Writing

Agent Spotlight: Patricia Nelson

By on February 21, 2019   /   Articles, Editor / Agent Spotlight, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, Publishing & Promotion, Writing  

Patricia Nelson is an agent with the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency, where she represents adult, young adult, and middle grade fiction. Patricia’s middle grade clients include Hayley Chewins (The Turnaway Girls), Margaret Dilloway (Summer of a Thousand Pies), Anna Meriano (Love Sugar Magic), Melissa Roske (Kat Greene Comes Clean), Sandy Stark-McGinnis (Extraordinary Birds), and Kristi Wientge (Karma Khullar’s Mustache).

Patricia is a member of SCBWI and holds a master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Southern California and a master’s degree in Gender Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Follow Patricia on Twitter at @patricianels.

MR: Before becoming a literary agent, you spent four years as a university-level instructor of literature and writing. How has your experience as an academic contributed to your skills as an agent?

PN: My favorite thing about teaching was getting to know my students, engaging creatively with their work, and helping them grow as writers and thinkers. Agenting lets me build these kinds of bonds long-term with clients, which I love. And while the agent-client relationship is very different from the teacher-student relationship, as a very editorial agent who tends to do a lot of developmental editing with my clients, what I learned as a teacher about giving constructive feedback and helping a writer nurture their ideas definitely comes in handy.

MR: What is your favorite part of the job? Your least favorite?

PN: The best thing about agenting is the feeling of falling in love with a book no one else has seen yet – whether that’s a new project by an existing client, or a brand-new voice from the query pile – and then getting to champion that book and help it make its way into the world.

The worst part (and I think most agents will tell you the same) is sending rejections. We all got into this job because we love authors and want to support them… but because of the need to keep our client lists manageable, we unfortunately also have to spend a lot of time saying “no.” Nobody likes that.

MR: What sorts of queries prompt you to request more pages? What would make you reject a query outright?

PN: When reading a query, I’m looking for a fresh, original story with an interesting protagonist and clear stakes. I also ask for 10 sample pages with all queries, where I’m looking for a voice that feels vibrant and special. If I see all those things, it’s a request!

In general, the queries that get rejected outright have problems that no one doing the research of reading this interview would have: They don’t conform to our submission guidelines, they’re address to “Dear Agent” (or sometimes, inexplicably, “Dear Sir”), they’re just a blank email with an unsolicited attachment (which we don’t open), they don’t include sample pages, etc. If you’re following the rules, don’t worry! Your query will be thoughtfully considered.

MR: I know there’s no such thing as an “ideal” client, but what comes close? Also, what can a writer do to make an agent’s job easier?

PN: The best clients are hard-working, communicative, and full of ideas. They are proactive about their own careers, but also take seriously their agent’s advice and industry expertise. If they have a concern, they reach out. If they’re stuck on a project, they ask to hop on a call and brainstorm. Good communication is key – and saying “thank you” really does go a long way.

MR: Please fill in the blank: “If an MG novel about______­­­came across my desk, I would request it ASAP.”

PN: I’m hesitant to answer this one, because in reality, it’s not just about the premise, but also about the pages – even if I love the topic, nothing’s an automatic request unless I fall for the voice in the sample pages that accompany the query.

Sometimes authors will reply to a pass by saying “but this exact thing was on your MSWL, I thought it would be perfect for you!” But of course, not every story that falls into my broad MSWL categories is going to be a fit, and often I’ll fall head-over-heels with a story that I didn’t even know I was looking for. (Which is why while MSWL is useful, it’s not the be-all and end-all. If you think I might be interested, you should just try me!)

MR: Anything else on your MG manuscript wish list?

PN: With the caveats above, right now I’m especially hungry for literary MG fantasy with an original premise, unique worldbuilding, and beautiful writing. I’m always looking for stories from diverse perspectives that have been historically underrepresented. And I’d love to find an MG novel in verse.

MR: What are you not looking for?

PN: I tend not to be the right agent for slapstick or gross-out humor, or for Percy Jackson-style action/adventure stories. I also don’t represent chapter books or very young MG.

MR: What’s on the horizon for 2019? Any news and/or hopes and dreams you’d like to share with us?

PN: On the middle grade front, I have some client books that I’m very excited about coming out this year:

Summer of a Thousand Pies by Margaret Dilloway (out in April), about a 12-year-old Great British Baking Show superfan who gets sent to live with her pie-shop-owning aunt in the mountains of California. I want to be friends with every single character in this book, which is one of my favorite feelings.

Extraordinary Birds by Sandy Stark-McGinnis (out in April), a debut novel about a girl who believes that one day she will transform into a bird and fly away, but has to reevaluate everything she thinks she knows when she’s placed with a foster mom who feels like family. It’s a beautiful story that makes me cry, in the best possible way.

Honeybees and Frenemies by Kristi Wientge (out in June), about two former best friends who have to spend their summer together when their parents volunteer them to help out a local beekeeper. This is Kristi’s follow-up to her debut Karma Khullar’s Mustache, and it is just as full of humor and heart—there’s one scene in particular in this novel that makes me laugh hysterically every single time I read it.

I love them all, and you should check them out!

MR: What is best way to contact you?  

PN: I’m open to queries via email, at patricia@marsallyonliteraryagency.com. As mentioned above, make sure you include your first 10 pages pasted in the body of the email.

MR: Thank you for your time, Patricia. It was great chatting with you! 

 

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Hey, Let’s Build a World!

By on February 11, 2019   /   For Teachers, For Writers, Teacher Tips, Writing  

When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher frowned on all fantasy books that hadn’t been written by Natalie Babbitt. We read Tuck Everlasting and The Search for Delicious, which were certainly fantastic, but failed to provide a full grounding in the fantasy genre.

This month, my daughter started a unit on fantasy stories in her fifth-grade class, with an integrated curriculum of reading, writing, and analysis. 2019 might have its problems but this, at least, is an enormous step forward. I take this educational unit as a sign of the inroads of respectability the genre has made. And, of course, the great service J.K. Rowling has done for our society.

Pulling fantasy from shadows shines a spotlight, especially, onto the skill of worldbuilding, the construction of convincingly functional settings in which a story can unfold. Although most vital for fantasy, science fiction, and horror, proper worldbuilding provides a canvas that any story can hang upon.

Proper worldbuilding addresses the unseen 90% of the story world that never makes it into a book, the part that hangs below the surface like the bulk of an iceberg, but which has to exist in an author’s mind in order to make the other 10% feel like it’s happening in an actual place.

When setting a story on an alien planet, or on an altered version of our own world, or in a fantasy land with its own laws of physics, I’ve tended to make up the details as I went along. Random bits of geography, weather, culture, history, architecture, cuisine, fashion, governments, and organizations all hung out in my head, on a scribbled map, and in a jumbled file of digital notes. I called this process worldbuilding, once I eventually heard the term, and my stories usually felt like they were set somewhere. But if readers looked too closely, they could see the rivets of a shoddily constructed facade.

Then I had a revelation that my story, set in a specific time and place, with an alternate culture, a huge cast of characters, and a deep mythology, would require more worldbuilding than I could carry in my head.

My second revelation was that there were specialized worldbuilding tools available that nobody had ever told me about.

My third revelation was that there are active communities of worldbuilders who put a whole lot of time and effort into exploring the strange new worlds that they’ve made up themselves. Some of these worldbuilders build their worlds to support a writing project. Some build their worlds to support tabletop role-playing game campaigns. And, most amazingly to me, some build their worlds just for the fun and challenge of it all!

And it is fun. And it is challenging. And it does get your puzzle-solving mind to wander off in all sorts of interesting directions. And it requires a bit of discipline remain focused on just the necessary parts of a constructed world, and to avoid the excessive breadth and depth they refer to as “Worldbuilder’s Disease.”

So I got myself into worldbuilding. I got my fifth grader into worldbuilding. She got her teacher into worldbuilding. And now their whole class is worldbuilding!

If you care to join us, here are some resources to get you started, or to help you guide your own class of worldbuilding students:

World Anvil

I can’t recommend World Anvil highly enough as a platform for developing and organizing notes on worldbuilding. It’s a wiki-type system where users build a Wikipedia style encyclopedia of people, places, and things in their story worlds. Like Wikipedia, these articles can be organized into categories and can reference each other with links. Even better than Wikipedia, for worldbuilding purposes, there are templates that help in eliciting and developing ideas in greater depth. The free version is quite usable, and premium versions offer more presentation options, storage space, and access control.

Worldbuilding Magazine

Now into its third volume of publishing six issues per year, Worldbuilding Magazine and its archives are free online. Each issue focuses on a different theme and its relevance to the development of an imaginary world. The most recent at this writing is “Death and Taxes,” but previous issues have explored the worldbuilding aspects of Magic, Food, Government, History, and other useful topics.

Worldbuilding Books

Tops on my list to read is Collaborative Worldbuilding by Trent Hergenrader, who teaches worldbuilding co-creation as part of his classes in creative writing at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Worldbuilding on Social Media

Worldbuilder’s Sanctum is a Facebook group that skews toward tabletop role-play designers and game masters, but includes are many resources and discussions of value to authors as well.

Worldbuilding on YouTube

Worldbuilding Software

If you need a map to visualize your world, Wonderdraft is a specialized graphics program that makes it quick and easy to create some very nice looking maps in a variety of styles.

My Newsletter

Plug, plug! I’m starting a newsletter focused on my writing and worldbuilding, with instructive examples of how the one helps with the other. The first issue comes out next month, but the subscriptions page is live right now!

Other Resources?

Do you have any resources you like to use to help develop, visualize, or organize your story worlds? Share them in the comments!

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Interview with Kristin Daly Rens, Executive Editor at Balzer + Bray/Harper Collins

By on November 30, 2018   /   Articles, Editor / Agent Spotlight, Publishing & Promotion, Writing  

Hello Mixed-Up Filers!

We are in for a treat today! We have with us, Executive Editor from Balzer + Bray / HarperCollins, Kristin Daly Rens!

I met Kristin years ago, and I can honestly say that she’s one of the nicest people.  So, if you don’t know her, sit back, relax, and get to know her now!

JR: Hi Kristin, thanks for joining us today!

KDR: I’m so happy to be here—thanks so much for asking!

JR: To start, could you tell us a little bit about your path to becoming an editor in children’s books?

KDR: Sure! My path was a bit roundabout, while also somehow feeling predestined, in a way. I’ve always been a reader, but my interest in publishing as a career really began my freshman year of high school, when I got a job shelving books in my local public library. Nobody else ever wanted to shelve in the children’s room, for one simple reason—skinnier books meant more books per cart, and thus more work—but I found myself drawn there. I loved to flip through the picture books as I shelved…I definitely spent a lot of time hidden in the stacks reading when I should have been shelving! Once I got to college, though, I found myself sidetracked by a love of German literature, so after graduation I actually moved to Germany for several months to learn the language, and then came back to get my Master’s in Comparative Literature. But children’s publishing kept calling to me, and every time I was in a bookstore I always seemed to wind up browsing the children’s section—looking back, I think part of me knew even then that I would “grow up” to work in children’s publishing.

 

JR: Getting to live overseas for any amount of time is an amazing experience. We share that in common. What was the first book you worked on?

KDR: Oh gosh, let’s see, the first books I ever had a hand in editing were two Golden Books Road to Reading titles—the first was Shred It Up! by Craig Carey, a nonfiction book about snowboarding, tied to the Winter Olympics, and the second was Beans Baker, Number Five, by Richard Torrey, which I co-edited with my boss at the time—I actually went on to work with Rich on three picture books after I moved to Harper. The first books I ever acquired on my own were at Harper—an I Can Read Book called The Just-So Woman by Gary Blackwood, and a picture book called My Mom is a Firefighter by Lois Grambling. Both were illustrated—in very different styles!—by Jane Manning, a wonderful, versatile artist who I’ve worked with a number of times over the last fifteen years or so.

JR: That book looks really cute! How did you land at Harper Collins?

KDR: Through luck and the kindness of others, really! Shortly after Golden Books was acquired by Random House, one of my bosses—the editorial director for the Road to Reading line—decided to leave the business side of publishing to write full time. As she was making her phone calls to authors and agents to let them know, she happened to talk to an agent who mentioned that Harper was looking for an associate editor to work on I Can Read Books and picture books—my boss recommended me to the agent, the agent passed it along, and here I am, almost seventeen years later, still at Harper! Though my job has changed a good deal over the years—I now acquire and edit for the Balzer + Bray imprint, and work primarily on YA and middle-grade novels, with a smattering of picture books.

JR: What’s changed in publishing between the time you started and now?

KDR: Everything and nothing! The most obvious change has been the advent of ebooks, which didn’t even exist in 1999 when I got my first job in publishing. And on a related note, there’s no more lugging around of big stacks of novel submissions, as agents now submit projects via email, and most editors read them electronically. There’s also the importance of social media for networking and promotion—both for authors and publishers.

 

JR: What do you enjoy the most about your job?

KDR: There are so many things that I adore about this job—from brainstorming with authors, to collaborating with designers on cover visions, to offering ideas and suggestions to an author that may open up the possibilities of their story or the world they’ve created and help them to see their manuscript in a new and exciting way. Hands down, though, my favorite part of the job is the fact that on any day I could fall in love with a new manuscript and get the chance to work with the author and help them build a career doing what THEY love.

 

JR: What sort of books do you look for?

KDR: B+B is all about publishing bold, creative, groundbreaking books with fresh voices—so that’s always the first thing I’m looking for in a project. Even if a story addresses a universal theme that’s been written about before, we always want to make sure that the project is adding to the conversation in a new way. Genre-wise, I read a little bit of everything so my editorial tastes are also pretty broad—but what really draws me into a story, no matter the genre, are character and heart. In terms of middle grade in particular, there’s so much I love—great magical realism, classic-feeling fantasy or adventure, humorous middle grade stories along the lines of Andrew Clements (I adore Frindle!).  More than anything else, though, I’m an absolute sucker for a heartfelt middle-grade friendship or family story that tugs at my heartstrings.

JR: Are you very hands-on with your authors?

KDR: Yes! I’m sure some of them would say too much so, haha! I work very closely with my authors on revisions for their books—I usually take each manuscript through several rounds of edits with the author, with the edits going in order from large (character, plot, pacing, voice, world-building) to small (word choice, fixing grammar, etc) before we’re ready to send the ms to copy editing. Once the manuscript is off to copy editing, I remain very involved—as do most editors—working with our cover designers, marketing directors, and publicists on every stage of the publishing process.

 

JR: What’s going on in Middle Grade?

KDR: It feels like an exciting time for middle grade! It’s one of the categories that has been experiencing the most growth over the last couple of years, and as a result more agents and editors seem to be looking for great middle-grade manuscripts. Personally, I especially love the fact that these past few years seem to have seen a surge in interest in the kinds of standalone, heartfelt friendship and family stories that are my favorite types of books for this age group.

 

JR: What advice can you give to authors?

KDR: Don’t worry about what is trendy—write what interests YOU. So often at conferences, etc, editors and agents get asked what the current trends are in children’s and teen books, but the truth of the matter is that the best way to make someone—whether that someone is an agent, editor, or reader—care about your book is if the author is writing something they believe in and care about themselves. When an author is passionate about what he or she is writing about, readers can see that passion on the page—and it makes them fall in love with that story as well.

JR: That’s great advice, because I do still see people chasing trends. What books do you have coming up that you’re excited about?

KDR: Well, that’s not really a fair question at all! Editors are excited about all their books—after all, this is a business driven by passion for reading. But here are a couple by new (or new to me) authors I’m excited to be working with:

  • NOCTURNA is the first book in an own voices YA fantasy series by debut author Maya Motayne. Set in a Latinx-inspired kingdom, it’s the story of two very different characters—Finn, who possesses magic that allows her to change her face at will, which comes in handy, since she’s also a talented thief. And Alfie, the kingdom’s crown prince, who’s obsessed with finding a way to bring back his murdered brother, even if it means dabbling in forbidden magic. When Alfie unwittingly unleashes a terrible, ancient power, the two must race to fix his mistake before it leads to the destruction of everything & everyone they love. The world here is so richly, vividly drawn—it positively crackles with life, as do Finn and Alfie themselves! And there’s a magical card game that is one of the most fun scenes I’ve ever read in YA fantasy.
  • SUMMER OF A THOUSAND PIES by Margaret Dilloway is a middle-grade story about a girl who is sent to live with an aunt she’s never met in a quaint mountain town—and, when she learns her aunt’s pie shop is failing, she decides to do everything she can to save the first real home she’s ever known. This book is heartfelt, and moving, and unexpectedly funny in spots—and also includes lots and lots of PIE (with recipes at the back of the book!). Every time I read it, I just want to hug it to my chest, I adore it so much.

 

JR: Those both sound great! Can’t wait to read! What was your favorite book as a child?

KDR: I had so many! Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, the Trixie Belden mysteries, the Chronicles of Prydain—but my FAVORITE favorite books were the Chronicles of Narnia. I was one of those kids who spent half their childhoods knocking on the back wall of every closet in the house, looking for a door to another world.

JR: The Narnia books were among my favorites, as well. I was living overseas when I first read them, and also tried to find a way to another place. And speaking of childhood, before we go, I have one last question. What’s one thing from your childhood that you wish could make a comeback?

KDR: Well, I wouldn’t say no to an amazing YA paranormal romance—while there was definitely a glut in the couple of years after Twilight hit, it’s been a few years now and every once in a while I find myself longing for a great paranormal read. On the flip side, with the current craze for remakes of classic TV shows and movies, there are also a lot of things that I don’t want to come back, or at least don’t want them to be remade. In particular, if anyone ever considers a remake of The Goonies, they’re dead to me—why try to remake perfection?!

JR: Amen to that!

 

Kristin, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with us today and I hope you have a very Happy Holiday and New Year!

 

You can find Kristin at: 

Twitter and Instagram: 

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