HYBRID has sold in a 3-book deal to HarperCollins!!

Omg. Wow, of all the days to wake up late! Excuse me if I blabber like a fool a bit. I honestly didn’t expect the PM announcement to go up so soon (awesome agent, much?), and when I woke up to an inbox of people emailing me to say congratulations, my just-woke-up-no-coffee-yet brain wondered what was going on for a moment!

But luckily for all involved, I’m more or less thinking straight now. So yes! HYBRID was sold in a 3-book deal to Harper Children’s!!

If I let myself keeping going, I’m just going to keep going and going and going, so for everyone’s sakes, I’m just going to direct you to my private blog for the details.

I do want to say here, though, that I’m SO SO GRATEFUL for my fellow LTWF girls, who have been SO supportive and SUCH GREAT CPs and JUST AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING x 100000 I couldn’t have done it without you girls. I mean it 🙂

And THANK YOU to all of you, as well! I’ve loved chatting with you all and laughing at stupid jokes and talking about the finer points of writing. Thank you for caring about the advice a 19-year-old nobody gives about writing 🙂

❤ you all!

~~~

Kat Zhang is a Spoken Word poet and a Creative Writing major. She is represented by Emmanuelle Morgen and her book HYBRID–about a girl with two souls–recently sold to Harper Children’s. You can read more about her writing process and books at her blog.

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If You Like LTWF… Part 2

Hi all!

We are so absolutely amazed and thrilled with how much we’ve been able to accomplish with LTWF. This blog was originally created as a resource for other Fictionpress writers, and a place to showcase the successes of FP alumni. But in a little over a year, we’ve grown into a resource for all writers from all backgrounds and from all over the world; we’ve expanded into a place where we can share our love of books through our recommendations; a community full of writers beginning their path to publication, and authors who are already published; a blog with insider information from publishing professionals as well as writers; a site where writers can find critique partners, ask questions both serious and fun, and participate in live chats with other people who share a passion for writing. We hope that we’ve succeeded in making a place where people can connect, chill, learn, make friends, and have fun.

Along the way, we’ve picked up quite a few new readers. And we’ve added some new sections to our blog. For the readers who’ve been around for a long time, you might remember that last February we made an If You Like LTWF post, pointing out things that you might not have known about LTWF. But it’s been a year since then, so we thought now would be the perfect time to highlight aspects of this blog to readers both new and old (apologies if we repeat some of the stuff from part 1 – but if you’re new, we suggest you check it out as well).

Header Links

Writers: This is the page full of info on all of the contributors to LTWF, complete with snazzy pictures!

CPs: Our critique partner page was originally suggested to us by one of our readers, and we thought it was a brilliant idea. We were so excited to see it working – it’s a place where writers can find people to critique their work. It’s like a job board posting, but for CPs instead! If you’re looking for a critique partner, check out the postings listed – you never know, you might snag yourself a brilliant CP.

Reviews: We love books. And we’re pretty sure you do too (otherwise, you might want to reconsider being a writer :p)! Our reviews page lists all the books we’ve written recommendations for, alphabetical by the author’s last name. So if you’re looking for a good book to read, whether for inspiration or enjoyment, it’s the page to check out.

Live Chats: Every so often, we love to host live chats on different topics. This is where you can read transcripts of our past live chats, or suggest topics for future live chats you would like us to host.

QOTW: Every Friday (with a few exceptions here and there), we answer a Question of the Week. If you have a question you’d like us to try and answer, leave it on this page.

Sidebar

Book of the Month: Every month, we highlight a book we love as our Book of the Month.

Tag Field: If you’re looking for specific posts done by your fave contributor, or are looking for articles that talk about certain topics, this is the place to look. Just click on whatever topic/contributor you’re interested in, and every article tagged with that specific topic will come up.

What We’re Participating In: This year, we at LTWF have decided to participate in The Story Siren’s 2011 Debut Author Challenge.

Poll: While we love to add polls to our Saturday Grab Bags, we’ve also got a poll in our sidebar. Every so often we’ll change the poll;s question.

LTWF Specials:

Located in the sidebar as well, this section includes the following:

Query Week: So far, we’ve hosted Query Week twice – and they ended up being tremendously successful. Basically, we ask for our readers to submit queries to critique, and then post the queries (along with our critiques) up on the blog. Readers can then offer their own suggestions to improve the query. It’s a great way of understanding what makes a good query, and what needs to be considered when writing your own.

Glossary of Terms: Publishing is full of weird terms and confusing acronyms. So we’ve compiled a glossary to help you navigate this jargon-filled industry.

Worst Writing Week: We’ve showcased a lot of our highs on this blog, from finishing our MSS, to landing an agent, and to getting a book deal. But we also thought it would be best to highlight our lows as well, to prove that we started out really rough. (And you gotta admit – we were TERRIBLE when we first started to write. But hey, we all start somewhere!)

Other Specials:

Saturday Grab Bags: Every Saturday (with a few exceptions), we put together a grab bag full of pure awesomeness. From a mashup of great links for articles we’ve stumbled across, to writing quotes, cool bookish pictures, ‘what we’re reading’ lists of the books we’re currently devouring, ‘new this month’ sections where we highlight books that have been recently released, and randomly awesome notes from the Twittersphere, our Saturday Grab Bags are chock-full of great stuff. We encourage our readers to share any awesome links they might have found in the comments. You can check out all our Saturday Grab Bags by heading over to the Tag Cloud and clicking on “Saturday Grab Bag”.

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So again, thank you to all our readers – both the silent ones and the verbal ones. Thank you for sharing your stories with us, and for accompanying us on our journeys. We couldn’t have done this without your support, and we hope we’re able to provide you with the best tips, inspirational bits, and book recommendations.

 

AWESOME NEWS!

by Susan Dennard

~~~

So, I went pretty WACKO on my blog yesterday, and I wanted to share the awesome news here too.  (And yes, I realize “awesome” is a very uncool word — especially to non-Americans.  I’m sorry.  I’m a 90s girl at heart.)

So THE NEWS.  What is it?  ::drummmmmmrollllll::

The Spirit-Hunters will be published by HarperCollins!

I’m listed on Publishers Marketplace and everything!  I have to admit, that as over-the-moon as I was for 3 weeks (yeah, I had to wait 3 WEEKS to announce this! The deal happened on November 17th), it didn’t feel completely real until I saw my name on the PM Deals page:

Susan Dennard’s debut THE SPIRIT-HUNTERS, set in an alternate 1800s Philadelphia, where a 16-year-old girl’s brother is taken by a necromancer and his army of walking Dead, and how she must join forces with a rag-tag, demon-fighting group to save him – and the city – as she tries to avoid falling for the group’s dangerous inventor in the process, to Maria Gomez at Harper Children’s, in a significant deal, in a three-book deal, by Sara Kendall and Joanna Volpe at Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation.

We’re planning on a summer 2012 release, and if the first book sells well (which it will, right!?  RIGHT!?!?), then books 2 and 3 will come out in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

Sarah and I are gonna be Apocalypsies together! WEEEE!!

I have to say, this wouldn’t have happened without my fabulous agents, Sara Kendall and Joanna Volpe.  (This is Sara’s first deal too!  Congrats are in order, I believe.)  Plus, I need to thank my new editor, Maria Gomez, for loving The Spirit-Hunters enough to buy it! 😀

DREAM BIG, AND THEN DREAM EVEN BIGGER.

I also need to thank the FictionPress world for giving me a start all those years ago…  Oh, those were bad stories, but oh, I learned a lot!

But to be perfectly honest, almost all of my good fortune is thanks to my family.

My parents taught me I could do ANYTHING if I worked hard and never gave up.  They were 100% right.

My sister read all my rotten stories, and my brother…  Well, he didn’t make fun of my stories — that’s a lot, coming from him.

In recent years, my husband, the Frenchman, has been the driving force behind everything.  I can never thank him enough for his love and support.

And last but no least, THANKS TO YOU!  The LTWF readers have been amazing to connect with, and I feel so blessed to be a part of this group.  Lots of fun happens here, and so many stories shared.  It’s been a wonderful two months since I joined. 😀

Seriously, though — to partake in the Full Insanity of my AWESOME NEWS, stop by my announcement from yesterday.  I have pictures of me dancing with my dog (whose name is Asimov) and a video of me announcing the news.

Oooh, and be sure to look below — now I have a new mini-bio. 😉 Cool, eh?

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Susan Dennard is a writer, reader, lover of animals, and eater of cookies. She is repped by Sara Kendall of NCLit, and her debut, The Spirit-Hunters, will be available from Harper Children’s in 2012. You can learn more about her writing process, crazy life-thoughts, and crippling cookie-addiction on her blog or twitter.

Tell Us Your NaNoWriMo User Number!

If you tell us your NaNoWriMo user number, we’ll add you to our sidebar in another stat widget, and then we can all encourage/inspire each other to make daily word goal!

To find your user number, log in to NaNoWriMo.org, then click on ‘My NaNoWriMo’. The six-digit number at the end of the address bar is your user number. For example, mine is 601587.

Comment with your user number and I’ll add you to our widget!

-Savannah

Introducing the newest LTWF contributor…Susan Dennard!

So, in case you missed the chat last night, we have a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!

After many weeks of deliberating, we’re beyond thrilled to welcome Susan Dennard to our ranks! We were blown away by Susan from the moment we read her application–she’s funny, smart, and all-around awesome. From her first email, she gelled with us so well that it actually was a bit of a shock! Not to mention she lives in Germany and can see a freaking CASTLE from her window (we all died of jealousy when we heard that). Susan also recently signed with Sara Kendall at Nancy Coffey Literary & Media (after only querying for two weeks)!

We don’t want to hog her intro post, so we’ll end this here, but we just wanted to extend a HUGE welcome to Susan! We can’t wait for you guys to get to know her, too!

-The LTWF Team

 

 

 

~~~

by Susan Dennard

~~~

I am so excited to be writing this intro I have to force myself to avoid all-caps, italics, and clapping with giddy joy.

My hands tremble as I type.

I’m Susan. I’m a 26-year-old American living in Germany. I have the luxury of writing full-time, eating wiener schnitzel to my heart’s content, and listening to alpine yodeling on the radio (no joke).

I’ve been writing since I was a kid, and though I went to college to study creative writing, I foolishly dove into marine biology and statistics as majors. Then I went to the Arctic to do my M.Sc. research. Yeah, I lived in a tent on the sea ice while catching sharks and halibut (there’s actually a Dirty Jobs episode about our research!).  Then I even more foolishly fell in love with a Frenchman, got married, and moved to Germany last year. That move prompted me to hunker down and learn to Write For Real.

Many nibbled-nails, revised drafts, and beta readers later, I finalized my young adult steampunk novel, The Spirit-Hunters. I sent it out to agents’ inboxes a few weeks ago, and I was lucky enough to garner a lot of interest in a short amount of time. Two weeks later, I had several offers of representation, and just last weekend, I SIGNED WITH NANCY COFFEY LITERARY! (Sorry about the all-caps – the excitement just couldn’t be contained.)

The Spirit-Hunters is about Eleanor, a high-society 16-year-old in 1876 Philadelphia, who — to save her brother from a necromancer — must join forces with a rag-tag spirit-hunting team.  Now, Eleanor has to kick undead butt and deal with her growing attraction to the team’s exasperating but gorgeous inventor.  You can learn more about it here.

While I’m polishing Eleanor’s story for submissions, I’ll also be NaNoWriMo-ing (don’t you love how I just created a verb?) with a YA sci-fi.  Screechers tells the tale of Echo, a 17-year-old on death row who is the only survivor after “screechers” — government created monsters — attack her outpost.  But when Echo sets out to warn the other outposts of impending doom, the government and the screechers set out to kill her.

I look forward to getting to know the other ladies of LTWF, and more importantly, all the readers! It’s a pleasure to “meet” you, and if you ever have questions about writing, living in Germany, or fish (I am still a marine biologist, after all), don’t hesitate to ask.  I’ve been following LTWF for a while — absorbing their words of wisdom, words of comfort, and words of AWESOME.  I can’t wait to give back in the same way.

One final thing before I go: I’m having a Giant Giveaway Extravaganza on my blog! This entire week, I’m giving out free stuff for readers and writers alike. It’s to celebrate signing with NCLit, to celebrate my introduction to LTWF, and to help everyone prepare for NaNoWriMo.

As we say here in Deutschland, auf Wiedersehen!

~~~~

Susan Dennard is a writer, reader, lover of animals, and eater of cookies. She recently signed with Sara Kendall of NCLit. You can learn more about her writing process, crazy life-thoughts, and crippling cookie-addiction on her blog or twitter.

Livechat: Querying

Hey guys! Quick heads up. We’re going to be having another livechat on Tuesday, October 26 at 9 pm EST, and the topic is going to be querying. Come ask us questions, listen to our querying stories, or just hang out. We always have so much fun chatting with you all!

On the morning of the chat, we’ll put up another reminder and a link that will open at 9 pm EST.

Hope to see you there! If you have any questions, feel free to comment below.

Also, the deadline for applications to LTWF closes tomorrow. We’ve received many wonderful applications and have been hard at work looking over them. A big thank you to everyone who shot us an email! It may be a few more days, but we’ll get a response back to you either way.

-LTWF

Two BIG Announcements!

As you guys might know, LTWF has been closed to new applicants for a while. However, as of now, we’re reopening for one or two new members and we’re really, really excited about it!

Unlike before, when we were open for an extended amount of time, this time we’ll only be open for a month. If you’d like to join us here behind the scenes, please send us an application to letthewordsflowblog AT gmail DOT com.

At this time, we request that all applicants either be at the querying stage or beyond (if you’re very close to querying, that’s okay, too) OR have some other experience in the publishing industry (be an intern, etc). Also, applicants need to have been on Fictionpress at some point.

Please include in the application:

1. A few paragraphs about yourself. No big deal–just let us know who you are!
2. An excerpt of your novel. Please send at least the first chapter, but you can send as much as you’d like. Heck, send the whole thing if you’re up to it! (you can attach this. No viruses, please!)
3. A sample blog post

• Clarification: We meant a blog post like the ones we write here at LTWF. Basically, pretend you’re already a member and it’s time for you to write your first article (NOT your intro post, but your article). What would you write? Show us 🙂

4. If you have a blog or are on twitter, please let us know

We LTWF girls are pretty darn close, and we’re not only looking for someone to help us write articles and run the site, but we’re honestly looking for another writer to join our gazillion behind-the-scenes emails, chats, and skype calls 🙂 (no really–many of us talk every single day)

Our community is really important to us, and LTWF is a time commitment. You certainly don’t have to check in with us every day, but please consider whether you’d be able to post at least one article a month and have time to contribute to the QOTW posts.

Remember, the application period lasts one month. So get those emails in!

What’s exciting news number two? We’re having another live chat on Sept 30th at 9PM EST. The topic is just going to be getting to know us girls here at LTWF. If you have any questions about us or the site, come on over! Also, we’d love to get to know our readers a little more (and it would probably be pretty boring just to hear us talk for an hour!), so come let us know about you, too. Our last chat was FANTASTIC (it lasted 2 1/2 hours!!), so don’t miss this one!

If you have any questions about the application process, either let us know in the comments or come talk about it during our live chat!

PS Like we said before: guys are totally welcome to apply 🙂

Male Contributors on LTWF

We had a question asked of us recently on our Question of the Week Page that we wanted to answer, but didn’t think belonged in our standard QOTW format. The question was this: Just curious, but I’ve noticed there are no male contributors on LTWF. Is there a particular reason for that, or was it just some chance thing that happened?

The fact that we are all female happened completely by chance. We had a potential male contributor at one point in time, but he was so busy that he didn’t have enough time for us, and we decided to amicably part ways before he was announced as a contributor.

The truth of why we don’t have any male contributors now, and why we didn’t start with male contributors in the beginning, has to do with statistics. All of our contributors must have originated on FictionPress. FP is composed of mostly female writers. Therefore, when Sarah sent out an email asking the original contributors to join, it was just chance that they all happened to have made a name for themselves, while being female.

Since then, except for our once-potential contributor above, we haven’t had any applications for male contributors. We expect that, statistically, when/if we open back up for contributors, we will receive a male applicant one day.

In summary, we’re not opposed to male contributors at all, we just haven’t really had the chance to have one. 🙂

Introducing the Newest LTWF Contributor, Vee

                                                    

Hey everyone!

I’m super excited to be here! Hopefully I can contribute something worthwhile to this already wonderful community.

My name is Vahini Naidoo, but everyone calls me Vee. I’m seventeen years old and I’m from Sydney, Australia. I’m currently in my final year of high school – only a month to go till graduation, woot! – and after that I plan to pursue something at University, hopefully somewhat writing related. My ultimate goal for life beyond University is to live in a castle. I also have some plans for world domination. Standard stuff, you know.

I’ve been writing since forever. I think I wrote my first novel at ten, and I wrote really weird songs about the correlation between Wingdings and the meaning of life for my never-got-off-the-ground band when I was thirteen. However, I’ve only been writing seriously for the past two years after being kick started by the brilliant thing that is NaNoWriMo (anyone out there doing it this year?). At first, I posted my unrevised NaNo attempts on Fictionpress without any intent of getting them published, however as time went on I found that I wanted to seek publication.

I queried for a long time before receiving three offers of representation this April. I decided to sign with my awesomesauce agent Ammi-Joan Paquette of the Erin Murphy Literary Agency. Two of my books – THE COLORS OF SKY, a contemporary YA about one girl’s mission to find Heaven on Earth and THE GNOME IS WATCHING, about a girl who repeatedly re-enacts her best friend’s suicide in order to find out why her friend did it, with tragic results (and yes there actually is a garden gnome in it!) – are on submission to editors. I’m currently working on an untitled manuscript about locker wars and etch-a-sketch mysteries, which is pretty fun.

I look forward to contributing to the blog and getting to know you readers!

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Vahini Naidoo is a high schooler who eats instant noodles like she’s already in college. She writes contemporary YA novels and is represented by Ammi-Joan Paquette at the Erin Murphy Literary Agency. You can find her over at her blog.