The dreams authors secretly dream about the journey to publication can be outsized, even grandiose. In our imaginations, top agents clamor to be The One. We dream of the auction, of the money raining down, the praise and starred reviews,…
Shobha Rao’s stunning novel, Girls Burn Brighter, is just out in paperback (Flatiron, 2018) and you should run, not walk, to your local bookstore and buy a copy. It was named one of the best books of 2018 by NPR…
I don’t know what you expected when you published your first novel. In truth, you tried hard to keep expectations low so that they would be met and perhaps exceeded. But the build-up to a book launch is so huge…
Whitney Scharer, a veteran Grubbie extraordinaire, is just out with her debut The Age of Light (Little Brown, 2019) and already it is flying off the shelves. Set in 1930s Paris, the book is about the love story between Vogue…
A quick glance at the praise on Mira T. Lee’s website tells the story. Her debut novel, Everything Here Is Beautiful, was deemed a top fiction pick for 2018 by Amazon, Goodreads, Reader’s Digest, Real Simple, and O, The Oprah…
Every querying writer knows (or should know) that once a literary agent rejects a query or a manuscript, that agent’s door closes. Often, the door to the entire agency slams shut. Of course, there are exceptions. Sometimes agents will reconsider…