I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and didn’t eat TOO much. Judging by the crowd at the local Y lately, I think I know the answer to that one… Why the Santa pooch picture here? Because AWWWWW!
Anyways, over the past two days, while I’ve been continuing to eat turkey in all its incarnations, three different fabulous blogs have posted different interviews with me. One post probes into how my life experiences affect my writing, the other delves into the romantic and fun details of my works, and the last has me wearing my literary agent hat (which, I imagine, is large and has some feathers) to give out some manuscript submission tips. Check ’em out. They might make you forget about all those holiday gifts you still haven’t bought!
Mindbending Memoir Questions
Jerry Waxler in his Memory Writers Network blog is great at asking me those “I never thought of that one before” questions. Risky stuff like: Do I write about lying teens so much because I was such a huge liar as a teen? And: When I create my novels, what sorts of real life experiences do I pull into them? Yikes! Is Jerry looking at fiction with a memoir-writer’s angle, or is he just really nosy? To find out, click the following to read Part I of this interview and Part II. And you might also want to check out his post on coming of age in YA fiction, which highlights my novel OVER MY HEAD by clicking here.
Revelations from the Land of Chicklit
Author Heidi Hall approached our interview with questions posed from her point of view as a romance and chick-lit author… Questions like: Did you ever wish you lived your character’s life? (Um, YES!) And: Sunglasses: designer or drugstore? Check out this fun interview at her WriterGurl1 blog by clicking here, and if you’re looking for some great reads for the holidays, definitely check out Heidi’s books such as A Dose of Reality!
Why Some Pretty Decent Manuscripts get Rejected
Writer Kerry Gans posted a piece featuring Five Reasons for Agent Rejections of Manuscripts over at her group site The Author Chronicles. This is a great craft-oriented blog, and this post highlights five common reasons why manuscripts I read are rejected, even if they have merit. Literary agents WANT to find great work, and it’s kind of heartbreaking to get excited by a piece only to have to turn it down because it didn’t live up to its promise. I’ve been an assistant literary agent for the Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency for a few months now, and it’s amazing how many times I see these mistakes EVERY DAY. So if you’re in the process of trying to get an agent, definitely check out Kerry’s post by clicking here.
Thanks to all these great bloggers for including me on their sites!
Marie
Marie Lamba, author 