe you’d like a
chance to see all feedback, both posi-
tive and negative? I’ve tried variations
of all three for clients; the challenge is
to try to keep authors informed about
editor responses (or lack thereof)
 without overly discouraging them
when things really drag on.
Michaela
Whatnall (they/
them; Hon: Mx.)
Dystel, Goderich &
Bourret
LOS ANGELES
DYSTEL.COM
TW: @MWHATNALL; IG:
@MICHAELAWHATNALL
FICTION INTERESTS: Picture books,
MG, YA, and adult fiction. In MG
and YA, I’m open to books across
genres, including contemporary, fan-
tasy, science fiction, historical, adven-
ture, horror, mystery, rom-com, and
graphic novels. In adult, I’m seek-
ing contemporary, speculative, and
historical upmarket fiction, as well as
character-driven, grounded fantasy.
Some specifics I’m always eager to
see are characters from traditionally
marginalized backgrounds, genre-
blending, theater stories, nautical
settings, dark academia, and subver-
sions of familiar tropes. NONFICTION
INTERESTS: Select narrative nonfic-
tion projects for children and adults,
with a particular interest in queer
voices, cultural criticism, pop culture,
and sports. RECENT SALES: Women
of Good Fortune by Sophie Wan,
a contemporary novel about three
friends who decide to pull a heist on
a ritzy Shanghai wedding; Rules for
WISEMAN HEADSHOT © JENNIFER REID PHOTOGRAPHY
Camouflage by Kirstin Cronn-Mills,
a YA contemporary about a neuro-
divergent teen navigating her senior
year of high school. DOES NOT WANT:
Parody/satirical fiction, legal thrill-
ers, and books that center on deadly
viruses. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
Please submit a query letter and
the first 20 pages of your project
through my QueryManager form:
QueryManager.com/query
/michaelawhatnall. Full submis-
sion instructions can be found at my
agency’s website. DEMYSTIFY THIS: I
know the querying process can feel
intimidating, but please know that
agents are eager to read your query!
I give close attention to each sub-
mission I receive. It feels a little like
a treasure hunt to me—I approach
my inbox with an open and curious
mind, and I’m always hoping to fall
in love with a story.
Caryn Wiseman
(she/her)
Andrea Brown
Literary Agency, Inc.
PALO ALTO, CALIF.
ANDREABROWNLIT.COM
@CARYNWISEMAN
FICTION INTERESTS: Children’s and YA
only. See my Manuscript Wish List at
ManuscriptWishList.com/mswl
-post/caryn-wiseman/. NONFICTION
INTERESTS: Children’s and YA only.
See my Manuscript Wish List at
ManuscriptWishList.com/mswl
-post/caryn-wiseman/. RECENT
SALES: A City Full of Santas, by New
York Times bestseller Joanna Ho;
Deer Run Home by Schneider Family
Book Award winner Ann Clare
LeZotte; Bounce by Sarah Albee; The
Blue Pickup by Natasha Tripplett;
If You Live on a Farm illustrated by
Marie Hermansson; The Gift of Eid
illustrated by Aaliya Jaleel. DOES NOT
WANT: Adult books, horror, zombies,
high fantasy. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
AndreaBrownLit.com/submissions.
DEMYSTIFY THIS: Before you sign the
Agency Agreement, don’t be afraid
to ask questions, and make sure
you understand all the terms. Is the
agreement for one project, for a spe-
cific term, or is it open-ended? How
does the agreement roll over if it’s
limited originally? How does termi-
nation work? What happens to your
rights once the agreement is termi-
nated—it’s standard industry practice
for the agent to receive commission
on any book they submitted prior to
termination and on any book they
sold including derivative rights, but
do they also have rights to option
books, or to future books in a series,
or to any books sold within a certain
period after termination? Is there a
waiting period after the agreement
is terminated, during which you are
precluded from signing with another
agent? How does payment work?
Are there hidden fees? (There should
never be reading fees!) What’s their
commission structure? Do they ask
for commission on previously sold
titles? Who negotiates their publisher
contracts—do they negotiate them-
selves or outsource? The author/agent
relationship is a partnership, and just
like any partnership, it thrives on
open communication and trust. You
shouldn’t be afraid to ask questions
from the beginning. Different agen-
cies work differently; make sure that
you’re comfortable with the terms
of the agreement, and that the agent
is transparent about those terms. A
Google search will bring you a wealth
of questions to ask, and any agent
you’re speaking with should be will-
ing to share their agreement with you
and answer any questions about it. If
they aren’t, that’s a big red flag. WD
Amy Jones is editor-in-chief of WD. Follow
her on Twitter @AmyMJones_5.
WritersDigest.com I 39
 FACING THE MYSTERIOUS

IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: YOSUKE HASEGAWA

THE BIG REVEAL

Write a compelling story by understanding when and how to
reveal crucial information to readers for maximum impact.
BY TIFFANY YATES MARTIN

40 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023

 ecrets, surprises, and twists are powerful narra-
S tive tools. They can conjure questions and mystery
in readers’ minds that raise suspense, stakes, and
reader investment, and knowing how to use them effec-
tively can create some of the most memorable moments
in your story.
Stories with a shocking reveal often get widely read
and talked about. They keep readers hooked throughout,
not knowing what comes next, eagerly turning pages to
find out.
But pulling off a successful reveal is a tricky tight-
rope act between giving readers enough information
to feel invested and keeping back enough to keep them
hooked. It’s the striptease of literature: show too much
and you lose all the excitement and buildup. Too little
and nobody cares.
Balancing these considerations often relies on three
key elements: knowing what and how much to keep as a
reveal, when to reveal it, and how to unspool the hidden
information for maximum suspense and impact.
WHAT AND HOW MUCH
TO REVEAL
Reveals aren’t a device every story needs—and one rea-
son they may fall flat is when they don’t feel necessary or
intrinsic to the main story.
Effective reveals are the ones that essentially clarify,
illuminate, or define a character arc or story: Amir’s
actions in the past with his childhood best friend,
Hassan, are a central facet of his arc and the story in both
present and past storylines in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite
Runner; what happened to Stella Vignes after abandon-
ing her twin sister in the 1950s to live as a white woman
in Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half reverberates among
all the other characters for generations.
If the information revealed isn’t directly germane to
and materially impactful on the character arc and main
story, then it can feel to readers like manipulation or a
trick played on us by the author—a false promise or an
anticlimactic letdown. You risk a disappointing payoff
and losing reader trust and engagement.
But not every aspect of a story unknown needs
to be (nor should be) a reveal. Readers need enough
information and context to orient ourselves to the story—
to know who the characters are, what they want, what’s
at stake, what’s in their way, etc.—and give us a reason to
care. If everything is a mystery, then readers have noth-
ing to hook into.
Vague hints at a “dark secret” or painful past can feel
cryptic, coy, or manipulative. But offering so much infor-
mation that readers are left with no questions at all leaves
no reason to read on.
Think of paving in a reveal—of storytelling in general,
really—as giving readers pieces of a puzzle. We need
enough pieces to get a sense of the full picture, with a
few key missing pieces that keep us from putting the
puzzle fully together.
WHEN TO REVEAL
Not all reveals serve the story best if maintained
throughout; sometimes you gain more narrative mileage
by spilling the beans sooner, so readers see the afteref-
fects of the secret and its impact on the characters
and story.
Liane Moriarty’s The Husband’s Secret begins on the
unanswered question of what is in a letter a protagonist
finds while her husband is out of town that he wrote her
years ago, to be opened only in the event of his death.
The secret creates wonderful suspense, but the letter’s
contents are revealed about a third of the way into the
book rather than sustained throughout.
That’s because the story isn’t about what the secret is,
but rather its corrosive power on the characters keeping
it and how they overcome it; about when the other rel-
evant characters will learn the full truth; and about what
will happen when they do. Moriarty gains much more
narrative punch from showing the secret’s fallout and its
impact on the story and the characters than from string-
ing out the secret itself throughout the book.
Knowing what type(s) of reveal you’re using in your
story may help indicate how fast and far to pull back
the curtain:
• Reveals kept from the protagonist or POV character
• Reveals kept from other characters
• Reveals kept from the reader
WritersDigest.com I 41
FACING THE MYSTERIOUS
Moriarty expertly uses all three: keeping the secret
from the husband’s wife until about a third of the way into
the story; from readers until several chapters later; and
from another key character until nearly the end. The plot
and each character’s arc hinges on when they learn it.
Consider what purpose the secret and its reveal are
meant to serve in your story as a whole. Keeping a reveal
hidden only for the sake of the mystery or suspense you
hope it creates may feel like a one-trick pony if it isn’t
foundational to the story you’re telling, and it’s not usu-
ally enough to build an entire plot on.
Nadia Hashimi’s A House Without Windows with-
holds the central secret—did one protagonist kill her
husband?—from readers and all other characters till
almost the very end, but the story is based on the prem-
ise that no one but the wife knows the truth and the
other characters’ goals are to unearth it. The protagonist
and the plot are dependent on the keeping of the secret
rather than its revelation, which resolves the story, so
Hashimi gains more narrative impact from maintaining
the mystery until the climax of the story.
Gone Girl begins with the mystery of what happened to
Amy and whether her husband did it, which creates strong
initial suspense. But halfway through the story Gillian
Flynn reveals both answers to readers, and later to Nick,
that Amy is alive and trying to frame him for her murder,
and the story shifts into a taut cat-and-mouse suspense of
who can outfox whom, and who will win the game.
In Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, readers see the
central murder that the entire story builds to in the very
first chapter, and all the players in the story know what
happened—but it’s not till close to the end that readers
learn we didn’t see the full truth. The story isn’t about
keeping the animal stampede or the murder a secret—it’s
about what led up to it, and in fact showing it from the
beginning adds an additional element of suspense as
readers turn pages to figure out the “how” and the “why”
that comprise the true reveal.
HOW TO UNSPOOL A REVEAL
Probably the hardest balancing act to pull off with
reveals is unspooling the information without vexing
readers, either through giving us too much information
or too little, and without our seeing the author setting
the hook.
That often requires a sort of benign manipulation,
selectively omitting or occluding certain information,
42 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
and gently misdirecting readers to lead them to draw the
conclusions you want them to draw. If readers see the
author’s hand, though, you risk losing their investment
and trust; these devices must be invisible, believable, and
organic to the story.
There are a number of techniques for pulling off this
tightrope act, regardless of which types of reveal you’re
incorporating:
USE THE PREMISE: The story itself may offer justifica-
tion and a framework for the reveal. In Laurie Frankel’s
This Is How It Always Is, a family moves to a new town to
allow their young trans daughter, Poppy, to live openly as
a girl without the stigma of judgment from people who
knew the family before. The reader and every one of the
characters in the family at the center of the story knows
the secret, but the plot hinges on whether and when
other characters find out.
USE THE CHARACTER MOTIVATIONS: Moriarty does
this in The Husband’s Secret, where the wife who finds
her husband’s mysterious letter resists opening it at first
because she feels it’s a breach of his trust; then because
when she tells him about it, he asks her not to. Hashimi’s
A House Without Windows is predicated on the protago-
nist’s refusal to tell anyone what actually happened in the
courtyard where she was found next to her husband’s
murdered body, and her reason for doing so is the spine
of the story.
USE THE PLOT: The Husband’s Secret shifts to this
device when the wife determines to open the letter:
The evening she intends to do so despite her husband’s
wishes, he surprises her by coming home early from his
business trip and she can’t. But later that same night,
when she hears him frantically searching for it while he
thinks she’s sleeping, she realizes she must know what’s
in it, and finally opens it.
USE THE STORY STRUCTURE: Moriarty avails herself of
this device too: Because her book has multiple protago-
nists, she is able to show the wife learning what’s in the
letter but withhold it from readers from several more
chapters simply by cutting to other characters’ scenes.
Gillian Flynn skillfully uses the structure in Gone Girl as
well: Part one is all Nick’s first-person POV, so Flynn is
able to keep Amy’s fate secret from both him and readers
until part two, when Amy narrates the story.
USE POV: The conventions of the various points of
view can offer you tools to keep back unknowns. Frankel
uses omniscient POV to add meaning and heft to the
secret each character is keeping about Poppy, heighten-
ing stakes and building suspense and tension into the
constant threat of reveal. Flynn uses first person to mine
suspense and stakes from what each character knows
and is withholding, both from other characters and from
the reader.
USE READER ASSUMPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS:
Outright lying to readers sacrifices our trust, but you
can lead us to draw incorrect conclusions from what we
think we know. The classic example of this in film is The
Sixth Sense, where filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan high-
lights at the end all the many clues he peppered into the
story about the central reveal that many viewers over-
looked or misinterpreted.
You can deliberately influence readers’ assumptions
with the skillful use of devices like red herrings (Ruta
Sepetys uses these to point reader suspicions away from
the actual spies in I Must Betray You; Agatha Christie
uses them in pretty much everything), unreliable nar-
rators (like Pi in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi), foreshadow-
ing (poor tragic Oedipus in the Sophocles play, who
knows of the prophecy that he has unwittingly fulfilled
but refuses to believe it), and upended expectations
(like Rebecca’s character and backstory in Daphne du
Maurier’s eponymous classic).
There’s no need to limit yourself to just one of the
above techniques—strong reveals often incorporate ele-
ments of many of them. In Water for Elephants, Gruen
uses structure to conceal the secret in the “past” time-
line and character motivation and reader expectations
to conceal it in the present. The Vanishing Half uses the
story premise, plot, structure, and point of view. A House
Without Windows uses character motivation, point of
view, premise, plot, and structure.
REVEAL GUIDELINES AND TIPS
Putting all these elements together for an effective reveal
can be tricky, so keep a few tips and guidelines in mind
to plant readers’ feet in your story while withholding the
full picture:
• Determine what works best as a reveal in your story,
how much of the facts to reveal, and when. In the
early part of The Vanishing Half, the main drivers of
Desiree’s story are Stella’s choosing to absent herself
from her twin’s life and the unanswered questions
of why, not the specifics of her sister’s life afterward.
But learning Stella’s whereabouts and situation later
becomes central to Desiree’s and other main charac-
ters’ storylines.
• Reveal enough context to ground readers, keeping
back just one or two key elements that constitute the
full reveal, as in the omitted piece of crucial informa-
tion in the opening scene of Water for Elephants.
• Reveal all the facts, but only to a point—let the depth
or nuances of the story serve as the reveal. Sepetys
does this in I Must Betray You with the final reveal
of one character’s true motivations for actions read-
ers already know about but have likely attributed to
other motives.
• Play the feelings even as you conceal some facts; show
how the characters are influenced by the secret, how
they react, feel, behave, act as a direct result. Hosseini
bases much of the character arc and story of The Kite
Runner on this technique, as does Moriarty in The
Husband’s Secret.
• Reveal pieces of the puzzle gradually as a key frame-
work for the plot, leading up to the main reveal, as
Flynn does in Gone Girl, or Ruta Sepetys in I Must
Betray You. Letting readers be part of putting the
puzzle together avoids a deus-ex-machina reveal that
feels ret-conned or sprung on readers.
• Reveal pieces of the puzzle incrementally to different
“audiences”—readers, protagonists, other characters—
to keep stakes high and suspense taut, as Moriarty
does in The Husband’s Secret and Flynn in Gone Girl.
The challenge of a successful reveal is balancing how to
salt in enough information to orient readers and give
us something to invest in, while withholding enough to
keep us turning pages to discover the answers.
But used skillfully and intentionally, reveals can be a
powerful tool for creating the kind of “unputdownable”
stories that gets readers talking—no matter your genre. WD
Tiffany Yates Martin (FoxPrintEditorial.com) has spent nearly 30
years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major
publishers and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street
Journal, and USA Today bestselling and award-winning authors
as well as indie and newer writers. She is the founder of FoxPrint
Editorial and author of Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical
Guide to Revising Your Writing. She is a frequent contributor to
writers’ outlets like Writer’s Digest, Jane Friedman, and Writer
Unboxed and leads seminars and workshops for writers around
the country.
WritersDigest.com I 43
 FACING THE MYSTERIOUS

IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: YOSUKE HASEGAWA

TWISTY BUSINESS
How to stress test a plot twist.
BY JEFF SOMERS

44 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023

 hen I was a wee lad and just getting started Stephen King’s novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank

W on my writing journey, I was enamored with

the twist ending.1 Every single story I cranked
out as a kid ended with a sort of “Monkey’s Paw” twist I
imagined would really knock people for a loop and estab-
lish me as one of the greatest provocateurs of modern
writing, right up there with O. Henry and Rod Serling.2
Blame it on those afternoon “Twilight Zone” mara-
thons that used to run on local TV. I eventually grew out
of the need to make every story a celebration of crazy
plot twists—though I still love a good twist, especially if
I’m the one who thought of it.3 One reason I grew tired
of the trick was how often it failed.4
TWISTS ARE TRICKY
Twists fail a lot because they are delicate things. A good
twist requires that you surprise your reader, but also
that you don’t cheat your reader—you have to give them
enough information to make the twist feel like some-
thing they missed and not brand-new information they
couldn’t possibly have figured out on their own.
And even if you work hard to play fair, you’re some-
times tripped up by your own blind spots. This can
happen to any writer, no matter their track record or
career stage. Consider the classic film The Shawshank
Redemption, written by Frank Darabont (based on
Redemption). The twist (spoilers!) in the story comes
when it’s revealed that a falsely convicted prisoner named
Andy Dufresne has escaped via a tunnel hidden behind
a poster on the wall of his cell—a tunnel he’s spent more
than 20 years digging using a tiny rock hammer.5
It’s a great twist! Except it isn’t, because the idea that
a huge, man-sized hole in the wall of a prison cell would
simply not be noticed for two decades is, frankly, silly.
When the warden is in the cell after Dufresne’s escape,
he immediately notices wind rippling the poster, yet
we’re supposed to believe the tunnel—hidden behind a
poster—was never discovered before this moment. In a
prison. Where the guards presumably routinely inspect
the cells. Keeping that hidden for a few days, weeks, or
even months seems reasonable. Decades? Doesn’t really
seem possible.6
What does seem possible is that no one stress-tested
this twist.
THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD
Any time you introduce a twist into your story, you need
to test it. You need to look at it from every possible angle
and try to put yourself into the mindset of every poten-
tial reader—because you don’t want that twist in the wild
if there’s any chance it will blow up in your face.

1. Also, baseball caps, which I wore every day, all day, without exception, for reasons lost to time. To this day, I reach up to adjust the brim of an imaginary
baseball cap I haven’t worn in three decades.
2. As you can see, humility was always my defining characteristic. My energy as a child was definitely “why have you all not acknowledged my genius yet?”
No, I was not popular, why do you ask?
3. I have tried to convince people that a novel just stopping without an ending could be a twist, but so far, no one buys it.
4. If only I could apply this sensible approach to repeated failure to other aspects of my life, such as my insistence on buying my own clothes.
5. Meanwhile, it took me seven months to write this article, despite the fact that I literally have nothing else to do.
6. If you are preparing to email me your 700-page treatise on why I am wrong about The Shawshank Redemption, I offer you Codicil #1 to the Jeff
Somers Clever-Dumb Scale of Twisty Plots, which states that if the twist requires defending, the twist is, by definition, a failure.

WritersDigest.com I 45
FACING THE MYSTERIOUS
This goes beyond your usual beta readers. Even if your
beta readers have blessed the twist, you need to do a
stress test for two fundamental reasons:
• Even the most trusted beta readers will sometimes
unknowingly lie to you or be less-than-perfect in
catching details like this.7
• People often confuse whether a twist was fun with
whether it worked in terms of story, but these are
very, very different things.
That last point is huge and worth exploring in more
detail. Plot twists are fun because they’re shocking and
surprising. You’re cruising along and suddenly some-
thing you thought you knew about the story or the uni-
verse is shown to be wrong—it’s an exciting moment.
It’s so exciting, readers sometimes forget to wonder if it
makes sense. That shock can make it hard to know if a
twist is really working, as opposed to just acting as
a distraction.
People get invested in stories they like—and that
means they’ll subconsciously give a pass to a twist that
doesn’t quite work. Whether it’s because they love the
characters you’ve created, or they’re committed to learn-
ing the solution to a mystery you’ve constructed, they
become your allies, and they want that story to succeed.
That’s why it’s crucial to specifically stress test a twist
in your story and not simply rely on the surprise factor.
Surprise only happens once. If your twist doesn’t work as
a structural piece of your story, it won’t age well.
STRESS-TEST TECHNIQUES
So how can you stress test your plot twists? There are
several techniques you can use that will demonstrate
how well-built it is:
Treat it like a mystery to be solved.
The best plot twists work because the writer has seeded
their story with clues. These clues are often hidden in
plain sight—prior to the revelation of the twist they
seem like innocuous details, or associated with some
other aspect of the story. For example, in the clas-
sic twist movie The Sixth Sense, the twist is set up by
7. Sometimes they will knowingly lie to you, like when they swear to you that they will totally pay $27.99 for your book when it comes out in hardcover.
8. To be fair, this also describes me pretty well except for me it’s cats instead of a child, so either I’m a ghost or being dead makes you very antisocial and
misanthropic. And an absolute magnet for cats.
9. Lacking volunteers, try spoiling it for strangers. Trust me, you will get some seriously unvarnished opinions.
10. Except humorous footnotes, which are always appropriate and necessary.
46 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
a plethora of visual clues like (spoilers!) the fact that
Bruce Willis’ character always wears the same clothes
and never once interacts with anyone other than the
child in his “care.”8
And in a different sort of plot twist, in A Game of
Thrones the character (spoilers!) the reader initially
assumes is the protagonist of the story (Ned Stark) is
instead killed at the end of the first book. But George R.
R. Martin has taken care with his universe and the other
characters, making Ned’s death a shock—but one that
makes total sense in retrospect. In fact, this is almost an
anti-twist, because it leverages the readers’ assumptions
against them—the only reason you might think Ned
will survive is that you think he has “plot armor” as
the protagonist.
The key in both these examples is that you can reverse
the process. Consider Ned Stark’s death as if it was a
mystery—what were the clues? If you were told that
there was an unexpected death at the end of the story,
but not who it would be, could you plausibly deduce his
death from the clues you were given? Try doing that
with your own twist and see how close you can get to
“solving” it.
Spoil it for a volunteer.9
One of the best ways to stress test a twist is to see if it has
lasting value for your story as opposed to being a single-
use trick. If the story doesn’t warrant repeat reading after
the twist has been revealed, or if the twist is such a let-
down it sours the reader on the rest of the story, then the
twist is a failure. Ask a beta reader or a trusted fan of the
genre to read your manuscript—but spoil them on the
twist first. If they still enjoy your story despite knowing
the twist, you might be onto something. But if knowing
the twist renders your story boring or nonsensical (or if
they uncover too many inconsistencies that don’t match
up with what the twist reveals), then you should head
back to the drawing board.
Consider the work the twist does.
Every part of your story should be doing work—
otherwise it’s just fluff.10 Work in the context of writing a
story means adding to some aspect of the book: world-
building, character development, plot, backstory—
something. This applies to your twist, too—does it
make the rest of your story more interesting? Does it
recontextualize plot events or character decisions? Does
it do anything beyond serve up a shock to the reader? If
the twist is just there to be a twist, you should consider
removing it and finding a more organic way to hold your
readers’ attention, or figure out how you can put that
twist to work.
Delete the twist.
A very thorough way to stress test a twist is to liter-
ally remove it and see what you’re left with. This doesn’t
mean writing a whole new version of the book—just
sketch out a plot outline without the twist. Then think
about where the story would go without that element.
This will tell you two things:
• WHETHER THE TWIST IS NECESSARY. If you can delete
the twist from your story and nothing else changes,
it probably wasn’t sturdy enough to stay in anyway.
On the other hand, if your plot collapses without that
twist then it’s definitely load-bearing.
• WHETHER THE TWIST IMPROVES YOUR STORY. When re-
casting the story, you might be surprised to find that
you like the de-twisted version better. Sometimes
we write toward a twist—we think of the twist first
and then construct a plot to get us there. This can
obscure better, less twist-reliant story ideas.
If your story can survive—and possibly thrive—after
the surgical removal of the twist, it’s time to rethink it, or
just remove it altogether.
Let your readers guess.
Another way to check where your plot twist lands on the
Jeff Somers Clever-Dumb Scale of Twisty Plots is to have
some volunteers read your book right up to the point
where you introduce the twist (or just listen to a detailed
synopsis) and then stop and ask them to guess what hap-
pens next. It’s not a terminal problem if they eventually
get there, but it’s concerning if they land on your twist
very quickly. That means either the twist isn’t very twisty,
11. No one tells you that writing professionally means there is always
more work to be done on the story. Every story you ever write, forever.
TWISTS FAIL A LOT
BECAUSE THEY ARE
DELICATE THINGS. A
GOOD TWIST REQUIRES
THAT YOU SURPRISE
YOUR READER, BUT ALSO
THAT YOU DON’T CHEAT
YOUR READER.
or you’ve made it too obvious and need to recalibrate
your clues.
Try A/B testing.
In marketing, A/B testing means trying out two ver-
sions of something and weighing the reactions you get. If
you’ve ever read an article online and then gone back to
it later and noticed the headline had changed to some-
thing punchier and more social-media-focused, that was
probably A/B testing going on in the background.
This can be used on your plot twist. Test out two ver-
sions of your story (again, detailed synopses can be used
if you don’t feel like literally writing two versions of the
story) and see which one gets the better reaction. If it’s
the one without the twist, you know you have some work
to do on that story.11
Plot twists can be shiny and irresistible—and a lot of fun.
But if you don’t stress test your plot twists you can wind
up with a twist that crumbles under scrutiny or simply
doesn’t do your story any favors. In this case, stress is
actually your friend. WD
Jeff Somers always wanted to learn ballroom dancing, but became
a writer instead. Since that fateful day, he’s published nine novels,
numerous short stories, and Writing Without Rules, which seeks to
tempt others into making the same mistake. He lives in New Jersey
with a Duchess and numerous cats.
WritersDigest.com I 47
 FACING THE MYSTERIOUS

WRITING OUR WAY INTO

IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: YOSUKE HASEGAWA

(AND OUT OF) DARK FORESTS

Using deep characterization for propulsive storytelling.
BY JENNIFER GIVHAN

48 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023

 end up the red flare from the dense, dark forest if
S you too beat yourself up when you should be writ-
ing because sometimes you become so mired in the
muck of drafting—even if you’ve been writing for years—
and what pours onto the page from the thick scrub is ugly.
Or hazy. Or banal. Or all three.
My hands are raised high (in relentless beseeching)
with you. You’re not alone.
Recently, a reader asked how I steep the propulsive
storylines of my novels with such poetry. How do I keep
readers turning the page while turning potent phrases
and engrossing meditations along the way?
In answer to their question, I reminded myself what
it takes to blend evocative, chilling prose with a propul-
sive plotline.
GET LOST FIRST
We have to get lost in the forests. We have to allow for
the ugliness. We have to invite it, even. In the early drafts,
your characters may reveal themselves to you in flashes,
whispers, or echoes as you chase them through the trees.
They might be lost in the mist themselves. It’s OK not to
see them yet through the fog. That’s part of the process.
Keep listening and following, and as their voice becomes
more distinct, you’ll learn how to listen deeper, and their
story will begin to unravel before you.
We’re often lost in the forest for months before that
path out becomes clear, sometimes years. And yet, when
we finally find our way through, it feels like redemp-
tion. The transformation in my stories often comes from
the most vulnerable places because I journey with (and
within) my protagonist. We become inseparable at times.
And when the story ends, I must wrestle myself free and
open my heart to another character who needs me, and
I them.
In my newest novel, River Woman, River Demon, this
meant following Eva as she tries to uncover the drown-
ing in the river beside her house and its uncanny parallel
to her best friend’s drowning when they were teenagers:
I’d like to believe Karma whispered, “I love you, Eva,”
before she dove to the murky depths.
Instead … as she pulls away from me toward the
swampy bottom, before she disappears, I shake and
shake the memory but it will not tell—
Was I grasping for her fingers as she slipped
downward, out of my reach—
Or was I pushing her under?
Eva came to me and asked me to follow her into
the dark woods, and although I created several maps
(character sketches, scene plans, outlines), determined
not to “pants” my way through the novel, what I found
while following her was that many of the maps I’d cre-
ated ahead of time were wrong. Or, incomplete. I didn’t
have the whole picture because Eva didn’t have the whole
picture, and it would take time wrestling with all the lies
and misperceptions surrounding her before she would
uncover the truth. I stayed in first person with her, so
that her transformations upon sorting through what was
real and what was misdirection or trauma-laden misun-
derstanding, became my own.
Our lostness, together, created the story.
THE PHYSICAL MAP
That’s not to say you should go into the forest without
a plan. By all means, sketch out a map. But also under-
stand that the map is written upon the protagonist. The
person you’re following is the story. And a map drawn
upon a living, breathing, evolving person means that you
must stay willing to run after your protagonist and other
characters when they wander away from your best-laid
plans. The deeper story, the one that will often lead to
the deepest resonances with your readers, happens off
the well-worn path.
If the story were a body—and of course, the story is
a body—first ensure the skeleton of the plot fits together
properly, bones in place, so you understand character
motivations, fears, secrets, and sabotaging behaviors.
Prewriting can help you discern how the protagonist’s
past influences their present choices so you can dole that
information out to the reader as the story progresses—
characterization and interiority working hand in hand
with the plot.
In this way, if you’ve sat down and listened to the pro-
tagonist, then you’ll have a clearer sense of who they are
and what they’ll do when they meet a fork in the road or
a wolf is chasing them. Or if they turn out to be the wolf.
When I’m following my protagonists, I ask myself
again and again So what? and Why does this matter? to
ensure I understand how the consequences affect the
protagonist on multiple levels: psychic, emotional, spiri-
tual, material, and physical.
I find the screw that holds the joints of the skeleton
together—and twist.
Once you understand the skeleton of what will hap-
pen to your protagonist and why and how they may
WritersDigest.com I 49
FACING THE MYSTERIOUS
react given their personality and past, you can focus
on expressing emotion as you draft and revise your way
through that dark forest, living viscerally in your charac-
ters’ bodies, gestures, and psyches—becoming a conduit,
channeling something a bit magical and otherworldly
that emerges from the underbrush.
This way, the writing process organically weaves plot
and characterization.
I don’t always know on a conscious level where my
images, diction, and descriptions come from. Instead, I
do the work to prepare the story and myself as best I can
so the characters can speak through me.
How do we write visceral, deeply affecting prose?
We feel it in our bones. In our marrow. In our guts. We
imbue our protagonists with pieces of us.
Here’s an example of that process happening in River
Woman, River Demon, on a meta level, in which Eva’s
journey describes how we writers can also unearth the
deeper story from beneath the forest floor of the protag-
onist’s physical and psychic experiences:
I’m digging through the garbage bins.
Deep in yard debris, animal muck, waste-deep.
I reach lower into the mounds of sick, dark filth.
Searching.
As I dredge through the offal, up come the bones
in my palms.
At first clean and bleached. Clavicles. Bowl-
shaped pelvic bones. Scapula. Then sinewy. Covered
in muscle. Thick, tendon-wrapped thigh bones.
A skeletal hand grabs mine and tugs me down,
but I yank harder—and up comes Cecilia, her yellow
hair caked with mud, followed by Karma, her apple
cheeks sullied, her hands linked with another woman
beneath her like circus performers grasping each
other from a highwire. The final woman emerges
triumphant.
I scrape the sludge from her face.
My mother’s face.
The moon a swollen belly above us, I take these
women from the side yard into the house, unmindful
of the mud tracks they leave across the floor—and
into the tub where I bathe each one clean.
Before I awaken, the three of them pour water
over me. They cover me in water.
The real story is the one that scares and surprises you.
That finds its way only after it almost perished beneath
the underbrush, but it clawed its way out.
50 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
REVERSE ENGINEERING FROM
DEEP WITHIN THE FOREST
To create a rich well of resource material from which to
draw—so you can delve into the subconscious where
the writing feels transmuted from a subterranean source
sometimes unknown to you—stay open to the guide-
posts all around you, in everything you read, watch, and
listen to. Jot down striking words and descriptions since
the process of writing is mnemonic and gets closer to
that subconscious place within.
I freewrite everywhere and only occasionally formally
revise these freewrites; I often forget them on the surface.
But since I wrote them down, they’re a part of the thicket
and return to me when I need them.
I’ve gone back to my notebooks or scraps of paper,
those images that felt like flotsam and jetsam that I
snatched and netted onto the page without knowing
where, why, or how I’d use in a finished piece, comparing
them with a later polished scene—and the similarities are
uncanny. Without realizing it, I’ve infused the material I’m
working on with the resonances of the freewrite. Nothing
is wasted. Everything we do as creatives has purpose.
Never take the freewriting for granted—you’re pro-
viding necessary fodder.
Later, you can reverse-engineer the breakthroughs
you’ve made in those weird, twisting turns where you
felt so lost upon first drafting, so that the reader feels like
they were intentional.
While revising, search for a throughline back to the
beginning, and then start the trek again, dropping bread-
crumbs for your readers.
I return to scenes where I was more concerned with
getting the plot down (what needs to happen next, cause
and effect, the nuts and bolts of the story)—often written
in utilitarian terms since I’m less concerned in this mode
with lyric description and more with how I’ll show the
protagonist’s choices and deliberations—and I replace
that prosaic language with signposts: more exciting
diction, imagery, metaphors, and other craft tools I’ve
added to my writer’s toolkit over the years.
I repeat this process several times, clarifying and
tightening since my thought process sprawls wildly
across the page, and I often need to pare back. I also find
places to add crucial scenes and characterization to fill in
missing links in the causal chain.
I call this expansion and compression the “accordion
method,” stretching out and squeezing several times
until the narrative coheres and the language sings.
 So while I’m filling plot holes, heightening tension,
and ensuring character choices make sense to readers,
I’m also creating poetry.
Here’s an example from River Woman, River Demon
where imagery, world-building, characterization, plot-
ting breadcrumbs, and lyrical language all cohere in a
single opening paragraph of a scene:
We step out into the Odessa night. The wind sweeps
up dust and the smell of oil fields, but the sky is clear.
There is no moon to brighten the black, so the stars
are dazzling little bitches; they burst light, little divas
on the dancefloor. A yearning inside me for a fresh
start. I compare Ximena to the child Sammy and I
could’ve had in that tiny apartment in San Diego or
in Calexico before that. She could’ve been fifteen,
the age Karma joined the choir of nevers—never to
dance again, never to laugh, never to brush her hair,
never to fall in love. Never to stare at the night sky.
ROADMAP INTO & OUT OF THE
DARK FOREST
Even after inviting you to get lost in the forest and chase
after the dynamic map drawn upon the protagonist, I’m
still loath to send you without the checklist of remind-
ers I myself need to clutch as I set foot, novel after novel,
past the misty treeline:
• Listen for that unmistakable voice beckoning
in the darkness and chase it relentlessly. Wildly.
Unabashedly. Voice is queen.
• At the heart of every story is a character who desires,
hurts, hungers, fears, falls, gets back up. Never stop
asking them Why? and So what will you do next,
given your dilemma? Never stop twisting the screw.
• Get as close to your characters as possible, omitting
filters and fillers. What they experience, so do you.
Write it that way.
• Don’t be afraid to get lost. You’re not lost. You’re
exactly where you need to be to grapple alongside
your characters. Readers will thank you for your
patience and perseverance in not shying away from
the complex, vulnerable, painful stuff.
• But when you revise, accordion the heck out of that
draft several times if necessary.
• Don’t let the reader stay lost as long as you did.
Keep dangling the firebright cord that lights their
way through the forest, and make sure they’re
grasping tightly.
• Do this by answering a question and asking a new
question in every scene. And sharing why this mat-
ters to my protagonist in every scene.
• What can end up happening in revision is buffing
the outside rather than re-envisioning it from the
inside. You have to be willing to dig into the guts of
your story as many times as it takes. You have to
stay brave.
I’ve found it helpful to live with(in) the protagonist
throughout the entire writing and revising process so
that when they change, so do I. When they re-envision
their lives, their worlds, their circumstances and relation-
ships, so do I. Their epiphanies are mine and vice versa.
If reading is a lesson in empathy—and it is—so
is writing.
If you transform alongside your protagonist, your
story will feel organic, honest, and fully realized. Your
readers won’t be able to put it down. Your characters
will feel like whole, realistic people because you are a
whole, living person, and you’ve let your characters bor-
row something of your being for a while. You’ve dwelled
within each other’s spirits, which means your protago-
nist has a spirit. Readers will feel that. Your readers
might shout at your characters when they make terrible
mistakes—or tear up over their losses. They’ll miss your
protagonist when they close the book and wonder about
them for days and weeks to come.
One of the major critiques I’ve heard of my writing
(and which used to cut deeply) is actually a high form of
praise. Readers, who’ve become enmeshed in the forests
of the worlds I’ve built, express deep emotions over my
protagonists’ choices—anger, frustration, horror, disgust,
or shock. “Get your shit together, Eva!” readers have
yelled at River Woman, River Demon.
And I—from the other side of the forest, holding
Eva’s hand tightly before she floats away from me into
the darkening sky, but lighter now—smile both wistfully
and wry. It took a long time for us to get our shit together,
didn’t it, woman? we say to each other. But here we are.
Ready to propel into the next dark forest. A little
wiser. A little more self-assured.
But most importantly, never, ever alone. WD
Jennifer Givhan is the recipient of the Southwest Book Award and
fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and PEN/
Rosenthal Emerging Voices. Her third novel, River Woman, River
Demon, appeared on Amazon’s Book Club and "CBS Mornings,"
and was featured as a national Together We Read library pick.
WritersDigest.com I 51
THE
WD INTERVIEW
Chuck
Wendig
The New York Times bestselling author
discusses genre-hopping, fear as a
motivator, and his new books.
BY KRISTIN OWENS
M
eet the Master of Disaster—from foreshadow-
ing pandemics to dreaming up demon apples,
author Chuck Wendig juggles multiple genres
like a seasoned carny. Step right up for some tasty
urban fantasy, a side-show of horror, a sci-fi circus,
or middle-grade with plenty of thrills and chills. He’s
got all amusements covered. This year, Wendig pub-
lished Gentle Writing Advice in June, and his forthcom-
ing supernatural thriller Black River Orchard about an
orchard of trees that possess dark magic, publishes in
September. With New York Times and USA Today best-
sellers to his name, Wendig shines across numerous
readerships. How does he balance all his acts? In a can-
did conversation, he shares insights on writing produc-
tivity, finding your voice, and embracing process over
product. We discuss how the real world always impacts
fiction, especially the scary things. It turns out, facing
fears can be frightfully productive. Already a writer’s
writer, Wendig also explains why craft books aren’t nec-
essarily bullshit.
We met at my first-ever writing conference in Fort
Collins about seven years ago. You told the partici-
pants a story about your dad cutting off his finger. I
have yet to forget this.
[Laughs] True story.
52 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
You had the audience completely mesmerized. Not
because of the creep factor—that would have been
gimmicky—it was how you laid out the story. You did
it carefully and slowly … you had us all there till the
very end. How do you do this as a storyteller? Does
it happen organically? Can we learn this?
Part of the irony is my dad was, himself, a fairly good
storyteller. I don’t think it’s genetic or something you
can’t pick up. Storytelling is like writing in general, you
learn by doing it and often doing it badly. I used to run
role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, so it’s kind
of the same thing—you’re telling a collaborative story
for people. You can see on their faces when you’re los-
ing them or exciting them, or it’s time to drive the knife
in, or flip it around so they don’t see what’s coming. You
develop a rapport and rhythm. You get it by practice,
practice, practice.
A lot of great storytelling in writing depends on
WENDIG PHOTO © COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR
voice. And to be honest, I’m not a huge fan of sci-fi
or dystopian or horror genres. But I read your books
because of the Wendig-esqueness of them all. Your
voice establishes trust with readers in a very honest
and inviting here-I-am-come-along-for-the-ride-we’ll-
have-some-fun type of way. Did you always have this
or has it developed over time?
It’s something I’ve always had but not something I always
knew how to use. When you’re a baby writer, you don’t
know you have a voice. You’re always trying to find the
voice of what the market will buy or other writers. We do
things by imitation, which is a form of flattery obviously.
Hey this sounds like the writers I like and they’ve sold
books, maybe it’s a good thing. But I do think we chase
our voice only to circle back around and realize we’ve
had it all along. It’s who we are as people. And a combi-
nation of all our weirdness and our fears and the crazy
things we like and love. It all gloms together into how
we experience the world and then how we translate the
experience onto the page.
You’ve had six books out in the past three years:
Dust & Grim; You Can Do Anything, Magic Skeleton!;
The Book of Accidents; Wayward; Gentle Writing
Advice; and Black River Orchard arriving this fall.
How do you stay so productive?
Some of it’s down to routine. I used to work freelance,
and if you don’t make the deadlines, you don’t get paid.
And if you don’t get paid, it turns out there’s these things
called MORTGAGE COMPANIES and they get mad
when you don’t give them their money. That’s the sort of
cold, calculated answer. But … I really, really like writing.
I’m not one of those writers who says, “I don’t like writ-
ing, I only like having my book on my shelf.” I just enjoy
the process. I like it and editing more than I like having
the book out. I mean it’s obviously awesome about an
audience who reads it. The fact I get to do it is reason
enough. But the pandemic was a challenge in that regard.
It threatened my routine and expectation to commit
words to paper.
A lot of writers were suffering—either you wel-
comed the opportunity to be at home and do some-
thing different or couldn’t conjure up a creative thing
to save your life.
Yeah, that was me. I had nothing in the tank.
The energy for doing the work just fizzled?
It really had never happened until the pandemic. And
it’s ironic because before the pandemic, I wrote a book
about a pandemic. And then during the pandemic, I was
supposed to write the sequel about what happens after a
pandemic. It was emotionally jarring to go back to this
thing. I went back to the page, and I had nothing. It was
a hard time—it wasn’t an energy issue so much as staring
into a void.
In terms of that, you have a lot of contemporary
issues …
Is that an accusation or …
No, [laughter] but we all have very long lists by now.
What I mean is you include contemporary issues in
your work—divisive politics, the environment, soci-
etal concerns, even AI—all significant concerns in
WritersDigest.com I 53
THE WD INTERVIEW Chuck Wendig
our world right now. How important is this to you as
a writer and your audience? Is this something you
feel is a responsibility?
Not at all. It’s these fears. Things I’m worried about.
Wanderers for me … I could’ve written about 10 books
based on the anxieties I harvested with that. I took all my
anxieties together to form this massive epic robot of a
book. I call it my Anxiety Voltron. For me, it’s not about
any perceived responsibility or feeling like I have to talk
about these things, but it’s what’s on my mind. They
worry me and entice in a weird sort of way. I can’t help
but want to write about the things that fascinate me.
You’ve written about everything from sci-fi, fantasy,
horror, dystopian, to paranormal. Why do you like to
mix it up so much?
That’s a good question. I think ’cuz I’m greedy. I think
I’m really greedy. I will always want the tasting menu or
the buffet. I don’t need one whole meal—I want to taste
a lot of different things. Also in my generation, we grew
up reading multiple genres. It wasn’t like I’m a science-
fiction reader. I started off reading Douglas Adams and
Ray Bradbury, Arthur Clarke and then Stephen King.
Then I moved on to epic fantasy … Robin Hobb. Then
crime fiction … I loved it all. So greedily, I’m like, Why
can’t I have all of it? In fiction, we tend to silo writers.
Especially if they get successful very early. Which is one
of the weird fortunes I possess—I started slow and built a
career which lets me play around a bit and establish a cir-
cuit board in multiple areas. It’s not like I’m hard-coded
into one direction. For me, it’s a joy of getting to play in
all those spaces. It’s too much fun not to do.
You’ve said the horror genre is a safe place to fight
monsters. I love that idea—can you elaborate more?
Horror is a great place to contextualize all the things
we’re actually afraid of. Sometimes you put them in the
form of monsters, supernatural or otherwise. It’s a place
to conjure your anxieties and fears and deal with them in
a way that’s removed from reality. It’s almost like a simu-
lation and I can mess around with it. It’s a safe place to
do that while still allowing you to grapple with the reali-
ties of things and treat the subject matter as seriously as
you’d like.
That’s a great perspective for a writer, but what
about a reader? Is it the same thing?
54 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
Yes. The same thing. When I was a kid—when we were
told at any moment we could be obliterated by missiles
in the middle of the night?
And hiding underneath my math teacher’s desk was
going to save me from a nuclear bomb?
Exactly. I was notably not happy. Good night, you may
be dead in the morning by nuclear fire. The first hor-
ror novel I read was Robert McCammon’s Swan Song,
which is about people surviving an epic-horror-night-
mare-nuclear-winter-hellscape, and it made me feel a
lot better after I read it. People get in their heads they
shouldn’t read things that scare them (different from
trauma, obviously), but you miss an opportunity to
confront the fear in a safe place. For me, it’s showing
the subject matter I’m afraid of, but doing it in a way
that tells me I’m not crazy. Because when I read some-
one else saying “This is scary stuff,” I’m like, Oh yeah,
I also think it’s scary. So right there you feel seen. But
also, they’re telling a story and the sheer existence of
a story—characters surviving and talking and occa-
sionally joking, moving from point A to point B—feels
grimly optimistic. Even if the characters lose in the end,
you feel, well, they had a shot. It’s comforting in a num-
ber of ways.
What scares you?
What doesn’t scare me? Just opening the news tab on
any website will give me a doomscrolling infinity loop
of anxiety. Wanderers is a pretty good encapsulation of it
all. The politics, the social issues happening in the coun-
try, cruelty at local school boards. Artificial intelligence
is freaking me out right now. Fungal diseases. I got a long
list … we don’t have enough time.
Does writing help?
Yes, it absolutely does. And reading. Medieval sorcerers
of old would summon demons into a summoning circle
in order to control and extract favor from them. I’m defi-
nitely summoning demons with my books. I make them
fight like Demon Fight Club.
Earlier, you mentioned you like the process of the
writing. What part is your favorite?
It’s actually finding the weirder, slower moments. The
plot stuff is good, but it always feels a little more on track.
I know the story needs to move from A to B and there’s

things I can do to mix it up. But it’s always in the quieter,
stranger moments when the story does things you don’t
expect. When it has a moment to breathe on its own …
and the book gets to make its own decisions. Obviously,
I know books aren’t literal, but there are times when it
feels like literal magic.
Can you give an example from one of your books?
In the Miriam Black series, I learned very explicitly if I
was writing a super, super, supplemental character (like
a third-tier, z-grade nobody—a cab driver or someone at
a hotel), if I find there’s something interesting there or a
relationship or dialogue, I will turn them into a character
who stays until the end of the book. Basically, I didn’t plan
for you to be here but I really like you so I’d like you to stay.
You have this uncanny knack to write authentic char-
acters, no matter their age, race, or gender. For
example, in Wayward, characters Pete Corley, Ed
Creel, Shana, and Benji—they couldn’t be more dif-
ferent. With such a diverse cast, what work do you
do to get it right?
I try to treat them seriously—where they’re coming from
and what their problems are. I bridge myself to them but
knowing at the end of the day, there’s no way to write a
character that isn’t in some way me. I would love to be
able to conjure a literal new person.
How do you inform your characters? Do you have to
be careful about well, only this person is going to be
I do think we chase our
voice only to circle
back around and
realize we’ve had it all
along. It’s who we are
as people.
funny and only this person is going to drink whisky?
How do you split the atom of you among all these
people, or is it a calculus you don’t have to perform?
I generally try to turn the screw so there is enough away
from me. Build the artifice. But my experiences in the
world certainly inform. It’s difficult not to. But still, I’m
not someone who works with rats at the CDC … it’s an
opportunity for me to research and talk to people. I think
the notion “we must write what we know” is a dubious
one. It has value at a simplistic level, but after unpacking
it, there’s a lot of nuance that goes into a piece of writing.
For me, it’s building characters out so they’re serious and
I’m taking them seriously only as much like me as they
need to be.
You said you were fortunate to build your
career slowly. Was it helpful with setting future
expectations?
For people who get six or seven-figure advances, they have
to sell a lot of books. As a new author, it’s very difficult
unless you’re getting the full weight and scope of the pub-
lisher behind you and happen to hit a certain zeitgeist. An
underperforming book can kneecap your career right out
of the gate. But then, even success essentially brands you
as the cow who has to stay on that farm because you wrote
a hard, sci-fi epic. And if it succeeded really well, what if
the next thing you want to write doesn’t? Good luck, but
it’s what you do now and that’s what they’re going to want
for the next 10 years of your life, if not forever. So, expec-
tations are set and you’ve been branded.
WritersDigest.com I 55
THE WD INTERVIEW Chuck Wendig
You have several popular craft books: The Kick-
Ass Writer, Damn Fine Story, and the recent Gentle
Writing Advice. Yet, you’re the first to say any craft
writing advice is bullshit. So, why write craft books
at all? Why bother?
I like to read craft books myself and I find value in them.
Whether you’re talking Stephen King, Lawrence Block,
Anne Lamott … these are books that even if I don’t agree
with every piece of, that’s fine. It’s weird that people who
don’t agree decide it’s bad advice. It’s just advice that isn’t
for you. When I started my blog TerribleMinds over 20
years ago, it was me yelling at me about writing. It was
a way to vent and talk about the challenges I was facing.
Putting my thoughts into a form I understood. You don’t
always understand what you’re thinking until you get
it out. Like magnetic poetry, you need to barf out those
words and put them in order. But, when I saw people
were reading, it was terrifying. It was like turning on the
lights in a dark room where you’ve been talking for an
hour and you realize you aren’t alone.
And you’re naked.
[Laughs] Yes—but the advice was ultimately for me and
by me. I don’t know what works for anyone else. There
is no guaranteed way. Writing isn’t math where you plug
in the numbers and get a result … it’s squirrely. It’s not
how you do it. But this is how I do it today and it might
not be the same tomorrow. Ultimately, it’s to have people
think about what they’re doing. Anything to help people
write and read more intentionally. That’s the whole point
of the craft books. Give them a perspective, not the
perspective.
What advice would you give to new writers or those
struggling to break in?
The advice is stupidly simple … you just have to keep
going. Trying to become a published writer is like put-
ting a bucket on your head and trying to headbutt a wall.
Either the wall is going to fall or you are. You have to
love what you do because there is no promise of reward
beyond the doing. So, if you find love in the doing, it’s
probably why you do the thing in the first place.
In You Can Do Anything, Magic Skeleton!, you
talk about “Do the Thing.” It basically sums up all
writers’ struggles to move forward. Why do we need
56 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
this constant motivation? What is it about us as
human beings and creatives that we need this?
It’s because IT’S REALLY HARD. Writing and telling
stories, painting pictures, making songs. I think the myth
is that somehow art is easy … it just comes to you … the
muse moves you. But it doesn’t. It’s like moving narra-
tive earth, it can be hard and challenging because there’s
no instant result. As a writer, you get questions like: Is
your book a bestseller? Being made into a movie? Is it like
Stephen King? Huge questions. And if the answer is “no,”
you feel like you’re failing.
I get it. So, writers need to laugh and get lots of hugs?
There’s definitely a lot of feeling lost in the woods. And
we can use a flashlight. And a hug when we get out.
We talked earlier about fears, and I want to end with
it too. You have a great line in The Kick-Ass Writer
I’m going to paraphrase: “Fear will kill you dead …
you have nothing to be afraid of that a little prepara-
tion and pragmatism cannot kill ... fear is nonsense.”
On that note, can’t fear be helpful when it comes to
writing and publishing?
This is the heart of what Gentle Writing Advice is about.
It challenges some of these things like why you can’t
have self-doubt … kick self-doubt in the butt and move
on. But self-doubt is incredibly valuable. If you didn’t
ever doubt yourself, you’d be a psychopath. Sometimes
doubt is what helps me as writer say, “This isn’t working
right.” A little bit of fear is good too. Fear in general—
well, there’s a good reason we have it. Hey, you should
be scared of that van with the clown driving in it. DON’T
GET IN THAT VAN. Only when fear stops you from
writing, stops you from doing what you want, is it toxic.
It can be paralyzing.
Like self-sabotaging? I’ll never be a bestseller, so I
won’t write at all?
Yup. It’s easier not to try. And that’s scary. WD
Kristin Owens (Kristin-Owens.com) is an extroverted writer with
big opinions on everything from alcohol to zippers. She strives
to be the Ethel Merman of campy up-lit fiction. Her debut novel,
Elizabeth Sails, launches Fall 2024 with Rising Action Publishing Co.
32 LINES. ANY FORM. $1,000 PRIZE.
We’re looking for your best poems of 32 lines or fewer—
free verse, odes, pantoums, sonnets, villanelles, and even
haiku—for the 18th Annual Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards!
This is the only Writer’s Digest competition exclusively for
poets. Win cash and an article about you in the July/August
issue of Writer’s Digest.

EARLY-BIRD DEADLINE: OCTOBER 2, 2023

Discover the full prize list and entry details at

WRITERSDIGEST.COM/POETRYAWARDS
 FACING THE MYSTERIOUS

TWO HOURS AND THREE YEARS:

THE LIFE OF A SHORT
SHORT STORY
New Zealand-based writer and first-place winner of the
23rd Annual Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Awards shares the
personal experience that inspired her story.
BY MICHAEL WOODSON

Mrs Singh is in her wedding sari again
By Mary Francis
Danilo rolls the fishnet up the old lady’s leg and thinks
of fishing back home, out in the boat with his tiyo, cast-
ing out sheets of netting, dragging in the needlefish and
squid. His uncle, a wiry man browned by the sun, never
still, always at work like the waves on the shore.
“That good, Mrs H?” he says. She hitches the lace at
gentle manners. The ladies trust him to dress and
undress them if they need it, to assist with showers and
medications. Even the gentlemen, fewer and more resis-
tant to care, relax when Danilo comes to help. Mr Chin
gets confused and speaks Mandarin to him sometimes,
but Danilo doesn’t mind.
“More height,” says Mrs H, examining herself in the
hand mirror. Danilo obediently teases her hair further,
IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: YOSUKE HASEGAWA

the top of the stockings and nods.
Danilo knows how it started, but has not told. Not
that anyone has asked, exactly, but the wondering is in
the air.
“Want me to do your hair?” says Danilo.
He’s a favourite on the second floor. He knows this
and is pleased about it. They like his quiet voice and
with the gentlest turns of the comb. He shields her face
when he uses the hairspray. The end result is perhaps a
little lop-sided, a little unprofessional, but she’s happy
with it. Next time will be even better, he assures her. He’s
getting the knack.
“Pauline’s wearing … something,” says Kayla in a
low voice as they sort cups and saucers. High tea is a

58 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023

Calendar Event. Even Mrs Singh, who is struggling these
days, has made it along.
Danilo darts a look over Kayla’s shoulder and sees
Pauline from number 208. She’s in a gold flapper dress.
She has a peacock feather in her hair, and lines of pearls
draped around her neck. She has bright red lipstick and
teal eyeshadow. She drifts through the ground floor
lounge like a tottering bird.
Pauline joins a table and sips elegantly from the bone
china they bring out for Calendar Events. She nibbles at
the crustless cucumber sandwiches. Someone has done
her nails.
“Don’t tell me she got into that outfit without help,”
whispers Janelle on Friday evening. The days of the week
mean little here. Milestones are mainly Calendar Events
and club meetings, and every evening involves some kind
of booze for those who drink—even, Danilo discov-
ered, the flower-arranging group who have prosecco with
their stems. Friday night Happy Hour is still a draw card,
though. It brings out those who’ve been staying in, to cel-
ebrate another weekend rolling imperceptibly around.
For this Happy Hour, Pauline has found a vast orange
and purple dress that looks like a cape. Batwing, she
told him when he helped her fasten it at the back. She
ordered it online.
Pauline and Mrs H meet each other with stately nods,
poster girls from different eras, the flapper and the punk.
Danilo sees the flush in their cheeks even under their
makeup. He brushed their eyelashes with mascara as
their watery eyes blinked up at the ceiling.
“I used to light up the dance floor,” Pauline had
told him.
“My dad gave me such a hiding,” Mrs H had said,
laughing. “I wasn’t laughing then, though. Being a punk
was no joke.” Her mouth set in a thin line. “I really
meant it.”
She’s only in her early 60s but the hips and knees and
osteo and heart trouble and infections and raft of pills
to stop one thing and start another have taken their toll.
She is fragile. She needs help getting to her feet and he
insists she takes her walking stick because, “A fall from
those heels will also be no joke, Mrs H.”
Mr Chin is the first of the men. He still has his uni-
form from when he was an officer in Hong Kong. The
fabric is stiff with age, the black leather belt cracked, the
buttons tarnished. They work on the polishing together,
and Danilo measures him up and quietly takes the trou-
sers, jacket, and shirt home where Maria nips and tucks.
It’s a quiet week, no Calendar Events until Friday and
then there he is, present and correct, sitting at a table and
playing cards over his beers, upright as a pine tree.
“It’s cheating really,” says Mrs Singh as Danilo drapes
the fabric at her waist. “I never needed pins when I was
a girl.” She rests her arm on his shoulder while he gets it
folded just right and held in place, careful, careful, with
the safety pin. Then they stand side by side in the mirror,
her in purple and teal and gold, him in the washed-out
blue scrubs the rest home provides. “Very good,” says
Mrs Singh.
Soon it isn’t just Happy Hour and Calendar Events.
Hippies meet soldiers in the hallways on the way to the
knitting group and Bible study. The sewing circle’s indus-
try increases. Maria comes to help the usual instructor
and brings her heavy-duty sewing machine with the spe-
cial needles for denim and leather.
Mr Simms was in a rock band and the second of the
men to change. He is perhaps the most remarkable until
the day Mr Trainor quietly asks Danilo for a little help
and emerges into the sunshine in his jeans and mesh
singlet, with pink nail varnish and glitter eyeshadow. “I
want to be buried like this,” he says to Danilo as they
walk arm in arm to the rose garden. “I’ve told my girls.”
It’s a warm day but there’s a breeze and Danilo doesn’t
want Mr Trainor outside for too long or he might catch
a chill. Back in his room they find a pink angora cardie
that had been his wife’s. He pulls it on over the singlet
before settling in for a crossword and a cuppa.
Pauline and Mrs H do each other’s hair now and
talk about the old days. Ms Fox is a goth; she never was
before, she tells Danilo, but she saw one in Women’s
Weekly and liked it. And those nice gay boys on the telly
were telling her to “do you,” so she decided she would.
She applies black lipstick with a shaking hand and firm
approval. She has no children or grandchildren of her
own, but Mrs Golding’s granddaughter starts to visit
her to compare shades of black. They sit together in the
second-floor lounge by the jigsaw puzzles, two ravens
nestled in plush floral armchairs.
Death comes in waves at the rest home. One resident
passes and the staff brace themselves, make extra checks,
speak extra kindly. Sometimes the cause is clear: winter,
flu season, or the release following one last Christmas or
WritersDigest.com I 59
FACING THE MYSTERIOUS

birthday. This time it’s a secret message that whispers in Q&A With Mary Francis
the air, inaudible to those who aren’t ready to hear it.
What was the inspiration behind your story
Danilo readies Mrs H for the funeral directors, who
“Mrs Singh is in her wedding sari again”?
will arrive discretely in the morning. Beside her he lays
My mother had major heart surgery several years ago and
a carefully folded pile of clothes and the platform heels.
was in hospital for a long time. One of her nurses was so
The people in sombre suits will take her into their care,
reassuring to me—I trusted him completely to take good
to wash her and dress her and do her hair and makeup.
care of my fragile mum. He was very much the direct
Danilo paperclips a photograph to the top of the clothes.
inspiration for Danilo. Some years later, Mum moved into
Mrs Hat Happy Hour.
a retirement community and that was where the idea came
“That good, Mrs H?” he says softly.
to me of the exciting lives that had been lived by all the
She was where it started. She was the first to ask him
people now living in those quiet, pastel-colored corridors.
to get down a suitcase of old things, help her find what
still fitted, take home to his wife the things that needed
How long did it take to write?
adjusting. The first to walk her memories down the
The first draft came to me in one burst, but I would’ve
quiet hallways.
taken it out and revised it dozens of times after that. The
The wave comes and goes. Empty rooms and apart-
story’s about three years old by now. So, the answer must
ments are filled with new names and faces, and the vis-
be between two hours and three years.
ible tide of the past ebbs. The police and hippies and
dancers and red-shoes-no-knickers are all still there, but
What is your writing process like?
veiled by cotton, mohair, and sensible shoes.
Inconsistent. When I’m lucky, I can sit and bash out a
The newcomers like Danilo. He helps, without making
story in a couple of hours. I have a writing group I meet
them feel old. He listens to their memories.
up with monthly and we read each other’s stuff and give
He rolls the surgical stocking up Judy’s ankle and
feedback, so the best stories go through that process.
thinks of his nanay, sitting in her chair on the deck of
Otherwise, they hang around getting revised bit by bit as
their house on Polillo Island, her hands clasped in her
I read and reread them.
lap, watching the world and seeing how it used to be. His
tiyo, her son, leading her by the hand to take her meals.
What made you decide to enter the Writer’s
The gentleness on his face as he wiped her mouth and
Digest Short Short Story competition?
kissed her cheek.
I’d love to say I entered for the prestige and the amaz-
ing prize, but honestly, I never for a moment thought I
THE 23 RD ANNUAL SHORT SHORT would actually win! It’s a great motivation to me to know
STORY AWARD WINNERS that my writing would be read by the likes of Writer’s
1. “Mrs Singh is in her wedding sari again” by Mary Digest—it makes me take my writing seriously, and that’s
Francis all I hoped for.
2. “I Heard It From the Times That” by James
McCachren Do you have any advice for other writers?
3. “The Prisoner in the Stone” by Natalie Slavens Use competitions as a structure to provide deadlines.
Abbott Any long- or short-listing, or the occasional win, pro-
4. “Shed Story” by Dinah Smith vides some carrot to go along with the deadline stick.
5. “Invasive” by Natalie Slavens Abbott And no matter the results, you know that your writing is
6. “Couch Debris” by Emily Hampson actually getting read by someone who’s paying attention
7. “The President of Nothing” by Kurt Luchs and really wants to read it. That’s both gratifying
8. “Hat Trick” by Tari June Goerlitz and motivating. WD
9. “Easter Morning in Harlem” by Yvonne Kendall
10. “In the Writers Café” by Lauren K. Watel Michael Woodson is the content editor for WD. Find him on
Twitter @MWoodsonWrites.

60 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023

2023 VIRTUAL CONFERENCES
Genre-Specific Instruction From Award-Winning
Authors, Plus Agent Feedback

MASTERING NONFICTION
STORYTELLING November 11
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HISTORICAL
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YOURSTORY
Blue Agave
THE CHALLENGE: Write a short story of 650 words or fewer based on the photo below.
T
he D-list actress wasn’t
getting any younger,
said Brett the agent, and
reports of older women
getting hot roles were grossly over-
stated. Plus, she was no Dame Judi
Dench. Then they rode in silence
from the Guadalajara airport.
They stepped out of the Escalade,
the heat hitting them like a slap.
Brett mopped his forehead with a
salmon-tinted pocket square. He’d
been down here several times, but
this was the D-list actress’s first trip.
Pleasantries were exchanged in the
terra-cotta tiled foyer while a waiter in
a stiff uniform served sweating glasses
of lemonade—iced water for the D-list
actress. Then Faustina ushered them
into the library. They sat at a blocky
table, Brett and the D-list actress on
one side, Faustina and the lawyer in
glasses on the other.
Brett shuffled cardboard mock-ups
of the D-list actress in a fedora sipping
a glass of clear liquid while kneeling
between spiky rows of blue agave.
“Tequilana weber?” the lawyer
asked, raising an eyebrow.
“What’d I say?” said Brett. “Better
yet, we surround her with some of the
more attractive women farmers. We
could do a whole feminism thing.”
“Faustina too?” The lawyer asked.
“Uh-huh,” said Brett. “Maybe.”
The lawyer pushed some papers
forward. “The terms are nearly
agreeable. But there is the matter of
the family name.”
“Won’t work for the brand.” Brett
jabbed his thumb at the D-list actress.
“Her name only, or it doesn’t work.”
62 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
Faustina’s hair had streaks of
white running from her forehead to
the tight bun at the base of her skull.
“This distillery has operated under
my family name for two centuries.”
“Non-starter,” said Brett. “I can’t
negotiate the name.”
“The idea of the two of us—me
and Faustina—by the agave is a
good one,” the D-list actress offered.
Brett glanced at her sideways while
keeping his head faced forward. “What
she means is there’s wiggle room when
it comes to social media campaigns.”
Faustina examined the scrap of
woman in front of her, honed and
metallic like a luxury car, albeit not
the latest model. “You know tequila?”
she asked. “You are an aficionada?”
The D-list actress bit her lip. “I’ve
tasted your product,” she said. “It’s
wonderful.”
“Somewhere unobtrusive on the
bottle,” said the lawyer. “Small letters
on the cap. On the back label with
the ingredients and warnings.”
“You’re not understanding,” Brett
smoothed his palms over the lac-
quered walnut tabletop. “We’ll get
100 times the sales with just her
name.” His eyes brightened, and
he snapped his fingers. “Like a fine
tequila—why dilute it?” He sat back
in his chair, proud of himself.
Faustina placed a hand on the law-
yer’s forearm. “The agave is 10 years
old before we harvest it. Then we dis-
till and age it in whisky barrels from
Scotland. That is the quality we offer.”
“Might not be necessary,” said
Brett. “It’s added cost. Plus, we need
to produce enough to meet initial
CONTEST #122
Out of more than 100 entries, Writer’s
Digest editors and readers chose
this winner, submitted by Teresa
Tennyson of North Sandwich, N.H.
demand.” He gestured at the D-list
actress. “Because of her, that’s going
to be humongous.”
“How long before I can put my
family name back on the bottle?”
“It’s a five-year exclusive,” Brett
said.
“But,” interjected the lawyer,
turning to Faustina, “They have first
right of refusal at current terms plus
inflation.”
Brett put a finger to his forehead,
then slapped Faustina’s grandmoth-
er’s table. “What I can do is keep the
family name for the Mexican market.
How would that be? Makes sense
anyway.” Pointing to the lawyer, he
said, “He drives a hard bargain.”
IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: NANCYBELLE GONZAGA VILLARROYA
The D-list actress smiled, think-
ing how crazy the world was that
she would soon own her own tequila
brand. Faustina thought about all
the people she was responsible for.
The lawyer thought about how he
would make more money if they
came to terms than if they didn’t.
“Well,” said Brett, “Do we have
a deal?” WD
 ENTERYOURSTORY
THE CHALLENGE: Write a drabble—a short story of exactly 100 words, excluding the title—based on the photo prompt below. You can be
funny, poignant, witty, etc.; it is, after all, your story.

TO ENTER: Email your entry to YourStory

Contest@aimmedia.com with the subject
CONTEST #126 line “Your Story #126.” Entries must be
pasted directly into the body of the email;
attachments will not be opened. Include your
name and mailing address. Entries without a
name or mailing address will be disqualified.

NOTE: WD editors select the top six entries

and post them on our website (WritersDigest
.com/your-story-competition). Join us online
in October, when readers will vote for their
favorite to help choose three winners. Follow
IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES: KARL HENDON

@WritersDigest on Twitter for Your Story

updates.

The winners will be published in a future issue of Writer’s Digest.

DON’T FORGET: Your name and mailing address. One entry per person.
DEADLINE: October 3, 2023.

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T U TO R I A L S.W R I T E R S D I G E S T.CO M

Revision and editing advice to take your first draft to the next level.
BY RYAN G. VAN CLEAVE
Kill With Your Critique … the
Good Way
You can offer serious, honest feedback without crushing a writer’s soul.
A
s The Picture Book
Whisperer and Editor for
Bushel & Peck Books, I’m
regularly invited to conferences to
give manuscript critiques. Most
recently, I participated in the Florida
SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book
Writers & Illustrators) Critique-a-
Palooza, and from the feedback I
received on my critiques, I scored
like a champ. Since these involved
15-minute Zoom conversations
with the authors, I already knew
that—I witnessed how my writ-
ten and verbal comments were
difference-making.
Best of all, no one cried.
You might think that last sen-
tence was left in for the comedic
value, but here’s the truth—when I
started teaching writing at the col-
lege level 20-whatever years ago, I
did make someone cry. Maybe even
a few someones. Why? Because
it’d been commonplace in my grad
school writing workshops for stu-
dents to get blubbery during or
immediately after a professor’s
critique. After all, when speaking
about critiques, don’t we often use
words like “destroy,” “tear to shreds,”
and “rip apart”? How can that
NEXTDRAFT
happen without the writer taking a
few—or many!—blows as well?
This all got me thinking: What
do I now know about giving cri-
tiques that I didn’t know then? After
serious reflection—and talking to a
few dynamite pro critiquers—I offer
the following.
DISCOVER INTENTIONS
I used to assume what the author
and the story needed. These days, I
ask. Small wonder then that if I learn
a writer wants a lot of attention on
plot, and then I give lots of feedback
on plot, they’re super happy.
In my college writing workshops,
I invite authors whose work is up for
group critique to bullet-point three
specific things/areas/ideas they’d
like feedback to touch upon. Of
course, people can and do give more
than that, but this guarantees we all
have the same primary bull’s-eyes.
It’s so simple, yet many criti-
quers skip this high-impact, author-
empowering step!
GO HIGH AND LOW
As someone who mentors college
writing teachers, I notice that the
more insecure someone is about
their authority or their writing/
editing ability, the more they focus
on lower-order feedback. Why? You
know you’re correct, and it’s easy
to fill a paper with all manner of it,
which looks impressive—at least in
terms of volume.
In a world where grammar-
checkers, spell-checkers, and AI
rewriters can fix surface-level issues,
avoid lingering in the lower-order
arena.
Sure, point out that a writer is
consistently wrong with dialogue
punctuation if that’s the case (that’s
lower-order stuff !). But then spend
a lot more time helping them see
how a ho-hum scene could be more
engaging by including sensory
details, metaphors, and/or conflict
(that’s higher-order stuff !).
TAKE A HOLISTIC
APPROACH
To tackle this super-practical topic,
I approached Dean Burrell, a book
editor/producer with three decades
of experience at places like Harper
San Francisco, Chronicle Books,
and Bushel & Peck.
“Publishing is a process of
reverse engineering,” he explains.
WritersDigest.com I 65
NEXTDRAFT
“To me, it all starts with really, truly
defining the intended audience—
What is the end consumer looking
for? What ‘problem’ are we solving
for them? How old is that reader,
and where and why are they coming
to this piece of writing?”
With this vision in mind, Burrell
can quickly identify those chap-
ters or passages that are doing good
work and eliminate those that are
best pared away. “The answers
quickly tell me such things as the
right tone and sentence structure.
Moreover, I also begin to picture the
ideal format and even the price, if
it’s a book.”
Sure, he’s largely talking about
critiquing nonfiction here—one of
his specialty areas—but thinking
about audience in conjunction with
a book’s value proposition is equally
useful for fiction. Readers might
want wildly different things from
66 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
a Stephen Graham Jones werewolf
book than they do from the latest
how-to business leadership tome
from some CEO guru, but either
way, they want something. Sleuthing
out those stated or unstated goals
and keeping them in mind will help
every step of the writing and revis-
ing/editing process.
BE JUDICIOUS
Jamie Morris, an Orlando-based
writing coach whose work with
clients is often called transfor-
mative, adheres to the quality vs.
quantity rule. “I used to critique 50
student papers a week,” she notes.
“Enthusiastic, I returned those
papers so covered in margin notes
it was difficult to see the original
text! But my effusive approach over-
whelmed my students. Now, instead
of sharing a thought on every sen-
tence (!!!), I prioritize my responses
in degrees of literary magnitude—
and only make two or three com-
ments per page.”
This judicious less-is-more
strategy assures that her critique is
aimed at what’s most important, and
that it doesn’t sink the creative ship
she’s trying to guide to a safe harbor.
EMBRACE QUESTIONS
Changing a statement into a ques-
tion often helps a tough topic land
better. For example, consider:
Your main character is a total jerk. I
hope he falls into a sewer and dies.
ILLUSTRATION © GETTY IMAGES: DENIS NOVIKOV
versus
By this point in the story, readers
will have seen how the main char-
acter treats his mom and how he
steals at work and blames innocent
people for it. Are you concerned
that readers might label him a
 total jerk and just give up on
the story?
Questions are terrific for more
than just pointing out hard issues in
a soft manner. They’re also handy
for shifting ownership of a text
back to the author by insisting they
dream up solutions to their narra-
tive challenges.
If your main character is deeply
flawed in a way that some might
find stand-offish, how might you
give readers enough reasons to
keep going up until they reach the
redemption arc which starts in the
middle of the book?
Of course, you have brilliant ideas
on how this can be done, but it’s bet-
ter if they figure it out themselves
with your gentle nudging. It’s the
whole “give a person a fish, they eat
for a day, but teach a person to fish,
they eat for a lifetime” thing … with
stories instead of fish (but let’s be
clear—both can be quite yummy).
SANDWICH THE FEEDBACK
If you Google “how to give good
feedback on writing,” you’ll almost
always uncover this advice—use the
Feedback Sandwich. I’ll share it with
you visually since it’s clearer that way.
GOOD STUFF (“The idea of your
story is interesting!”)
BAD STUFF (“You have absolutely
no understanding of plot.”)
MORE GOOD STUFF (“You’re fun. I
like going to lunch with you.”)
The problem is that it’s now done
so frequently that it’s almost become
a cliché. Plus, some writers miss
the main point—the Bad Stuff—
because it’s deemphasized by all of
those good things. “Hey, they like
my story idea! And they love having
chimichangas with me. Yay!!!”
Just as you ought not to rely
overmuch on formulas for writing
stories, I wouldn’t focus on using
a formula like this one for giving
feedback either. Instead, focus on
making sure the critique is support-
ive and actionable while also being
honest, appropriate, and well worth
the cost of whatever you’re charging.
PRO TIP #1: While some people
insist all critiquers should be paid
for their work, it’s entirely OK to
provide critiques for free if:
• you’re in a class that has peer
review
• you’re trading work with a friend
and getting feedback on your
own writing in return
• you are independently wealthy,
have oodles of extra time, and
find it existentially satisfying to
give free critiques
PRO TIP #2: Early in my career, I
wasn’t averse to giving critiques for
high-quality bakery items and/or
yardwork help. Just saying!
MEET THEM WHERE
THEY ARE
I used to frame all my notes in terms
of what I’d do. But I’m in a much dif-
ferent career position than are my
critique recipients, so what I’d do is
necessarily different than what they
could/should/might do. In short, I
try to help someone where they’re at,
not where I think they ought to be.
Burrell puts this another way,
saying, “Give a manuscript what it
needs, not what it deserves.” Here’s
his story that puts that into sharper
focus: “When I was first learning to
be an editor, my mentor hammered
home the idea that just about every
manuscript can be improved if you
first focus on what the text needs.
Some manuscripts need help with
basic grammar and syntax, while
others need help with overall struc-
ture. Our role as editors is to bring
out the best in every writer, while
understanding that not everyone
will be a Hemingway.”
CELEBRATE SUCCESS
As I wrote in the intro, people
expect a critique to be all the
“bad stuff.” A proper critique also
acknowledges the things that are
working, so take the time to point
those out and explain why they’re
working. Far too often, early career
writers get feedback and work so
hard to fix what’s “wrong” that they
mangle all that’s right. Pointing out
what’s effective/good/working well
will help avoid that situation.
Whether you’re an expert or a stu-
dent, regardless of whether you’re
paid or not, you can use the above
tips to kill with your critiques …
and not make anyone cry. To para-
phrase the third-best show on TV
right now (“The Mandalorian”),
“This is the way.”
If you want an article that’s all
about critiques from the original
author’s side—the before, during,
and after—let Writer’s Digest know.
I’ve got a few thoughts on that, too.
Until then, do what you can to
be a better critiquer for the writer of
others. It’ll pay off via appreciation,
gratitude, and literary karma. WD
In addition to running the creative writing
program at Ringling College of Art and
Design, Ryan G. Van Cleave is Editor for
Bushel & Peck Books and has authored
20+ books, including The Weekend Book
Proposal (WD Books). As The Picture
Book Whisperer, Ryan helps celebrities
and high-profile clients write picture book
and kidlit titles.
WritersDigest.com I 67
 AGENTSPOTLIGHT
Seasoned literary agents on the business of publishing.
BY KRISTY STEVENSON

Michael W. Bourret
Dystel, Goderich & Bourret, LLC | Los Angeles, Calif.

GENRES: Picture book, chapter book, middle-grade, young adult, graphic novel,
narrative nonfiction, commercial and upmarket adult fiction, literary fiction
CLIENTS INCLUDE: A. S. King, Malinda Lo, Lisa McMann, Jewell Parker Rhodes,
Sarah Schulman

M
ichael Bourret came
to Jane Dystel Literary
Management as an
intern in January of 2000. “Frankly,
I had no idea literary agents existed
until I took the job,” he admits. “I
learned quickly that being an agent
means working at the intersec-
tion of art and commerce, help-
ing writers to achieve their artistic
goals while also working to ensure
they are compensated and pro-
tected.” Bourret was immediately
hooked and sees every day as a new
challenge.
Today, he enjoys getting out of
the house and finding a corner at
a quiet bar to read, whether for
His clients include many New
York Times and other national
bestsellers, as well as winners of the
National Book Award, the LA Times
Book Prize, the Michael L. Printz
Award, the Margaret A. Edwards
Award, the William C. Morris YA
Debut Award, the Lambda Literary
Award, the Boston Globe-Horn
Book Award, the Stonewall Book
Award, as well as finalists for
many others.
What do you look for
in clients?
People who are doing or saying
interesting things that challenge
the status quo. While at times, my
but humble enough to listen to
informed feedback.
What are your querying
pet peeves?
My biggest querying pet peeve is
how much time we spend dis-
cussing querying pet peeves. If
you’re diligent and have done your
research, your query will be just
fine. The hard part is writing a
great book!
What do you like best about
your job?
As a person who thrives on change,
I love that every day brings some-
thing new. It’s wonderful to con-
ILLUSTRATION © GETTY IMAGES: FRANK RAMSPOTT

work or for pleasure. “I’ve worked
from home for nearly 14 years,
and getting away from my com-
puter and the constant ping of
emails and notifications is always
welcome,” Bourret says. “I love
nursing a beer, or glass of wine,
or a Negroni, and getting lost in
someone’s words.”
list has been focused in one area
or another, I’m very open in terms
of genre and category. I’m look-
ing to sign people who are profes-
sional and empathetic while also
being opinionated and driven. I tell
authors that the key to success is
being delusional enough to think
that what you write is necessary,
stantly be learning, as I get to dive
in and discover what fascinates my
clients—whether that’s true stories
about trans athletes in the 1930s or
the history of ACT UP New York, or
made-up ones about praying mantis
super soldiers or two girls falling
in love in 1950s San Francisco. The
magic for me is when an author

68 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023


expresses something I’ve felt but
could never put into words. I enjoy
going on these journeys with clients;
seeing the kernel of an idea grow
and shift and be shaped into a book
is so gratifying.
The key to success is being delusional enough
to think that what you write is necessary,
but humble enough to listen to informed
feedback.
What are you seeking?
I’m on the lookout in all the catego-
ries I represent, but I’m particularly
looking to expand into adult fic-
tion and am rather open in terms of
genre. I love psychological thrillers,
domestic horror, well-researched
historical novels, contemporary
novels that cast a critical eye on the
current moment, literary fiction,
and anything that challenges me
formally, politically, or intellectually.
As ever, I’m looking to champion
creators from diverse backgrounds,
particularly BIPOC, Indigenous,
and queer voices.
Follow and connect:
Dystel.com
Twitter.com/DGandBTweets
Facebook.com/DGandB/
Instagram.com/dgandbgrams/ WD
Kristy Stevenson (KristyStevenson.com) is
an independent contributing writer, editor,
and storyteller. A native Cheesehead, she
currently resides in central N.C. with her
husband and two children.

AGENT FEST ONLINE

            
                  
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FACULTY:
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NOVEMBER 1-4, 2O23www.midwestwriters.org

WritersDigest.com I 69
ONNONFICTION
The art and craft of writing nonfiction.
BY DON VAUGHAN
Milking the Cow, Part 1
Making the Most From Every Article Idea
M
aking a living as a free-
lance writer can be chal-
lenging. I know because
I’ve faced every obstacle the job
can throw at a writer, from unco-
operative sources and unresponsive
editors to uncompromising dead-
lines and fly-by-night markets that
publish then refuse to pay. It can be
frustrating and sometimes a little
soul-crushing, yet we soldier on
because, at the end of the day, being
a freelance writer is still the best job
in the world.
One unique obstacle faced by
many aspiring freelance writers is
figuring out what to write about, an
issue I encountered numerous times
when I taught a course on freelance
writing through a local community
college. Students would come to
class with general topics they were
interested in exploring (“I want to
write about dogs!”) then struggle
to find something within that topic
that was worth querying.
This is actually a two-sided coin.
On one side is the challenge of
developing marketable ideas. On
the other is making the most out of
every one. It’s common for writers
(especially newbies) to develop an
idea, pitch it, write it, then move on.
But this approach can potentially
70 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
leave a lot of money on the table.
Successful writers massage and
finesse every idea they develop, sell-
ing the basic concept to as many
different markets as they can, then
returning to the well later to offer
reprint rights. I call this approach
“milking the cow,” and it can pay
huge dividends with just a little
additional effort.
GENERATING IDEAS
I’ve been in the freelance trenches
so long I’m on my third shovel. One
of the most important things I’ve
learned is that marketable ideas are
everywhere if you know how and
where to look. The key is develop-
ing what I call the Writer’s Eye—
the ability to see promising ideas
in everything you do, everywhere
you go, and everyone you meet. Not
all of these ideas will bear fruit, of
course, but honing your Writer’s
Eye will help you develop an abun-
dance of ideas from which to pick
and choose.
I’ve written in the past about
exploring your own life for ideas,
something that has benefitted me
greatly throughout my career. I’ve
penned numerous articles about
newsworthy family members and
friends, as well as about my hobbies
and interests. Just yesterday, in fact,
I received four assignments from
Encyclopedia Britannica for queried
articles inspired by my personal
interest in film, comic books, and
more. Ideas also frequently come to
me when I travel, so I use my phone
to jot quick notes. I also keep a pad
and pen (yeah, I’m old-school that
way) in my car and beside my bed,
just in case an article idea hits me
out of the blue.
A freelancer without ideas is a
writer with nothing to say. Ideas
abound, but it takes experience
to recognize them and, equally
important, instinctively know which
markets would be most receptive.
This can be a problem for new
writers with limited experience in
the marketplace. Perhaps they’ve
sold a piece here and there, but
they are generally unfamiliar with
the broad array of print and online
markets that might be interested in
their ideas.
Market awareness is vital to free-
lance success because new print and
online markets pop up all the time.
Luckily, a variety of resources are
available to keep writers up to date
on the editorial needs of new and
established publications. For exam-
ple, I receive regular blasts from
a resource called Freedom With
Writing (FreedomWithWriting
.com), which features calls for
pitches from print publications and
online markets all over the world,
as well as contests, fiction opportu-
nities and more. North Carolina-
based freelancer Michael Venutolo-
Mantovani, whose publishing
credits include The New York Times
and Wired, is a big fan of Sonia
Weiser’s Opportunities of the Week
Newsletter (OppsOfTheWeek
.com), which also reports on calls
for pitches and other writing oppor-
tunities. Additional market and
publishing resources can be found
in Writer’s Digest’s annual “101 Best
Websites for Writers” report and
elsewhere. All of them increase your
potential market base and provide
additional publishing opportunities
for every article idea you generate.
BUILDING A PORTFOLIO
What is our goal? To generate con-
sistent, well-paying work, of course,
but also to build a strong publica-
tion portfolio over time. And like a
savvy investor, a writer’s portfolio
should be diverse. This means sell-
ing to markets large and small, local
and national, print and online. The
benefits of this approach are many.
Foremost, this kind of diversity
forces you to strengthen your writ-
ing “muscles” and explore oppor-
tunities that take you out of your
comfort zone.
As an example, I recently started
doing some marketing writing for
a local company that hosts a plat-
form for the promotion of busi-
nesses, agencies, schools, and other
institutions throughout central
North Carolina. The opportunity
to write for this platform gave me
pause because marketing writing is
not in my wheelhouse. In fact, I had Successful writers
almost no experience with it, prefer-
massage and finesse
ring to write more traditional maga-
zine articles and profiles. But after every idea they
mulling it over, I decided to give it develop, selling the
a try. Writing is writing, I reasoned, basic concept to
only this time it would be a bit more
promotional than usual. Turns out as many different
I made the right decision. The top- markets as they can ...
ics I write about are actually quite
interesting, I was able to find my
that is not as deeply realized in the
“marketing voice” more easily than
primary article. Did an important
I imagined, and the money is good.
source attend a specific college or
Best of all, the work is long-term. A
university? The institution’s alumni
win-win for everyone.
magazine might be interested in a
profile. Is someone conducting new
THE VALUE OF MULTIPLES
and exciting research? That might
Freelance success is a numbers
be worth a pitch to a professional
game. We’re constantly generating
publication or trade journal.
ideas, constantly pitching, con-
The possibilities are endless, but
stantly writing. In other words,
it can take a while before this way
constantly milking the cow with
of thinking becomes second nature.
the ultimate goal of receiving more
One effective way to get in the
assignments than rejections. When
groove is to visit a store with a siz-
I work with new writers, I empha-
able magazine selection and explore
size the value of multiples. By this, I
the genres you don’t usually read.
mean the value of simultaneous
If you’re not female-identifying,
submissions when seeking an
review the women’s magazines. If
assignment, approaching multiple
you don’t have children, take a look
noncompeting markets when query-
at the many publications available
ing, and eyeing multiple noncom-
to young readers. This will help you
peting markets when selling reprint
become better aware of the many
rights after first publication.
potential side markets available to
This approach is designed to
you as you strive to find as many
generate as much income as
homes for each idea as you can. WD
possible from every idea we
conceive by selling first to the most
obvious markets then exploring IN THE NEXT ISSUE
various side markets we may not Milking the Cow, Part 2: Pulling It
have initially considered, such as All Together
alumni magazines, professional
trade journals, gender-specific
publications, specialty publications,
and more. Appropriate side Don Vaughan is a freelance writer based
in Raleigh, N.C. His work has appeared
markets often become evident as
in The Saturday Evening Post, Scout Life,
we conduct interviews and delve WD, Encyclopedia Britannica, and MAD
into our research, and frequently Magazine. He’s the founder of Triangle
emphasize a component of the story Association of Freelancers (TAFNC.com).
WritersDigest.com I 71
PUBLISHINGINSIGHTS
Unlocking the Mysteries of
Publishing a Successful Book
P
ublishing a book is really
a simple process. After
all, a publisher just needs
to compile some content (text,
images, etc.), send it to a printer,
and wait for the books to arrive
in the mail. Publishing only gets
complicated when someone tries
to do it well or sell a lot of copies
(or even sell a moderate number of
copies). Unlocking the secret to a
successful book typically involves a
team that focuses on nearly flawless
writing, sure, but also marketing,
publicity, design, sales, production,
distribution, and hours and hours
of meetings.
“As a foreigner and as a novice
writer, I had no idea that the pub-
lication of a book was such a long
process in the U.S.,” says Mirinae
Lee, author of 8 Lives of a Century-
Old Trickster. “Like many people
who weren’t literary professionals, I
simply assumed that I would see my
book in bookstores several months
after I signed with a publisher. Well,
I was quite ignorant!”
While it is possible for some
books to get fast-tracked, most
do end up taking a year or more
72 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
from acceptance to publication.
“One of the biggest surprises for
me was the amount of time it takes
to go from idea to publication,”
confirms Hadley Vlahos, author
of The In-Between: Unforgettable
Encounters During Life’s Final
Moments. “It seemed so daunting
at first to have to wait years for my
book to be put out into the world.
Now that I’m nearing the end of that
journey, I see how necessary each
step was.”
However, timing can change
from author to author: “I’m on a
book-a-year schedule, so things
need to happen quickly,” reports
Riley Sager, author of The Only
One Left. “This one took about 10
months since I first pitched it to
my editor to when I handed in the
first draft.”
Of course, the process doesn’t
end at handing in the first draft, and
the timing can also be impacted by
genre: “The publishing process was
quite different for this book than my
debut, a YA nonfiction book I sold
on proposal and then wrote after
contracts were signed,” says Cindy
L. Otis, author of At the Speed of
BY ROBERT LEE BREWER
Lies. “When this book sold, it sold
as a full manuscript I then had to
tear apart during the various rounds
of revision.”
THE TRADITIONAL PROCESS
OF PUBLISHING A BOOK
Let’s revisit the simple (and
traditional) process of publishing
a book from the perspective of the
manuscript. It all begins with an
idea—usually by the author, though
sometimes by an editor who then
pitches it to an author. Then, the
author pitches it to a literary agent
or directly to a publisher. If the
agent likes the idea, they will request
the full manuscript (if fiction) or
book proposal with sample chapters
(if nonfiction)—and if the agent
likes what they see here, they offer
to represent the author.
The agent may (more like
probably will) request changes
to the manuscript or book pro-
posal before moving to the next
step: Pitching the publisher. You
may have noticed that sometimes
authors pitch publishers directly
without an agent, so we’re at that
step for those authors now. The
person who typically receives the
pitch at a publisher has the title
of acquisitions editor. If the editor
likes what they see, they will not
immediately offer to publish the
manuscript in many cases. Rather,
they’ll put together a pitch of their
own to try and get “buy in” on the
project at a “pub board” meeting.
While agents and editors often
see the potential upside of a manu-
script, many of the key decision-
makers at pub board are looking
for every possible flaw—and the
editor enters the meeting trying to
anticipate and overcome objections
while trying to excite the publicists
and sales reps. If the editor can suc-
cessfully navigate pub board, they
will make an offer to the agent (or
author) for the manuscript. There
may be negotiations here before the
contracts are signed, but then it’s
time for getting the book ready.
This is where we get to the two
different tracks mentioned by Otis.
For nonfiction, authors now have
to write the manuscript, which will
be followed by at least one round of
revisions (though it can sometimes
go through many rounds). For fic-
tion, which is typically sold on the
basis of a full manuscript, authors
jump straight to the revision pro-
cess—and prepare yourself, many
editors expect to significantly revise
manuscripts they absolutely love.
“One of the biggest learning
moments in the publishing process
for Lia Park and the Heavenly
Heirlooms was gauging how long
each part of the process would take
me under contract,” says Jenna
Yoon. “I underestimated how long
each part would take me. I really
pushed myself to my physical
limits while writing this book and
learned the hard way that I cannot
do that again. There definitely was a
learning curve, but for the future I
have a handle on how long each part
of the process will take me and can
pace myself better.”
OVERLOOKED PARTS OF
THE PROCESS
Some authors may think, writing,
revising, and pitching the manu-
script still seems like a pretty simple
process to me. And well, OK, it is if
you want to simplify it like that, but
there are also other things involved
for the writer, including hunting
down blurbs (the fantastic quotes
found on the cover of nearly every
book), providing information to
publicists, giving direction on the
cover (if the author is lucky enough
to give any input on this), and nail-
ing down a title (again, if the author
is allowed in this discussion).
“My greatest surprise is always
how difficult it is to find the right
title for a book,” admits Hazel
Gaynor, author of The Last Lifeboat.
“There were a lot of discussions
with my editors in the U.S. and the
U.K. as we tried to find a title that
would work for both territories. I
tend to overcomplicate things and
I’m learning (10 books in!) that it is
usually the most obvious title that
works in the end.”
While we’ve focused on mak-
ing a magnificent manuscript so
far, there’s more to the publishing
process than pitching, writing, edit-
ing, design, and nailing the perfect
title. Once the contract is signed, a
few other people start working on
the process of giving that manu-
script its best chance at success on
its official pub day. This includes
sales reps who work to get book-
stores to buy the books and put
them on their shelves, and publicists
who work to get the book featured
in roundups and favorable book
reviews while also trying to get the
author interview and guest writing
opportunities.
And don’t forget the often-over-
looked efforts of the production
team who are responsible for getting
the book printed, which isn’t always
as simple as it sounds—as Jessie
Mihalik, author of Capture the Sun,
can attest: “The release date was
pushed back a couple of months due
to printer rescheduling. Printing
books isn’t something most people
spend time thinking about—books
just magically appear in stores,
right? But printing is more compli-
cated now thanks to closures and
pandemic supply chain issues that
led to cascading problems.”
So, as I was saying, publishing is
a really simple process—except for
when it’s not simple at all. Or as Rita
Chang-Eppig, author of Deep as the
Sky, Red as the Sea, says, “Abandon
all hope. I’m kidding. Actually,
I’m not kidding. I’ve learned that
it’s really important to not attach
any hopes or expectations to this
process because so much is just
outside of your control. You might
not get something you felt certain
you would. But you might also get
something you never imagined. In
general, the publishing process is
forcing me to practice radical accep-
tance, which is like broccoli: I don’t
like it, but I know it’s good for me in
the long run.” WD
Robert Lee Brewer is senior editor of
WD and author of The Complete Guide of
Poetic Forms.
WritersDigest.com I 73
 LEVELUPYOUR
WRITING(LIFE)
Advice and tips to boost your writing skills.
BY SHARON SHORT
Use Time to Enrich Your Writing—
and Your Writing Experience
S
ayings and quotes abound on
the concept of time.
• SOCIAL COMMENTARY: “Does
Anybody Really Know What
Time It Is?” (song by the band
Chicago, released in 1969 on
their debut album, Chicago
Transit Authority)
• HUMOROUS: “No man goes
before his time—unless the boss
leaves early.” (Groucho Marx)
• ADVICE: “Remember that time is
money.” (Benjamin Franklin)
Because time is such a ubiquitous
part of our lives, it’s easy to overlook
ways to use the concept of time to
2.
enrich our stories—whether short
form, novels, essays, or memoirs.
Here are eight ways to apply the
concept of time to your writing:
1. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN: If the incit-
ing incident happened on Tuesday,
then in the scene that takes place
on the following Saturday, avoid
writing something like this: Talia’s
first thought on waking was that
it felt more like months than only
two days since Reed had fired her.
(Actually, it’s been four days …)
74 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
TIP: Include a date/time/
location stamp at the start of each
scene, or, if you keep an outline,
at the beginning of each chapter
summary. For a final draft, delete
these stamps (or, depending on
your story, leave them in) but as
you’re writing and revising, they’ll
help you avoid confusion and
unintentional time travel.
Allow adequate time for your
characters to complete activities;
i.e. if Talia must travel 50 miles
from Point A to Point B, she’ll have
a different schedule if she’s travel-
ling by bus than if she’s driving.
Actions require adequate time.
POINT OF VIEW: Will you best
serve your prose by writing in
the present tense? (Talia walks
into Reed’s office. He stares at his
computer, ignoring her.) Or in the
past tense? (Talia walked into
Reed’s office. He stared …)
If your story requires imme-
diacy, try present tense.
If you or your characters are
looking back at events, write in past
tense. But remember, a person’s
perspective on events that hap-
pened a week ago will differ from
looking back at those same events a
year, decade, or lifetime later.
3. SCENE VERSUS NARRATIVE: In
scene, events play out “on stage,”
unfolding in real-time (yes, even
if they’re in past tense). In narra-
tive, events are described.
How do you decide between
using scene or narrative? If the
action, thoughts, or dialogue are
pivotal to your character’s arc
and/or to the plot arc, use scene.
SCENE (EMOTIONAL REALIZA-
TION): Talia turned on her car
radio, and gasped as the song—
their song—came on: “Does
Anybody Really Know What Time
It Is?” Joey always hummed that
on Saturday mornings. As tears
sprung to her eyes, she knew what
ILLUSTRATIONS © GETTY IMAGES: FRANK RAMSPOTT, WILDPIXEL
time it was. Time to forget Joey!
She snapped off the car radio.
SCENE (ACTION): Talia turned
left, heading toward the dry clean-
ers. As she glanced in the rearview
mirror, she noticed the red SUV.
The same SUV that had pulled
out behind her when she left the
pharmacy. Sweat broke out on
her brow. She sped up and drove
past the cleaners, and the SUV
 did too, staying close behind her.
Too close.
If you need to show time pass-
ing and that your character com-
pleted activities, but the events
aren’t pivotal, use narrative.
NARRATIVE: Talia had a
lengthy list of errands for her
lunch hour: pharmacy, dry clean-
ers, café. She managed to get them
done in an hour and five min-
utes—not bad, she thought as she
plopped down at her office desk.
4. PACE: Does your story call for a
languid pace, infused with sen-
sory details? Or is it meant to be
an action-packed page-turner
that requires just enough sensory
detail to keep action and charac-
ter clear in your readers’ minds?
5. TIMEFRAME: When does your
story take place?
• CONTEMPORARY: Decide how
much, or how little, current
events, technologies, attitudes,
and so on to include.
• HISTORICAL: Steep yourself in
understanding the events, tech-
nologies, attitudes, and so on of
the era and, again, sort out how
this impacts your story events
and character motivations.
• FUTURE: Extrapolate from
your understanding of con-
temporary life how the future
might change. How far in the
future will impact your analy-
sis. In 2023, some cars are self-
navigating; maybe by 2070, all
cars will be self-navigating.
6. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: When
your characters were born and
came of age impacts who they
are—no matter when your story
is set. A character born in the
1960s/coming of age in the 1980s
will have a different perspective
in a contemporary story than one
born in the 1990s/coming of age
in the 2010s. Date of birth and
coming-of-age era are only two
attributes of many that define
character—but they’re vital ones.
7. TIMELINES: Most stories have one
timeline. However, dual timelines
or even multiple timelines are also
popular. Just one example: She’s
Up to No Good by Sara Goodman
Confino is told from the alternating
point of view of a woman (contem-
porary) and her grandmother (in
the 1950s.) This enables the author
to share both women’s experiences
and perspectives without forcing
the grandmother to explain her
past in dialogue.
Examine your story objec-
tively to see if it will benefit from
more than one timeline, keeping
in mind that weaving together
dual/multiple timelines can be
tricky. But if your story would
otherwise require a lot of flash-
backs or explanation in dialogue,
dual/multiple timelines might
provide an elegant solution.
8. FLASHBACKS: Flashback—in nar-
rative, dialogue, or a character’s
thoughts—is usually necessary to
some degree. Be wary of stopping
action for too long to go back in
time; if it’s necessary, keep it to a
sentence or two. Otherwise, allow
flashbacks to occur in contempla-
tive moments or brief dialogue
scenes. Reserve these for later in
your story, usually no sooner than
a fourth of the way in. Consider
using interstitials of articles, let-
ters, or similar forms, to summa-
rize events in the past.
NOW AS FOR YOU, DEAR
WRITER …
Managing your time as a writer
means more than finding time in
your schedule to write. You need
to also be realistic about how long
writing activities take … for you.
I learned this technique from
Erin Flanagan, Edgar Award–
winning author of Deer Season,
Blackout, and Come With Me. She
tracks her writing time by each
phase—drafting, researching, revis-
ing, copyediting, and marketing. She
uses a spreadsheet, but use whatever
tracking system works best for you.
“The longer you track,” Flanagan
says, “the easier it becomes to real-
ize that you’ll need, for example, 60
hours for revision or 10 hours for
copyediting. Then you can calcu-
late that if you have two weeks for
copyediting, you’ll need to find five
hours each week. This may sound
like a lot of effort, but it just takes
minutes each day, and I’ve discov-
ered it really helps me be more real-
istic about how much time I do—or
don’t—need for a given phase of
writing. Then I can be more orga-
nized and more relaxed when I’m
writing as well as when I’m not.”
Remember to always give your-
self and others the grace of time:
• Editors, agents, beta readers, and
others have their own schedules,
so remember to consider their
needs as well as your own.
• Build in time between drafts and
revisions so you can approach
each new draft with fresh objec-
tivity and renewed energy.
• Embrace the reality that learn-
ing the craft of writing continues
over a lifetime. WD
Sharon Short (SharonShort.com) is the
award-winning author of more than a
dozen novels, most recently the Kinship
Historical Mystery Series, published as Jess
Montgomery (JessMontgomeryAuthor
.com) by Minotaur Books.
WritersDigest.com I 75
BUILDINGBET TERWORLDS
Tips for making your story concrete.
BY MORIAH RICHARD

Celebrations

W
hen you think about
celebrations, what
comes to mind?
Holidays, sure, but what about other
events like marriages, graduation,
or baptisms?
Whether your story is going to
include a sweet romantic moment
during a holiday or will show a
young magic-user moving through
the ranks of their school, you might
find yourself in need of a descrip-
tion of a celebration. You’ll want
to have just enough detail to make
the setting feel vibrant and realistic, more familiar the traditions are to incredibly detailed descriptions of
without listing every single booth at the reader, the less time you have the spirits unless you’re paving the
the local fair or how a holiday’s tra- to spend explaining them and the way for something plot-related that
ditions have changed over the cen- more room there is for your plot. will happen later. If you’re looking
turies. To keep you on track, here for a great example of this, Struan
are just a few considerations. Religion Murray’s Orphans of the Tide is a
Especially if you’ve built your reli- wonderful fantasy novel with an
OCCASION gion from scratch, having some intricately written religion.
Personal kind of description of holidays or
This is probably the one that would milestones (like the Jewish tradi- Heroics/History
be most important to your storyline, tion of Bar and Bat Mitzvahs) will For these, think of holidays like
no matter your genre. When you’re be helpful for your readers to have Martin Luther King Jr. Day here in
thinking of personal celebrations, a complete understanding of this the U.S. or independence days that
it’ll probably be easiest to keep it aspect of your world. are celebrated around the world.
as simple and familiar as possible. Again, it’s best to keep things These are times when people can
IMAGE © GETTTY IMAGES: JACOBS STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY LTD

Think about standard American
birthday traditions—cake, blow-
ing out of candles (though perhaps
this is done less often post-COVID),
people singing to you, the opening
of gifts. Other kinds of personal cel-
ebrations could be weddings, births,
anniversaries, and even funerals.
You don’t have to exactly rec-
reate these sorts of event, but the
simple. For example, if your char-
acters draw symbols on the doors
of their homes to ward off certain
spirits during the lunar eclipse, you
can say that as a very brief bit of
exposition or in a small snippet
of dialogue with a young child or
outsider who is being taught the
traditions. We don’t need the whole
history behind the tradition or
celebrate specific people or events
that have shaped their society in
some way. How they celebrate and if
everyone views the holiday the same
way could be a large part of this
kind of celebration (and maybe one
that would be relevant to the story
you’re trying to tell).
While it doesn’t exactly detail
a celebration, the novella My

76 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023

Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole
Johnson is set in the near-future and
explores the complications around
how societies select, preserve, and
celebrate their heroes and what the
consequences of that look like.
Education
While I waffled about putting this
under the personal section, the sheer
size and scale of graduation cer-
emonies gave me pause. For a lot of
people, your learning milestones are
a very big deal—I think my mom
has a whole section of my photo
album dedicated to my kindergarten
graduation. There’s something spe-
cial about having your community
publicly acknowledge the hard work
you’ve been doing.
But there are other aspects
of education that incorporate
celebrations. Think homecoming,
prom, theater productions,
academic competitions, etc. If your
character is a student or involved in
student life in some way, there are
plenty of opportunities for you to
employ a celebration or two in your
plot. I highly recommend Ninth
House by Leigh Bardugo.
Sports
I couldn’t leave this off the list! Hey,
I might not care a lick about football,
but I still smoked chicken wings
and watched Rihanna perform the
halftime show with most of the U.S.
this past February. Sports are a way
to bring people together to celebrate
the successes and mourn the losses
of a team, but also a way for people
to jovially (and not-so-jovially)
heckle fans of other teams. Trust
me, I’ve seen enough drama in the
bleacher seats of Camden Yards for
a lifetime.
Playing a sport can make
these wins and losses much more
powerful to your storyline; think
of how many YA stories feature
young athletes and their teams.
Sports can be an interesting way to
explore themes of growth and add
natural tension to your plot if used
correctly. A great example of this is
the middle-grade novel Obie Is Man
Enough by Schuyler Bailar.
DETAILS
Now that you’ve selected the kind
of celebration that you’ll be tackling,
it’s time to hammer out the finer
details. To keep you on track and
focused on your plot, I recommend
that you focus on these three areas.
Food
Food is something that brings peo-
ple together—not only is it a neces-
sity, but it’s also a joy! The sharing
of a meal is something so personal
that even if the food is unfamiliar
to a reader, they will be drawn into
a scene by the smells, descriptions,
and traditions of your character’s
food culture.
While all details in your story
deserve to have sensory descrip-
tions, there’s something particularly
pleasurable about describing food.
When you sit down to write, keep in
mind that people generally eat with
their eyes first—when you’re diving
into the smells and tastes of food,
don’t forget to describe the way it
looks. Just some food for thought!
Loan Le’s A Phở Love Story is a mas-
terclass in this area.
Drink
Drinks can be something else that
draw your reader into a scene. Think
about how important drinks are to
certain holidays or celebrations—first
communion or a couple’s wedding
toast, just to name some examples.
Drinks don’t necessarily have to
mean alcohol, but alcohol does have
a long and interesting history that
you might want to add it to your
story. But just the familiar warmth
of a hot drink on a cold day or cold,
sweet drink when you’ve been out
in the summer heat are things that
your reader will be able to relate to,
even if the particulars of the drink
themselves are new to them. If you’re
looking for an example of drinks
in literature, I highly recommend
Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree.
Symbols
Another aspect you might want
to include are symbols. These can
be things that rally a community
together, like a sport’s logo and affil-
iated colors, or a religious symbol,
like a torii gate or khanda.
Depending on your plot, defin-
ing the symbol might not be neces-
sary. Think of the Fireflies symbol
in HBO’s “The Last of Us.” We’ve
learned through the show what the
symbol looks like and what it means
when the characters come across it,
but we don’t know the history of the
symbol or even why it looks the way
it does because we don’t need to. It’s
unnecessary information that would
detract from the real messages
within the story.
In this article, I’ve mentioned plot
six times. Coincidence? Never. As
always, any details that you’re work-
ing on should be in service of your
story’s themes, character’s develop-
ment, or bringing the world to life
for the reader without distracting
from your story. WD
Moriah Richard is managing editor of WD.
Follow her on Twitter @MoriahRichard93.
WritersDigest.com I 77
FORALL AGES
Writing and publishing advice for picture books, middle-grade, and young adult storytelling.
BY MICHAEL WOODSON

When Mystery and Mythology

Collide
Author and illustrator Nasugraq Rainey Hopson shares the process of keeping
her main character in the dark while introducing readers to a culturally significant
mythology with her new middle-grade book, Eagle Drums.

T
he act of writing is already
a deeply personal endeavor.
We sit at our desks or on
our couches, at kitchen tables or
back patios, and we pour out of us
the stories we hope will resonate
with readers. For young readers,
they’re often looking for answers
to a world in which they’re actively
becoming themselves.
Being a kid, in many ways, is a
mystery. How do you interpret how
it feels to grow up, the changing
dynamics within one’s own family, the
fear that accompanies adolescence
and the unknown? For middle-
grade authors, gaining a readers’
trust is paramount. But how do you
do that when the story’s purpose
is a mystery even to the main
character? How do you introduce
an origin of cultural significance?
Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson knows
this first-hand and tackles it
head-on with her latest middle-
grade novel, combining fiction with
mythology to broaden her readers’
understanding of the world and help
them through the ever-treacherous
waters of growing up.
Hopson is a tribally enrolled
Iñupiaq author and illustrator, born
and raised in Alaska. She studied
studio art at Cal Poly Humboldt,
as well as philosophy and marine
biology. With several careers to her
name, including documentarian and
schoolteacher, her focus has always
been on reclaiming Indigenous
culture and creativity. This she
succeeds at in Eagle Drums.
Eagle Drums (middle-grade
magical realism, September,
Roaring Book Press) is the story
of Pina, a young hunter who must
travel up a mountain—the same
mountain where his two older
brothers disappeared and likely
died—to collect obsidian to shape from the experience.
through the process of knapping. Interwoven through the narrative
When he reaches the mountaintop, are Hopson’s own illustrations—
he is stopped by an extraordinary works of art in colored pencil
and terrifying eagle named Savik. and ink that show Pina and the
Savik gives Pina a choice and an eagle Savik, of Pina’s lemming
answer: Come with me or die like friend, of shadowed, mysterious
your brothers. What follows is trial figures who would, in time, reveal
after trial put upon Pina, with Savik themselves to Pina and the reader.
and the other eagles giving no The interplay of visual storytelling
clear reason as to why, if he’ll ever and traditional storytelling add
go home, and what he might gain to the sense of timelessness and

78 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023

history that Hopson hopes to
convey throughout. “It’s a middle-
grade adventure story based off
of traditional Iñupiaq myths and
mythologies,” says Hopson. “I
took that myth and I filled it with
actual culture. It’s a mix of fiction,
mythology, and real Iñupiaq values
and activities.”
Eagle Drums examines what it
means to experience loss and grief,
of growing up and finding confi-
dence, and ultimately the impor-
tance of community, forgiveness,
and moving forward. But origi-
nally, it started as a story that was
hardly three paragraphs long. “It
was extremely brief,” she says. “It
started with the mythology itself,
and not a whole lot of this story
survived Christianity, modern-
ization, and colonization of our
people.” To expand the story into
what it is today, Hopson found
inspiration through her husband’s
relationship with his brothers and
incorporated those dynamics into
the book. This, she says, helped cre-
ate necessary stakes and gave the
story a certain sense of urgency.
“I had to add in that dynamic to
explain why this boy would stay
with the eagles. You would imag-
ine that given the chance, he would
run. But adding that backstory gave
him a reason to stay.”
For Hopson, there was the
added challenge of not only
maintaining reader engagement
when the characters’ purpose isn’t
entirely clear, but also in intro-
ducing them to something that is
already resonant and culturally sig-
nificant to her. She did so by dial-
ing into universal truths of what
it means to grow up. “It’s a relat-
able experience,” she says. “They go
through it with school and grow-
ing up, they’re learning things and
not always getting the big picture,
where they’re not too sure why
they’re learning things. That helps
to keep their attention and their
interest.
“There’s a lot of things that are
common with kids in the story,” she
adds. “Like family dynamics, rela-
tionships with parents, relationships
with siblings if they have them, and
how that changes as they mature. I
think that helps because every kid
goes through it. I see it as taking
that relatable experience and I kind
of coat it in chocolate or something
unique and different, and a point of
view that hasn’t really been seen in
books their age, and that’s my cul-
ture and my experiences and
our mythology.”
Eagle Drums acts as an origin
story for what is known as the
Iñupiaq Messenger Feast, a Native
Alaskan tradition that continues
today. It’s a piece of historical oral
storytelling the author grew up with,
and when considering introducing it
to readers, she dialed into the child
version of herself. “I imagined the
reader I was writing to was myself,”
she says. “I was lucky enough to
grow up with a couple of traditional
storytellers. I grew up hearing these
stories and telling my younger
cousins when I was in high school
all these stories. These stories had
the most impact on me, so when I
think of these stories and I tell these
stories, it is automatically in that
age range.”
Her hope is that readers will walk
away with a better understanding of
her culture. “We exist and we are a
modern part of this world,” she says.
“We’re still going, we’re still thriving,
the Eagle Feast is still going on to
this day, so we’re still here. I grew up
I really want for the
people who are not
from my culture to
take away that we
exist, and our stories
are interesting and fun.
Maybe they could see
our world the way we
see it.
in the 1990s, and I’ve experienced
running into people from the Lower
48—which is the lower 48 states—
where they didn’t believe our cul-
ture, the Iñupiaq, were real. They
thought we were mythological crea-
tures like centaurs, and that we’re
just made up. That stuck with me
my whole entire life. I really want
for the people who are not from my
culture to take away that we exist,
and our stories are interesting and
fun. Maybe they could see our world
the way we see it.”
But more than her hope for read-
ers at large does she hope that future
generations of Iñupiaq recognize
their value and uniqueness when
reading Eagle Drums. “For our own
children, I hope that it brings a little
bit more pride and the knowledge
that we have cool things and that we
are expressive and exciting, and the
things we grew up on are neat—and
that they are neat.” WD
Michael Woodson is the content editor
for WD. Find him on Twitter
@MWoodsonWrites.
WritersDigest.com I 79
 FRONTLIST/BACKLIST
Whether hot off the presses or on the shelves for years, a good book is worth talking about.
BY AMY JONES
A Matter of Trust
Frontlist
She Started It by Sian Gilbert
(William Morrow, Thriller, June 2023)
SYNOPSIS: When Annabel, Chloe,
Tanya, and Esther receive invitations
to the exclusive private-island bach-
elorette party of their high school
classmate Poppy, whom they haven’t
seen or talked to in 10 years, they’re
more than a little confused. But,
why turn down an all-expenses-paid
trip to the Bahamas?
Because things could—and do—
go very, very wrong. Poppy has
changed since their time in school.
She’s more confident, less of a push-
over, and much more conniving
than they remembered—and now
they’re trapped on an island with
her. As they participate in the games
she’s created for the party, Poppy
turns them against each other, and
things turn deadly. Eventually they
stop wondering why Poppy lured
them there and instead focus on get-
ting out alive.
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT: Mysteries
with a confined setting—any ver-
sion of a locked room—always
capture my attention because they
seem so hard to pull off from a
writing perspective. The setting
80 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023
must be interesting enough for
readers to want to stay there for
300+ pages, not to mention the
skill it takes to carefully dole out
the clues to readers, essentially hid-
ing them in plain sight.
In She Started It, the “locked
room” is the lush Bahamian pri-
vate island, which is beautiful to
imagine, and being surrounded by
water adds an extra challenge when
it comes to attempting escape. This
island is big enough for each of the
women to have individual cabins,
plus there are two usable beaches,
trees, a cave, and more, so the set-
ting does have an opportunity for
some variety.
As for the clues for reader, we
think we know the relationship
the four guests had with Poppy as
children and teenagers, but memo-
ries are fickle. Besides, who hasn’t
played a little bit of revisionist his-
tory with events from childhood
and teen years? Chapters rotate
in perspective through Annabel,
Chloe, Tanya, Esther, and Poppy,
and at times it feels like they’re
competing for most unreliable nar-
rator. As Poppy leaves clues in the
party games for the women about
why they’re there, their true memo-
ries start returning, prompting an
effective use of flashbacks, until
things finally come to a head.
Backlist
The Paradox Hotel by
Rob Hart
ILLUSTRATION © GETTY IMAGES: FRANK RAMSPOTT
(Ballantine Books, Sci-Fi/Mystery,
2022)
SYNOPSIS: January Cole is in charge
of security at the Paradox Hotel,
but what that really entails is more
than just roaming the hallways
looking for troublemakers. It also
involves time traveling to prevent
 dinosaur eggs which turn into protecting her life because they care
dinosaur babies. for her like family.
Connected to that is January’s
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT: There’s a lot
love for Mena. I can’t say too much
to love about this book, but one of
about this without giving away the
the things I found most sophisti-
ending of the book, but suffice it to
cated about Hart’s writing is that,
say, in addition to being a science-
as mentioned earlier, as a result of
fiction mystery, it’s also an incred-
January’s slowly diminished grip on
ible love story.
reality she questions who she can
Finally, mixed in with the
trust. While this works as a way to
mystery and emotional depth, Hart
build the mystery and keep read-
manages to infuse the story with
ers turning pages, it also evolves
a serious dose of humor. I mean,
into an emotionally profound story
what good is a story with dinosaur
of found family. Since the acciden-
babies if they don’t end up causing
tal death of her girlfriend, Mena,
chaos? WD
January has felt even more lonely
and unworthy of love than ever. But
once January solves the potential
time tourists from interfering with
murder mystery and learns who she
history as we know it. But in this Amy Jones is editor-in-chief of WD. Follow
can trust, she realizes they’ve been her on Twitter @AmyMJones_5.
world, too much time travel can
have serious effects on a person’s
brain, namely losing a sense of
what’s real and what’s not. So, when
January sees a dead body in one of
the hotel rooms (one that everyone
else sees is empty) on the eve of an
important summit of potential pri-
vate buyers who might finally wrest
control of the hotel—and therefore
access to any point in time—from
the U.S. government, she doesn’t ini-
tially know what to believe.
As she tries to solve the mystery
of who the potentially dead person
is, whether the person is in fact
dead and if so, who had the motiva-
tion to murder, it becomes clear she
doesn’t know whom she can trust
anymore. At the same time, she has
to deal with other security issues at
the hotel, including attempts on the
lives of the potential buyers, slips in
time at the hotel, angry time tour-
ists whose trips have been delayed,
and illicit items being brought back
from other times—specifically

WritersDigest.com I 81
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CREATIVEQUILL
A playground for your pen.

OMINOUS STATEMENT GENERATOR

INSTRUCTIONS: Write a story based on the ominous statement you get when you piece together
your information.

1. BIRTH MONTH 2. FAVORITE PET 3. FAVORITE TYPE

JANUARY: The caves CAT: are lying in wait. OF SNACK
FEBRUARY: The secrets DOG: are plotting the worst. SALT Y: Repent:
MARCH: Your enemies FISH: are not what they seem. SWEET: Don’t run:
APRIL: Your teeth BIRD: have almost reached you. SOUR: Sleep well:
MAY: The trees REPTILE: are gone when you look away. SAVORY: Step
JUNE: The curses OTHER: do not know you. carefully:
JULY: The graves
AUGUST: The eyes
4. FAVORITE LITERARY GENRE
SEPTEMBER: The stars
MYSTERY: They too can bite.
OCTOBER: The whispers
ROMANCE: They can see you very well.
NOVEMBER: The wed-
HORROR: The clock keeps ticking away.
ding rings
FANTASY: They lie in ambush.
DECEMBER: Your
HISTORICAL: They’ll be deciding your fate.
followers
OTHER: Someday, they’ll catch you.

ILLUSTRATION © GETTTY IMAGES: JULIA GALUZINSKAYA

88 I WRITER’S DIGEST I September/October 2023

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