After months of writing and revising, you’ve finally finished your first novel. You’ve agonized over writing a synopsis and rewritten your query letter a dozen times. Now, your e-mail holds your very first request for a partial manuscript. All that hard work is paying off, and you’re well on your way to publication, right? MAYBE… […]
How does a novelist get started?
1. Don’t be a lone wolf. Get with other writers, show them their stuff, help them evaluate theirs. Ask them to brainstorm with you; writers all love brainstorming. A writers’ conference can be a place to make these connections, or a writers’ organization. While it’s great to find people writing in your genre, it’s not […]
Editors and Agents Don’t Bite…Really!
You’re at a writers’ conference, and you finally have a chance to sit in front of the literary agent you know would be perfect to represent your books and an editor from your favorite publishing house… And you’re so nervous that you can barely put two words together, much less spit out the elevator pitch you […]
Rejection Letters – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
We all know rejection letters are UGLY. They hurt. We put our heart and soul into our writing, spend more time than we’d like to remember revising and polishing our manuscript. Finally, we put it in front of agents and editors. Then the responses come. Our baby, rejected…often multiple times. We tend to think […]
Leah Burchfiel
Associate Editor Leah Burchfiel, award-winning journalist, grew up in rural northwestern Oklahoma and hasn’t managed to leave yet. She recently graduated with a bachelor degree in English from Northwestern Oklahoma State University with a minor in Mass Communications. She copy-edited the student-run newspaper and media website and brought semi-colons and the distinction between restrictive and […]
Our staff
Editorial Director Suzanne Hartmann’s love for the written word has led her to work in nearly every aspect of the publishing industry, from library clerk, bookstore cashier, and distributor for a popular educational publisher in past years to her current work as an author, editor, and used book reseller… More Chief Executive Officer Phyllis Wheeler‘s […]