A lot has happened in the past year! Last fall, I entered and was selected as a mentee for Pitch Wars.* My humorous, sci-fi Middle Grade novel then received feedback from a pair of amazing mentors (shout out to Team KrakenBee!) which helped me strengthen and refine my manuscript.
At the beginning of 2019, I attended the Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators annual conference in New York where I had a blast meeting one of my PW mentors in person. That same week, the PW agent showcase went live. I received several agent requests, plus sent out a batch of queries to other agents. Two weeks later, I had agent offers! I was ecstatic and could hardly believe it was all happening!
After phone calls with the interested agents, talking with writer friends and family, and researching on Publisher’s Marketplace/Twitter/Blogs/etc. I signed with literary agent, Alyssa Eisner Henkin at the beginning of March. After some more revisions, we went on submission at the end of May. Three weeks later, I found out we had interest from publishing houses! It was such an exciting and surreal time.
At the beginning of July 2019, I officially accepted an offer from Simon & Schuster, Books for Young Readers. Since then, I’ve revised my manuscript more and started drafting a sequel. I’ve even gotten to see sneak peaks of my book’s future cover (and I love it!) Stay tuned for pics!
It’s hard to believe that in less than a year my book will be in libraries and book stores and that people I’ve never met will meet my characters and read my words. It’s so exciting and such a blessing to have this opportunity.
* Pitch Wars is a mentoring program where published/agented authors, editors, or industry interns choose one writer each, read their entire manuscript, and offer suggestions on how to make the manuscript shine for an agent showcase.
Summer Rachel Short 