Skip to main content

A Writers' Conference

Jessica Burkhart. She's a tween author. That is she writes FOR tweens. She's not a tween herself. Although that's just about when she began her writing career. I attended one of her sessions at the Missouri Writers' Guild Conference this past weekend, and I walked away feeling like I had somehow missed my own wedding twenty five years ago. She's twenty-two (yes, 22) - my son's age. She's had hundreds of articles published and is in the middle of an eight-book deal. Wow. Check out her blog. After I got over my own sluggish debut into the writing world, I realized that she's been able to get this far because she actually sends out queries ALL the time. She doesn't sit back and hope for an answer from the one editor she sent one query to. She has mulitple queries out - according to her, 30 - at any one time. You can't get published if you don't get yourself into an editor's hands!
I know. Brilliant.
My favorite part of the conference was the two opportunities I had to make a pitch. The first one was to the editor of Listen Magazine. Although I didn't have an article idea that fit with their very specific mission (to offer teens healthy alternatives to drugs and alcohol), she was kind enough to give me a couple of ideas for magazines that might be interested in the ideas I had. The second opportunity to make a pitch? That was the highlight. Kate Angelella of Aladin Books (the children's imprint of Simon & Schuster) likes the premise of Antipodia. She wants me to send it to her when I've finished writing it. A real editor of a real publishing house. Wow. Yeah. I'm excited.

By the way, Antipodia is the middle grade novel I began as part of my writing course last year. The details? Well, I'll save that for another blog.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Believing the Lies

My husband and I recently watched The Help - a story about a group of African American women who worked as maids in Jackson, Mississippi in the '60s. One of the protagonists works for a woman "who got no b'ness havin' babies." This woman, this family maid and nanny, tells her little two year old ward regularly, "You is pretty. You is smart. You is impor'ant." How difficult it is for us to believe that about ourselves - really, to believe anything good about ourselves. I always try to be my raw self when I write a blog post. Today is no exception. So I confess that I've been drowning in a storm of lies lately. My head knows they're lies, and I could easily tell anyone else in the same place that they're lies, but I haven't been able to get a grip. There have been so many of them coming at me at once. It seems that I just break the surface, gulp some fresh air of truth then get pulled back under. One thing I know: the enemy of our ...
7 comments
Read more

Tricia's Return (my first ICL assignment for 13-17 year olds)

I stormed down the hall and slammed the door. I’d had enough! Dumping my books out of my backpack, I began shoving in clothes – anything I could grab. I dug through the junk on the floor of my closet and found my stash – my life’s savings. I shoved it on top of my clothes. In the midst of this frenzy, I heard a soft knock on my door. "Tricia?" It was my mom. “What now?” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice. She was just going to launch into another tirade. Her list of my shortcomings was endless, and I didn’t want to hear them anymore. I didn’t open the door; I climbed out my window, backpack in tow, grabbed my bike and took off for the bus station. Jeremy didn’t know I was coming. He’d be so surprised. I couldn’t wait to see him! We’ve been together for a year; but since his family moved to St. Louis four months ago, we haven’t seen each other. We haven’t even been able to talk much He'd made the varsity soccer team; and with all the games and practices, he hadn’t h...
2 comments
Read more

Resting...Resting?

A few weeks ago, my husband and I had dinner with our daughter-in-law and two of our grand children. My daughter-in-law lost her job a couple of months ago. I wanted an update on current job prospects or plans, so I asked, "What are you doing these days?" Her answer was simple and yet incredibly profound.              Resting. (Is that even a word in the American lexicon?) I'm proud of her, and of them, for making the decision that it's time for her to rest. She's been in hyper-drive for all the years I've known her (over 16).  That word has haunted me since she spoke it. Resting. What would happen if I...if you...gave it a try?  In Psalm 23: 6a, David says Surely goodness and mercy will follow me. In K.J. Ramsey's The Lord is My   Courage (page 240), she tells us that our English word, "follow," doesn't convey the power behind the original Hebrew word that David used (radaph). She tells us that radaph means "to pursue, chase, and pers...
1 comment
Read more