September 2018 Pass or Pages Agent Panel

Meet the agents who are going to critique your Diverse Young Adult Fairy Tales, Folktales, or Myths entries!

Kelly Peterson

Corvisiero Literary Agency

A recent graduate of West Chester University, Kelly earned her B.S.Ed. in English and went to pursue a career in teaching. Little did she know that despite all of her hard work, the environment she ended up in would be one she disliked. After taking a step back and reassessing her life, she realized that maybe she should have focused on the world of literary agents and publishing a long time ago.
When not working as a book nerd, Kelly can be found dancing, hiking, riding horses, perfecting her yoga technique, blogging, and writing her own manuscript. If you're lucky, you might even be able to catch her flying around the world, saving lives. She is superwoman after all!
With books, there's just something about strong female main characters holding their own against the world, in an environment that Kelly could never, in her wildest dreams, find herself living within. It tears at her heart and pulls at her soul, especially when the main character finds that she never needed another to complete her in the first place. You can find her on Twitter at @LitAgentKelly.

Saritza Hernandez

Corvisiero Literary Agency

Saritza is the Sr. Literary Agent at the Corvisiero Literary Agency and is known as the first literary agent to represent authors in the digital publishing landscape. She is also a geek with a passion for all things Star Wars, Star Trek, and Harry Potter. But her love of great storytelling is what has driven her work in the publishing industry for the past 15 years. An avid coffee-drinker with a Kindle book and audiobook obsession, she enjoys a steaming cup (or several) of strong Cuban coffee while escaping into worlds and stories from all walks of life. With a passion for romance and a strong advocate of the GLBT community, she enjoys fresh voices in Young Adult and Adult genre fiction. You can find her on Twitter at @epubagent .

Weronika Janczuk

D4EO Literary Agency

Weronika broke into publishing in 2009, through a high school workshop that placed her with former young adult editor Brian Farrey at Flux (now North Star), a small imprint in Minnesota, where she pulled, from the slush pile, the lovely Out of the Blue by Holly Schindler, which received a starred review in Booklist. She then moved on to intern with Jenny Bent at The Bent Agency.Following the unexpected death of her mother, Weronika moved for one year to an agency housed in NYC, Lynn C. Franklin Associates, Ltd., before departing the world of publishing altogether to make space for her own grieving. Weronika is back now for the long-haul. You can read more about her on her blog, Lightning & Lightning Bugs.

Category/Genre: Young Adult Fairy Tales, Folktales, or Myths, retold with diverse characters

Details for September 2018 Pass or Pages:

Entry starts: Monday, September 10 at 6 a.m. Eastern
Ends: Wednesday, September 12 at 6 p.m. Eastern
Category/Genre: Young Adult Fairy Tales, Folktales, or Myths, retold with diverse characters
How To Enter: Fill out the entry form on the contest post when it goes live
What Is Required: Your query (NO BIO or personalization for agents), your first 250 words, a complete and polished MS

You can also read more about the rules here: https://operationawesome6.blogspot.com/p/passorpages.html

The winning entries with agent commentary will be posted on Operation Awesome the week of September 24th, one entry each day.
If you aren't comfortable with having your entry (which will be anonymous) shared on the blog, please don't enter Pass or Pages!

If you have any questions, please ask in the comments or tweet @OpAwesome6. Also, feel free to chat about the contest with fellow participants on the hashtag #PassOrPages.

Can I Write Off Inspiration On My Taxes?

I just got back from a three-week-long visit to Ireland, England, and Scotland and am still jetlagged! This trip was partly to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary (as if I need an excuse to go to that part of the world) and partly to do some research on the Celtic lands.

My forthcoming novel, Crow's Rest, draws from Celtic mythology and faerie lore pretty heavily, so it seemed only appropriate that I see some of the sites that birthed these stories. I've come back armed with thousands of photos (that's not an exaggeration) and some video footage that might find its way into a Crow's Rest book trailer.

I also made note of travel plans that worked, and those that didn't, for future articles to sell. We opted for self-catering cottages and I'm so glad we did--made the eating for food allergies so much easier. Plus, we had the bonus of having cottages in the gorgeous countryside all to ourselves!

I'm sure I'll be tying this trip into other posts, but for now please excuse my fatigue and enjoy one of the pictures from a graveyard in Ireland. It shares a site with a ruined church founded by St. Finian in the 7th century:

Irish Myths and Legends: The Pooka

For some of you, the first time you ever heard of a pooka (also spelled puca, pwca, pwwka, or bucca) may have been in the Jimmy Stewart film, Harvey. (Or maybe the Changeling games from White Wolf Studios are more your speed?)

However you discovered them, these creatures are ripe with story possibilities. Primarily from Irish fairy lore, the pooka is a trickster character, able to take on many shapes to further his mischief. Most legends say he's particularly fond of taking on the guise of horses, goats, and rabbits (this latter form was how Harvey manifested--even if he was invisible to most).

Or, you can go by the definition from Harvey, when the orderly, Mr. Wilson, looks up Pooka in the encyclopedia:

"P-O-O-K-A. Pooka. From old Celtic mythology, a fairy spirit in animal form, always very large. The pooka appears here and there, now and then, to this one and that one. A benign but mischievous creature. Very fond of rumpots, crackpots, and how are you, Mr. Wilson?"

[Inverts and shakes the dictionary]

"'How are you, Mr. Wilson?'" Who in the encyclopedia wants to know?"

I love how this movie plays with reality and fantasy, and beliefs and happiness. The main character, Elwood, initially seems like a drunken loafer, albeit a well-dressed and garrulous one. His family certainly considers him a trial and embarrassment, but there is more to Elwood than first meets the eye.

To me, the pooka Harvey becomes a metaphor for how Elwood's nature changes, depending on whose eyes we see him through. And how the choices Elwood has made have shaped him. That can be hard to capture on the page, but when it's done well I'm always in awe of the author's skill.

It's great when even minor characters have this entire backstory--that may or may not be revealed in the course of the story--and I feel like they are completely fleshed out.

What are some books you've read recently that accomplished that?