KATE EVANGELISTA'S BIG NEWS

My vow of silence has lifted.

Yesterday, Kate Evangelista announced her big news. I’ll let her fill you in on all the wonderful details and get a TASTE (LOL) of the virtual goodies she’s left for you on her blog.

What I want to convey is how proud and excited I am of her accomplishment. This breaking news has been a long time in the making; yet, I NEVER doubted this day would come. This is a testament to Kate’s level of commitment to perfecting her craft, her enthusiasm for her work, and her determination to fight for her dreams.

We’ve been friends and critique partners for two years. We’ve shared the good and bad. Without her, I don’t know whether I would be where I am right now in terms of my writing career. There were times during the course of these two years when I wanted to quit.

Kate threatened to get on a plane, and fly to the states so she could smack me upside the head. Tough love? Oh yeah, she dished it out when I needed it. Other times, she held my hand through my spurts of self-doubt. She taught me how to be a better writer, critique partner, and friend.

She’s my champion and my hero.

I’m so thrilled for her I had to share. So, please pop over to Kate’s Blog and offer her your warmest congratulations and good wishes on her future endeavor. I know she would appreciate it.

Year of Fun--May (the month I found my dream agent, Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency)

May started off with a bang!

Some of you may remember my earlier post (rant) in which I designated 2011, The Year of Fun. I spent all  of 2010 writing, querying, being rejected by agents, and shelving two books. I despaired that I never would reach my goal. And boy, did I whine about it.

"Blah, blah, blah, I totally suck! I can’t do this!"

I vowed that for 2011 year, I would rediscover my passion for writing. I worked with my critique partners and finished JUJU’S CHILD. I came to adore the characters, setting, and plot. I had a blast writing this story. I decided to query agents, but not obsess over rejection. And if I found my dream agent—well, YAY!!

I finished Juju’s Child in February and sent out four test queries. The same day, I received a full and partial request. I panicked. My critique partners hadn’t finished the final edits. So busted. I threw myself upon their mercy, and Kate, Sarah, Carla, Bessie, and my dad helped me out by getting the critiques back within the week. Whew.

So, I now knew that my query letter worked, and again I have to say a big thank you to my critique partners, especially Deb who worked with me on it line by line. In the three months since I began querying agents, I received 9 full requests and 7 partials, and a whole lot of rejections. Doggone it, receiving those form letters or hearing crickets from the non-responders felt like my soul was being sucked out through my nose.

Once again, I toyed with putting aside my dream. But, the thing is, no matter how often the thought occurred to me to quit, I refused to give up on my dream. I kept querying agents and found Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency through Joyce Alton’s Yesternight's Voyage blog. In her interview with Monica B.W on the Love YA blog, Kathleen said,“Topics of particular interest to me include reincarnation, the occult, the supernatural (not in a zombie or vampire context, more psychic, or witchy, or fey), ghosts (a scary ghost story? yes, please), and psychology.” She also disclosed that her guilty pleasures are Vampire Diaries and Gossip Girl. Her interests covered the plots of all three of my manuscripts.

Oh, yeah, I had to query her! Perfection.

I sent the query letter for Juju’s Child, and received a full request for the manuscript half an hour later. That night we emailed back and forth, and I fell deeper under her spell. I kept interrupting my husband’s Xbox experience to gush about this fabulous agent. Thank you my sweet, patient hubby.

The next morning, I went on a ten mile mountain bike ride. In the middle of the woods, I received THE CALL. I almost crashed my bike into a tree trying to dig my phone out of my tight bike shorts. Thankfully, I survived to hear Kathleen tell me that she loved Juju’s Child, and offered representation. I can't even describe how excited and humbled I felt. We had an even more lengthy discussion about revisions and our ideas for improving upon the existing story after I returned home. Her revision suggestions and mine meshed. I notified the other agents who were considering the manuscript and those that  I had queried, and informed them I would be making my decision in a week.

Which is today. So, I am pleased to officially announce that I  found my dream agent in Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyon Literary. Next week, I'll receive my agent's revision notes and the hard work begins. Thank you to all my friends and family. This day wouldn't have been possible without your support. I love you guys.

May is the best month, ever (singing the line like Sponge Bob Square Pants).

Guest Post on Reads, Reviews, Recommends: The Anatomy of a Query Letter by Angie Sandro

Kate Evangelista, my awesome critique partner, asked me to write a Guest Post about query letters for her blog: Reads, Reviews, Recommends (if you haven’t checked out her blog, please do. It’s fantastic ‘cause she’s a blogging wizard, kinda like a female Harry Potter, so I guess she’d be Hermione).


Sorry, I'm still a little giddy. Refocusing.


At first I thought, NO WAY! I’m not an expert. How can I write a post about something that I’m still learning about myself?


I still remember how confused I was when I wrote my first query, oh so long ago, in a galaxy far, far away--called Clueless. I wrote a rambling two page letter that broke all the query rules: No hook, the book was 104,000 words and not complete, bah, I’m embarrassed to admit that I sent that piece of offal out to agents. At the time, I thought it was awesome. Then I found agentquery.com and learned how to properly format a query letter.


I learned because of the other members who gave their time to critique my query and show me where I went wrong. Most of the people who helped me weren’t query experts either. They passed along the information they learned to a newbie, and now I have a responsibility to pay it forward. Sharing and collaborating with others is the only way to learn and grow as a writer (my thanks to my awesome critique group for all your help with my queries).


Kate is one of the people who helped me out. I couldn’t say no to her request even though it filled me with nail biting terror. This morning, I open an email from Kate. All it said was, SURPRISE! And had the link to my post: The Anatomy of a Query Letter, da, da, duh, by Angie Sandro.


Thank you for such an amazing honor, Kate Evangelista, and for making me peek outside of my turtle shell and give back to our wonderful writing community.