Our November workshop will open for submissions on Saturday, November 2 at noon, EDT. In addition to our wonderful permanent mentors, we have former 1st 5 Pages mentor, Kaitlyn Johnson from Corvisiero literary agency as our guest agent mentor! We also are thrilled to have Caroline Leech join us as our author mentor!
The workshop is designed to help writers struggling to find the right opening for their novel or for those looking to perfect the all-important first five pages before submitting for publication. Why the first five pages? Because if these aren’t perfect, no agent, editor, or reader will continue reading to find out how great the rest of your story really is!
So get those pages ready, we usually fill up fast!
Why is the First Five Pages Workshop a GREAT Opportunity?
- You are mentored by the guest author as well as least one and usually two traditionally-published published or agented authors from among our permanent mentors for the duration of the workshop. These authors have been through the trenches and know what it takes to get a book deal, solid reviews, and sales.
- In addition, you receive feedback from the four other workshop participants.
- Feedback is given not just on your initial submission, but on two subsequent opportunities to revise your manuscript based on the previous feedback so that you know you’ve got it right!
- The final revision is reviewed by our mentoring literary agent, who will also give you feedback on the pitch for your story–the pitch that may eventually become your query letter or cover copy.
- The best entry from among the workshop participants will receive a critique of the full first chapter or first ten pages from the mentoring agent, which may, in some cases, lead to requests for additional material.
How It Works:
Please see the complete rules before entering the workshop, but in a nutshell, we’ll take the first five Middle Grade or Young Adult entries that meet all guidelines and formatting requirements submitted after 12pm ET on the workshop start date. Double-check the formatting–each month we have to disqualify entries because of formatting.
Click here to get the rules. We will post when the workshop opens and closes on Adventures in YA Publishing and on twitter (@eliza_daws), with the hashtag #1st5pages. In addition to the rotating team of our wonderful permanent author mentors, the final entry for each workshop participant will be critiqued by our agent mentor.
October Guest Literary Agent Mentor: Kaitlyn Johnson
After receiving a BA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College, Kaitlyn refused to leave the concept of nightly homework behind. As well as being a junior agent for Corvisiero Literary Agency, she is also a freelance editor at her own company, K. Johnson Editorial, and has worked as a copyeditor for academic publisher codeMantra, a YA editor for Accent Press, and a Conference Assistant for GrubStreet, Boston. She has written various articles for Writer’s Digest and has had a flash fiction story published in the anthology A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed.
- YA, NA, and A are her main interests. She mostly drools for fantasy, time travel, select dystopian, romance and historical fiction if it is anything other than Henry VIII.
– Contemporary can grab her attention only if the concept is unique enough and executed well. Overplayed tropes/characters make her cringe. Same goes for upper MG.
– LGBT (as well as characters questioning their sexuality) welcome in all genres accepted above.
When querying, please follow submission guidelines.
October Guest Literary Author Mentor: Caroline Leech
Caroline Leech is a Scottish writer who has lived in Houston TX since 2007. She writes novels for teenagers, and her debut novel, WAIT FOR ME, was published in early 2017 in the USA by Harper Teen, and in the UK by Harper Collins Children’s Books. Set in Scotland towards the end of World War Two, the book won the 2014 Joan Lowery Nixon Award at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators in Houston, as well as the YA categories of both the Romance Writers of America Emily and Lone Star competitions. Harper Collins published Caroline’s second novel, IN ANOTHER TIME, in August 2018.
In addition to writing YA fiction, she blogs a lot, reads a lot, and almost always has an audiobook playing through her headphones. She lives in Houston with her husband and three teenage children.
She can be found online at www.carolineleech.com and @carolinesblurb.
IN ANOTHER TIME
