Posts Tagged children’s books

Meet Literary Agent Dani Segelbaum

Dani Segelbaum agent headshot

Dani Segelbaum was born and raised in Minneapolis and grew up as a voracious reader. She’s a graduate of Boston University’s College of Communication, where she studied journalism and political science. 

Early in her career, she worked with established and debut authors as a literary assistant at New Leaf Literary and Media. Her career in publishing began when she became an editorial assistant at HarperCollins Publishers, where she focused primarily on highly designed non-fiction titles. 

Now, Dani is Vice President, Literary Agent, and Subsidiary Rights Director at the Carol Mann Agency. And she’s stopping by the Mixed-Up Files to tell us a little bit about her journey, the work she currently represents, and the kind of manuscripts she wants to find in her inbox.

 

Hi Dani. Welcome to the Mixed Up Files! 

Hi, Susan! It’s great to join you today.

 

Can you tell us a little about your path to becoming an agent?

I started my career as an editorial assistant at HarperCollins. After a few years, I realized I wanted to be an agent instead of an editor. From there, I went on to work at New Leaf Literary as an agent’s assistant and slowly started to build my list. I then joined Carol Mann in 2021 and am now Vice President, Subsidiary Rights Director, and Literary Agent for the agency.

 

Please give us a little background on the Carol Mann Agency.

The Carol Mann Agency was established in 1977 and has long been home to highly-regarded writers of fiction and non-fiction. We are a boutique agency that prides itself on giving individual attention to all our clients and regularly placing projects with leading publishers both in the United States and overseas. Our broad range of tastes, our experience guiding authors and their manuscripts through the publication process, and our industry relationships make us on of New York’s top literary agencies. We are privileged to work with a number of bestselling and award-winning authors.

 

It sounds like you’ve found your niche in the publishing world. Tell us what you find to be the best and worst parts about being an agent.

Best: I’m always learning something new from my authors! Each book teaches me something exciting and different.

Worst: Rejections! Although, it is a regular part of the publishing process.

 

Can you describe what you look for in a query?

I want to see that the author has done some initial research on what I’m looking for and that they followed my submission guidelines.

 

What are the top reasons you pass on a submission?

The number one reason is that the query is not in the genre I work on.

 

Here at MUF, we’re all about middle grade. Can you tell us what you love most about middle grade literature?

Stephen Colbert said, “As far as I can tell, a young adult novel is a regular novel that people actually read.” I feel the same applies for middle-grade novels. They take real-life issues and make them understandable for all ages!

 

What kind of middle grade books do you enjoy?

The middle-grade landscape has changed drastically since I was a kid. Now, there are all types of middle-grade books available that weren’t around when I was young. It’s really incredible to see.

Matt Sprouts and The Curse of the Ten Broken Toes cover

My author Matt Eicheldinger’s book MATT SPROUTS AND THE CURSE OF THE TEN BROKEN TOES is such a delight. It’s funny, relatable, and entertaining. He’s fantastic to work with and has such a creative mind. Kids will absolutely love this book. I promise!

 

What types of queries would you like most to see in your inbox right now?

I’m interested in seeing both fiction and non-fiction. In fiction, I’d really like to see literary and upmarket adult fiction including debut, historical, rom-coms, and women’s fiction. In non-fiction, I’m looking for proposals with an emphasis on politics, women’s issues, popular culture, and current events. Oh, and I love memoir, narrative non-fiction, lifestyle, and cookbooks, too!

In both fiction and non-fiction, I hope to work with authors from diverse backgrounds to tell the stories that are important to them. Overall, I’m really drawn to compelling narrators and writing that is voice-driven, highly transporting, and features unique perspectives and marginalized voices.

 

Where can authors learn more about you? 

You can follow me on Twitter (X) and Instagram at @danisegelbaum and check out my MSWL.

 

Now that we know all about Dani the agent, tell us what you like to do when you’re not at work.

When I’m not working, you’ll most likely find me baking, making homemade ice cream, or walking my dog!

 

Thanks again for joining us, Dani.

Thanks for having me!

STEM Tuesday — Spooky and Scary Science– Interview with Gail Jarrow

Welcome to STEM Tuesday: Author Interview, a repeating feature for the last Tuesday of every month. Go Science-Tech-Engineering-Math!

Happy Spooky Season! What better way to celebrate this deliciously horrific month than with a book that’s TERRIFYING?!

American Murderer: The Parasite That Haunted the South is a riveting tale of an unwelcome guest that wreaked havoc in the 19th and early 20th centuries by boring into unsuspecting bodies through the skin and leaving its human hosts with wrecked bodies and brains.

Horrifying! Let’s dig in with Gail Jarrow!

 

American Murderer

Included on NPR’s 2022 “Books We Love” List Finalist, 2023 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction ALSC Notable Children’s Book

Andi Diehn: My first question feels a tad obvious, but why did you devote a whole book to hookworms?!   

Gail Jarrow: Gross and disgusting appeals to many  in my audience of ages 10+. You can’t beat a vampire creature that clings to the inside of your intestine wall with its suction-cup mouth and sucks your blood until you get sick or  die. And what’s more disgusting than a discussion of leaky outhouses? But beyond that, my account of hookworm disease in the U.S. is a little-known story showing  the  changes in medicine and public health that occurred in the early 1900s. I also was drawn to the subject because it dramatically illustrates how  researchers used the scientific method to make medical discoveries.

AD: Arthur Looss and his accidental discovery of how hookworms entered the body – wow! What does this tell you about the courage of scientists (or at least that particular scientist!)? 

GJ: You have to admire them!  Looss made a dangerous lab error that he recognized as an opportunity. In  research for my books, I’ve encountered several scientists who have intentionally put themselves at risk. Sometimes they’re so sure of themselves that they don’t consider their experiment to be reckless. But in other less certain situations,  they decide that being a human guinea pig is the only way to test a hypothesis. In Bubonic Panic, I tell how Waldemar Haffkine injected himself with the first plague vaccine in 1897, keeping records of his physical reaction. In Red Madness, Joseph Goldberger swallowed a “pill” made of feces, urine, blood, and saliva from pellagra victims to prove that the disease wasn’t contagious. His 1916 experiment put the infectious theory to rest. (Pellagra is a vitamin deficiency disease.) In 1984, Barry Marshall successfully tested his hypothesis that a bacterium caused stomach ulcers by swallowing a beaker full of the microbe. He did get an ulcer, which he cured with antibiotics, but he also received the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery.hookworm

AD: Stiles’s name for his newly discovered hookworm – the American Murderer – is chilling! Why do you think he gave it such a chilling moniker?

GJ: Stiles wasn’t a subtle man. He knew this human hookworm killed people, and he gave it a name to communicate that fact. The name certainly brought attention to the parasite, and it gave me a good book title.

AD: Your descriptions of how people with hookworm were treated – even by medical professionals – is heartbreaking. What’s the lesson here? How can we use that moment in American history to improve current medical practices?hookworm victims

GJ: Having written a few books about the history of medicine, I’ve learned that  “accepted” theories can be wrong. Patients suffer when the mantra is “everyone agrees that. . ..”  As part of my research for American Murderer, I read medical books from the late 19th/early 20th centuries. According to the experts, human hookworm disease didn’t exist in the U.S. except in recent migrants. But Charles Stiles proved that was incorrect and that millions of southerners were infected, probably for generations. He had studied in Europe, where the disease was recognized and easily treated. The American medical establishment, particularly in the South, was slow to go along because Stiles was a parasitologist, not a physician. They also didn’t want to admit that, because of their ignorance, they’d misdiagnosed and failed to treat their patients for years. The sick people were dismissed by  their communities as lazy and stupid. And because victims were usually infected by hookworms at home,  it appeared as if these undesirable character traits simply ran in the family.  The lesson for today is that the medical community must be open to new ideas, knowledge, and approaches and should not dismiss them for the wrong reasons.hookworm education

AD: The cotton mills and Stiles’s narrow focus on hookworms – how might history have been different if Stiles had entertained the idea that other issues affected the mill workers?

GJ: Perhaps that  would have sped up reforms, especially concerning child labor. Still, just a few years later, in 1916, Joseph Goldberger and the U.S. Public Health Service investigated the health of mill workers and identified poor nutrition as a pervasive problem. These studies, as well as Lewis Hine’s photographs of child laborers, helped to bring reforms.

AD: The story of the hookworm is the story of public health – what did we learn from that era that we’ve put to use in more recent times, like with covid?

GJ: The hookworm campaign that started in 1909 demonstrated that in order to reduce or eliminate a disease,  it’s important to educate people about prevention and treatment. The information must be explained clearly and accurately without being condescending. In the early 1900s, newspapers were key to disseminating that information.The articles were written by Stiles, the Public Health Service, and doctors. Today we see similar efforts to transmit facts about COVID, influenza, prenatal care, vaccines, and other health concerns. But times have changed. People no longer have just one reliable source to keep them informed, such as their local newspaper. While additional kinds of media are available to educate the public today,  more unvetted, confusing, and false information is readily available, too.

before and after hookworm victim

A before and after image of a boy cured of hookworms

The hookworm campaign also showed that people are more likely to accept and act on information when they hear it from someone they trust. That meant keeping the  campaign local, at the county or state level and even in the schools and churches. The strategy was to reach people where they were, no matter who they were in terms of socio-economic status or race. The clinics  were staffed by local doctors and community volunteers known by the visitors. Today we see a decline in trust of public health institutions like the CDC and FDA–for many reasons. That’s proving to be a problem.

AD: It’s wonderful to see the before and after photos of victims who were cured, but I also worry about longterm effects on their mental/emotional health – did officials do anything to support individuals once they’d been cured of hookworm? 

GJ: Judging from the personal testimonies I read, I’d say that people who had been cured felt so much better physically that they were  happier and more positive about their lives. With energy to work and learn, they could support and care for their families. Rather than focusing on emotional support (an approach which is more of our time than theirs),  the campaign’s follow-up plan was to stop reinfection by educating hookworm victims about how the parasites spread and helping to install effective waste disposal systems at homes. State education departments added hookworm to the curriculum so that students learned about the disease’s cause, prevention, and treatment. Laws  in southern states required well-maintained outhouses in schools. Eventually, sewers were built in most towns and cities, which stopped the spread of hookworm and other intestinal diseases. But even today, many rural homes like mine are not hooked up to a municipal sewer, and it’s up to the homeowner to have a safe system. newspaper clippings

AD: Why was it important to you to bring readers to the present time to see what the worm situation is like today?

GJ: I always aim to convey hope in my endings.  Hookworm infections were significantly reduced in the United States. Research brought better treatments. The recognized importance of proper waste management spurred  infrastructure improvements.  At the same time, I tried to get young readers to think about what happens when they flush  a toilet and how their health can be affected by tiny parasites. I even included some advice about wearing proper footwear on our southeastern beaches to avoid infection by dog hookworms. 

I also wanted young readers to be aware that at least 1.5 billion people worldwide are still afflicted with soil-transmitted worms, including hookworms. These infections negatively impact a country’s economy and political stability.  It’s essential to know what’s going on in the world beyond. Sooner or later, these things affect all of us.

***

Gail Jarror headshot

Gail Jarrow is the author of nonfiction books and novels for ages 8-18.

Her books for young readers have earned the Winner of the Excellence in Nonfiction Award from YALSA-ALA; the Robert F. Sibert Honor Book Award; Orbis Pictus Honor; Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award; the Jefferson Cup; Grateful American Book Prize Honor; Golden Kite Honor for NF for Older Readers; Eureka! Gold Award; ALA Notable Book; Notable Social Studies Trade Book; the National Science Teaching Association Outstanding Science Trade Book and Best STEM Book, Best Books awards from Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, Booklist, Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, Bank Street College of Education, New York Public Library, Chicago Public Library, and NPR. She has received additional awards and recognition from the American Booksellers Association, American Library Association, Public Library Association, the Society of School Librarians International, and Junior Library Guild.

 

Andi DiehnAndi Diehn grew up near the ocean chatting with horseshoe crabs and now lives in the mountains surrounded by dogs, cats, lizards, chickens, ducks, moose, deer, and bobcats, some of which help themselves to whatever she manages to grow in the garden. You are most likely to find her reading a book, talking about books, writing a book, or discussing politics with her sons. She has 20 children’s books published or forthcoming.

Author Spotlight: Jennifer Weiner

Today, it is my absolute pleasure to chat with bestselling author Jennifer Weiner–yes, that Jennifer Weiner!–about her latest MG novel, The Bigfoot Queen. The final installment in the “cheerful” (The New York Times Book Review) and “charming” (People) trilogy about friendship, adventure, and celebrating your true self, is out tomorrow, October 24, from Aladdin/Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing.

The Bigfoot Queen: A Summary

Alice Mayfair, Millie Maximus, Jessica Jarvis, and Jeremy Bigelow face their biggest challenge yet when a determined foe threatens to expose the secret, sacred world of the Yare. The fate of the tribe’s right to live peacefully out in the open is at stake. Impossible decisions are made, friendships are threatened, secrets are revealed, and tremendous courage is required. Alice, her friends, and her frenemies will have to work together and be stronger, smarter, and more accepting than ever. But can some betrayals ever be forgiven?

Interview with Jennifer Weiner

MR: Welcome to the Mixed-Up Files, Jennifer! Before we talk about The Bigfoot Queen, I must share that I’m a HUGE fan of your novels. I won’t reveal my favorite—it’s like asking Rose Feller to select her favorite pair of shoes (😀)—but let’s just say… I think you’re fab.

JW: Thank you so much! That’s always nice to hear.

MR: Most, if not all, Mixed-Up Files readers are familiar with your wildly popular novels for adults, many of which have appeared on The New York Times Best Sellers list and have sold millions (and millions!) of copies. With this in mind, what prompted you to switch gears and write MG? I’m guessing your daughters might have had a say in the matter…

JW: Yes, you can give my daughters some of the credit and/or blame for this. But I also was an avid reader as a child, and YA and middle-grade books were some of my favorites. (Shout-out to My Side of the Mountain!) When my younger daughter was six, she was obsessed with a TV show called “Finding Bigfoot.” This led to dinnertime discussions about the titular creatures, and how they’d interact with the human world. Would they want to be online? Make money selling stuff on Etsy? Which parts of the our world would they embrace, and which would they reject? And how would that play out within tribes and families?

Middle Grade: Challenges and Rewards

MR: What’s the biggest challenge for writing for a middle-grade audience? The greatest rewards?

JW: The challenges are remembering that writing for kids means keeping some of the themes (and all of the language) more, um, family-friendly than for an adult audience. The greatest rewards are telling a great story, and having readers along for the ride. And middle-grade readers are that perfect balance of knowledgeable and credulous. They know how the world works, and how people are, but they’re still willing to believe that they could open a closet door and find Narnia.

Millie Maximus: The Littlest Bigfoot

MR: Your MG trilogy, The Littlest Bigfoot, features a character named Millie Maximus, a member of the Bigfoot clan. What inspired you to craft a character like Millie—and to write about the topic of Bigfoot in general? 

JW: I don’t think there is a person alive who’s been through adolescence and can’t remember feeling like a monster. Whether it’s your body or  your personality that seems to put you on the outside–and gets you to believe that nobody’s ever been this freakish, or weird, or big, or little, or just wrong–I think that’s a universal experience.

In writing about Bigfoots, I wanted to explore the idea of monstrousness, especially as it applies to young women who get told, early and often, that their bodies are wrong, unruly–too big, too strong, too fat, too flabby, too hairy, too much–in some way. I wanted to turn some of the human world’s biases on their head, just to show how arbitrary the rules can be.

So, here’s Millie who is tiny and delicate in a world that does not prize those qualities in females, and who wants to be seen in a world that what she should want is to be invisible. And then she meets Alice, who’s big and strong with wild, impossible-to-tame hair, who’s been made to feel those things are wrong, when, to Millie, she’s the epitome of beauty.

Researching Bigfoot

MR: While we’re on the subject of Bigfoot, what kind of research did you do for the trilogy? I’m guessing it was more involved than watching grainy videos of large, hairy creatures running through the forest…

JW: I absolutely read all of the literature–such as it is–about Bigfoots, starting with the Patterson-Gimlin film, and continuing on to FINDING BIGFOOT and WHERE BIGFOOT WALKS…but, really, what I paid more attention to was Greek mythology, and those stories about nonhuman creatures, and how they interacted with mortals.

Cast of Characters

MR: In addition to Millie Maximus, “No-Fur” characters (aka humans) feature prominently in the series, including Alice Mayfair, a half-Bigfoot New Yorker with an unruly mane; Jeremy Bigelow, an amateur Bigfoot hunter; Jessica Jarvis, an ex-bully with a secret tail; and Charlotte Hughes, a hotelkeeper’s granddaughter with a dangerous secret. How did you come up with this incredible cast of characters? Which character stands out most for you, and why?

JW: I loved giving Alice and Millie a tribe of like-minded kids to support them and accompany them on their adventures, and I’ve got a soft spot for all of them: for Jeremy, who feels like he’s an afterthought in his family, because his two brothers are such standouts, and for Jessica, who’s not as shallow and vain as she seems, when we meet her in the first book.

But I especially loved writing about Charlotte. She comes into the trilogy later, and is a little older than the other kids, and she’s got a very different perspective on the world, due, in large part, to her economic circumstances. She’s a working-class kid in a dying town–or, rather, a town that was dying until it was revitalized by a mysterious scientist–and she’s not inclined to want to help the spoiled, rich, big-city girls who come to stay at her grandmother’s bed and breakfast.

It was interesting to look at the characters, and have them look at each other, through various lenses, and to think about different kinds of privilege. There’s the privilege conferred by wealth, and the privilege conferred by thinness and by meeting the current beauty standards–and, of course, the privilege of having loving, supportive parents. But money matters. Even to kids. Maybe especially to kids.

Let Your Freak Flag Fly!

MR: Letting your “freak flag” fly is a central theme in The Littlest Bigfoot trilogy. What is it about being an outsider that resonates so deeply with you? Also, what advice would you give to middle-grade readers who feel as if they don’t fit in? Advice for parents, teachers, or other trusted adults?

JW: I was an extremely weird little kid, and I was much more comfortable with books than other children. Books were my friends…but they also showed me people like me, and let me believe that I’d meet some of them, someday, if I could just make it out of elementary school. You never forget feeling like an outsider or an outcast, so those are the characters that speak to me, and their stories are the ones I want to tell. And I hope that kids who read them come away feeling a little less lonely, like they aren’t the only one who’s ever felt like a freak.

In terms of advice, I think the only thing worse than having been an outcast yourself is when you see it happening with your own children. I don’t know if there’s much parents can do, except to remind their kids that they are loved unconditionally, and that, whatever they are feeling, they won’t feel it forever.

Trilogy: Plot, Outline + “The End”

MR: What’s the secret to writing a successful trilogy, Jennifer? Also, how does it feel to write “The End,” knowing you (most likely) will not be spending time with these amazing characters in the future?

JW: I always imagined the Bigfoot stories as a trilogy, and I knew I had enough story for three books. It was just a matter of plotting everything out, of knowing, broadly, what each book would be about, and what ground it would cover. I had a big outline for the entire project, then specific outlines for each book…and I always knew how the story would end. Which isn’t always true with my adult books, but was absolutely true here. Saying goodbye was definitely bittersweet. I’m going to miss Alice and Millie and Jeremy a lot. (To order The Littlest Bigfoot boxed-set collection click here.)

MR: The film rights to The Littlest Bigfoot were sold to Fox 2000 in 2016. Any updates on when fans might be able to see Millie, and Alice, and Jeremy, and Jessica, and Charlotte on the silver screen?

JW: Sadly, no. As I’m writing this, the writer’s strike is just coming to an end. I think it will take a while before I know whether that project will move forward. But, honestly, I’m just so proud to have all three books out in the world, and to have kids using their imagination to bring the world to life.

MR: You are incredibly prolific writer, Jennifer. How do you continue to come up with so many original ideas for your novels, short stories, and works of non-fiction? Is there a secret sauce you can share with Mixed-Up Files readers?

JW: I think spending close to a decade as a newspaper reporter helped a lot. You get used to writing, on deadline, every day, and coming up with lots of ideas for stories. It teaches you to pay attention to the world. That seems to have worked for me.

Writing Rituals

MR: What does your writing routine look like? Do you have any particular rituals?

JW: I treat writing like a job, and I’m at my desk Monday through Friday, for at least four hours. I try to exercise first thing in the morning – it helps focus my mind, and helps me sit still. I walk my dog and do word games with my husband. Then I go for a slow run, or a bike ride, or a barre class. Then I come home, and I’m generally at my desk from 10 or 11 in the morning to 2 or 3 in the afternoon.

I don’t really have any rituals. Again, I give my past as a journalist credit. When you get used to writing in a newsroom, where it’s noisy, and there are always people talking, and police scanners going off and television sets turned on, you learn to focus, no matter where you are or what else is happening. I’ve got a tiny home office that used to be part of my closet, and I write there most of the time. But I’ve written in coffee shops, and on airplanes, and in hotel rooms, and in my minivan while waiting for my kids to finish at school or rehearsal.

MR: What are you working on now, Jennifer? 

JW: Another sister story, about two girls who were in a band, and how the band’s success and eventual breakup affected both of their lives.

Lightning Round!

MR: And finally, no MUF interview is complete without a lightning round, so…

Preferred writing snack? Coconut-flavored rice crackers

Coffee or tea? Iced coffee

Bigfoot: Fact or fiction? Fact!

Superpower? Parallel parking

Best piece of writing advice? You can’t be a writer without being a reader.

Favorite place on earth? In my bed, with my dog curled up on a pillow by my head, and a great book.

If you were stranded on a desert island with only three things, what would they be? My Kindle, my Kindle charger, and a generator to keep my Kindle charged.

MR: Thank you for chatting with us, Jennifer. The Littlest Bigfoot trilogy was a pleasure to read, and I’m sure MUF readers will agree!

Bio:

Jennifer Weiner, whose books have spent more than five years on the New York Times Best Seller list, with over 11 million copies in print in 36 countries, is the author of the novels Good in Bed (2001); In Her Shoes (2002), Little Earthquakes (2004); Goodnight Nobody (2005); the short story collection The Guy Not Taken (2006); Certain Girls (2008); Best Friends Forever (2009); Fly Away Home (2010); Then Came You (2011); The Next Best Thing (2012); All Fall Down (2014); Who Do You Love (2015); Mrs. Everything (2019); Big Summer (2020); That Summer (2021); The Summer Place (2022), and The Breakaway (2023).

She is also the author of three middle-grade novels, The Littlest Bigfoot (2016), Little Bigfoot, Big City (2017), and The Bigfoot Queen (2023), as well as the nonfiction collection Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing (2016).

Jennifer has appeared on many national television programs, including The Today Show and Good Morning America. Her essays, including “Mean Girls in the Retirement Home” and “First, I Cried; Then, I Rode My Bike,” have appeared in newspapers and media outlets across the world. Jennifer’s work has been published in dozens of newspapers and magazines, including Seventeen, Redbook, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Allure, Ladies’ Home Journal, Time and Good Housekeeping. Learn more about Jennifer on her website and follow her on Instagram.