TBA Monthly Wishlist - May 2015

It's time again for the Monthly Wishlist!  Here's the ONE project that the TBA agents would love to see in their submission inbox. If you have something that fits with the below, please check out our submission guidelines and send it over. We can't wait to read!

Molly Ker Hawn: I want sophisticated, beautifully-written YA contemporary novels that explore complex relationships.

Louise Fury: I would love to read a YA version of THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN.

Susan Hawk: I’m hungry for YA stories about surviving some kind of massive natural disaster: man-made, environmental or planetary.  Needs to have a very strong concept and excellent characters -- tell me what happens after our world is devastated.

Jenny Bent: A funny, quirky, literary family novel (for adults) like THE FAMILY FANG or WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY BESIDE OURSELVES or THE VACATIONERS.

Heather Flaherty: YA contemporary, high-stakes romance.

Victoria Lowes: A lyrical historical fiction set in early 20th century NYC.  

Beth Phelan: I’d love to see YA family stories dealing with first-generation siblings, the conflicts with their parents, and issues balancing home life with their social one. Looking for emotionally resonant, but funny and heartfelt.

Gemma Cooper: I'm closing to queries as of 1st June 2015. Please query me when I reopen in August 2015.

Deal Announcement: Donna Hosie's THE DEVIL'S BANSHEE to Holiday House

Once upon a time, I read a manuscript called THE DEVIL'S INTERN. I loved it so much, I couldn't wait to tell everyone about it. This is why I wanted to work in publishing! I thought. This book reminded me so much of the books I read and OBSESSED over as a teen -- in the BEST possible way. Just look at these lovelies:

The brilliant author of this incredible book was Donna Hosie, and she agreed to let me be her agent. We were very happy to have found this book a home at Holiday House. In Fall 2014, the book was released.

THE DEVIL'S INTERN enjoyed some wonderful, and well deserved, success. After getting starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal, it landed on some prestigious lists including Kirkus Reviews's Best Books for Teens and ALA YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults. 

Once we caught our breath, we shifted focus to what was next. THE DEVIL'S DREAMCATCHER is the second book of this series, and we have only just recently seen the cover and celebrated Kirkus's review, which praises Donna for her "marvelous humor" and the book for "more splendidly hellish fun." 

That book will be released in Fall 2015. (By the way, isn't that a GORGEOUS cover?) We're excited to see how readers will respond to the book once it is released and hope that they will enjoy meeting some new characters. 

But while we wait for that to happen, we've been cooking up something else. Something that will certainly spook, definitely amuse, and probably tug the heartstrings of the loyal followers and members of Team DEVIL. I'm talking about book three, people! Take a look at THE DEVIL'S BANSHEE: 

		Children's: Young Adult		The third book following THE DEVIL'S INTERN, one of the ALA and Kirkus "Best Books," Donna Hosie's THE DEVIL'S BANSHEE, in which a long-dead Viking Prince must lead his friends through the circles of hell to save the girl he loves from a terrible fate while confronting the darkness this domain brings out in each other and themselves, to Kelly Loughman at Holiday House, by Beth Phelan at The Bent Agency (NA).

Yup. Just announced today. In honor of this occasion, there might be a meat feast pizza for dinner tonight. Yay, #TeamDEVIL!

Please join me in congratulating Donna on Twitter and you can read her own blog here.

From the archives: Beginnings, Endings, and the stuff in between - a post from Jenny

Continuing our posts on editing, an fantastic archived post from Jenny Bent:

Lately I've been reading some really otherwise great manuscripts that seem to share the same three problems.  Since I'm seeing these missteps so much, I'm figuring that maybe I should write about them in the hopes that my advice will apply to the books of some of the readers of this blog as well.  The good news is that these problems are all very fixable--so read on and see if you think your book might be suffering from these same three writerly mistakes.

1. You don't need the first 50 pages.   Let me clarify.  You needed to *write* the first 50 pages.   You needed them to understand your characters better by giving them a back story.   But now that the book is done, your characters are alive and interesting and informed by the knowledge that these pages gave you.   So while you needed to write these pages, the reader doesn't need to read them.   Trust your characters to reveal themselves in the rest of the book and cut out the back story that is now slowing your book down.  

2. Your characters need to *feel* more.   I think "show don't tell" has been drummed into our heads so long and so often that we forget that we do need to let the reader into our characters' heads.   While we don't want you to do a big info dump of character development and we do want your characters to reveal themselves through action, you still also need to tell us sometimes what they are thinking and feeling along with that.  Let's call your main character Bob.  If you put Bob in a crazy situation, remember to tell us what his reaction is to that situation--or poor Bob will feel flat and lifeless to the reader.

3.  Your ending is rushed.  Readers love a satisfying ending.   Think of all the times you raced through a book only to feel let down by the ending.  Try to go in the opposite direction with your book.   I find a lot of writers want to have ambiguity or loose ends in an ending and I think that often that's the wrong impulse.   The beauty of a book, as opposed to life, is that we can have an ending that ties things up, or at least ties a lot of things up.   An ending should also provide a thorough, complex explanation of any motivations or happenings that seemed mysterious throughout the book.   I'm noticing that many of the endings I am reading in unpubbed manuscripts these days would be improved by adding at least an entire chapter of material.  

Do you feel your manuscript might share some of these issues?  Let me know in the comments.   And happy revising!

Jenny

Click here for the original post for further interesting discussions in the comments.

Deal Announcement - Two more books in Sam Watkins' CREATURE TEACHER series!

I am thrilled to announce that OUP have acquired two more books in TBA client Sam Watkins’ CREATURE TEACHER series, to be illustrated again by super-talented David O’Connell.

CREATURE TEACHER is a fun twist on Jekyll and Hyde and tells the story of Jake and his classmates as they try to hide their teacher when he turns into a naughty little creature. High jinks, disasters, hilarious illustrations and the occasional fart joke make this series a brilliant addition to the shelves of any young fiction fans.

CREATURE TEACHER is out now, and book 2, CREATURE TEACHER GOES WILD, publishes on 1st August 2015. Books 3 and 4 will follow in 2016.

Please congratulate Sam on Twitter @_sam_watkins