Shiny, Happy News: My First Book Deal!

Almost three years ago, I got an agent. An agent I’d heard great things about, who requested my full manuscript seconds after I queried and then read my book in less than 24 hours. I’d worked on that book for two years, throughout the second year of my MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts and then the year after I graduated. I loved that book, and since my big-time agent loved it, too, I couldn’t help thinking that this was it! Before too long I would be a published writer!

Except that didn’t happen.

I racked up a lot of complimentary passes and did a revision for an editor who also loved that book, but I didn’t get a publishing offer. The book just wasn’t different enough, I kept hearing. It didn’t have enough of a hook to set it apart.

I was disappointed, of course, but I had listened to the advice everyone gives—to work on something new while you’re on submission. I didn’t have to wallow in my disappointment for very long, because a little less than a year after that first book went out on submission, I had a new book that was ready to go.

This book was going to be the one! It was a book I’d started at the beginning of my first year at VCFA. I’d rewritten the first forty pages five times during my second semester, trying to get the story right, and now, a few years later, I finally had it. This book had a bigger hook, I thought, and a more unusual structure.

But this one racked up the kind passes, too.

I worked on two new stories while that second book was making the rounds. Cordelia Jensen, one of my classmates from VCFA and the talented author of the YA verse novel Skyscraping and another forthcoming YA verse novel, read the beginnings of those two new stories for me back in February of 2015. She then wrote me an email in which she said, “I have to say that in these two voices I hear less of your own personal voice which I think shows your evolution as a writer. Even though I ABSOLUTELY LOVE hearing your voice in the other books, I think I am seeing a stronger range right now, if that makes sense. And, for what it’s worth, maybe if these other books had sold quickly these two others wouldn’t be here at all. So, that’s my positive thinking this morning.”

Cordelia’s positive thinking stuck with me. I still believe in those first two books that went on submission. I’m still a little sad that they didn’t sell. They’re the kind of books I would have loved as a kid and teenager, and they explore issues that are important to me. There is a whole lot of me within them.

But Cordelia helped me realize that I was growing as a writer as I pushed past the kinds of voices and characters that came most naturally to me. This whole process was hard and full of disappointment, but maybe it was leading me somewhere wonderful.

And then a few months later, Cordelia said to me, “Hey, we should write a book together!” And a few days after that, she said, “I have an idea for our book. Do you think you could write this?”

I honestly wasn’t sure if I could. Her idea—for a middle grade novel that would have two alternating narrations, one in verse and one in prose—was much different from anything I’d ever written, and much sadder. Granted, in the course of our first conversation, all of my contributions served to make the book less and less sad, but still—this story was going to be a stretch for me. In fact, it was ironic that we decided to name the main character for my sections Lauren—a name so close to my own—when the character of Lauren is much less like the kid I was than any of the other main characters I have written. She is furious with her parents and she steals things, whereas anger makes me nervous, and, even as an adult, I am pretty terrified of doing anything wrong and getting in trouble.

But as we talked about the idea and fleshed it out, I saw a way in—a way to make Lauren someone I could connect to. I understood Lauren’s pain and her motivation. And it turns out that she does have some characteristics that I share—fierce love for her brother, loyalty to a friend, an earnest desire for things to be fair. And she goes to a Friends school that’s similar to the school where I teach, and she shares my students’ strong beliefs in the need for social justice.

Cordelia and I brainstormed a general story arc, and then we each sat down to write a chapter. And Lauren’s voice—so different from my own—poured out of me. Our agent, Sara Crowe, read our sample chapters and loved them, so we kept going. I’ve never had more fun writing anything. I would sit down and write entire chapters at a time!

Me with my talented and inspiring co-author, Cordelia!

And now, this sad but hopeful middle grade book, EVERY SHINY THING—this book that reflects my evolution as a writer and might not exist if I had achieved my writing goals more quickly—has found a publishing home!

In EVERY SHINY THING, two seventh graders—Lauren, who comes from an affluent family, and Sierra, who is in foster care—team up to enact a Robin Hood scheme to right some societal wrongs, and learn lessons about justice, friendship, and family in the process. Maggie Lehrman, senior editor at Abrams/Amulet, loves the book and is going to help us make it the best it can be. I can’t wait to be able to share it with all of you in spring 2018!