If anybody needs me for business issues, in the meantime, please use my mary (at) kidlit (dot) com email address.

Also, I have caught up with queries as of midnight, July 12th, as far as I know. If you have not heard back on a query sent before midnight, July 12th, or if you have sent a query since then, please resend to the above address.

In July, I’m moving to Brooklyn to open up an East Coast office of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency!

Today is a fitting day for this announcement, as it finishes up my last week of classes for my MFA degree. (I’ll turn in my thesis over the summer, which I can do from anywhere, and then I’m done!) I’m typing up all my loose ends and getting ready for the big move.

Since not everyone knows how ABLit works, let me break it down. Our agency has a central office in the San Francisco Bay Area but we all work independently. That allows us to dedicate ourselves and all our attention to our clients. No daily office grind, no “big, imposing agency” vibe. Last year, we had an agent in Japan. Right now, one of our agents is in Chicago and three of our agents, a few interns and our subrights co-agent are in Southern California.

But it has been a while since we’ve had a dedicated presence on the East Coast. I’m very excited to be stepping up!

I’m making this move for a number of reasons, some personal, some career. I feel like it’s the right time for me to dive into NYC and immerse myself in the publishing scene. I’d love to make strong bonds, lasting relationships and more friends in the industry. It’ll be great to represent ABLit in New York and it’ll also be a fantastic asset for my clients. Finally, my boyfriend and I have been doing the cross-country long distance thing for a year and it’s time for me to finally join him.

I love being so close to Andrea and my Bay Area colleagues. They have been around the corner (some of them literally!) ever since I first started reading for ABLit two years ago and I have learned so much from being so close. I can’t imagine where I’d be without every single one of them. They are truly fantastic, inspiring and wise. I’ll miss them, my friends and my family — as well as my beautiful home city of San Francisco — so much, but this is the time for me to take my show on the road. I will still fly back all the time for meetings, family, friends, and the Big Sur conferences, which I absolutely adore.

Send a toast and well-wishes my way…I can’t wait to bring you more good news, more posts, more insight and more kidlit as I take this next step in my career!

(Okay, but I am still here in the Bay Area for a few months, so if anybody wants to make that a physical toast-and-well-wishes, you know where to find me!)

***

A word about Sushi: Since Sushi has been such a presence on the blog in the last few weeks, I can now say that this is why her recent illness was so stressful. As I keep an eye on her, I need to know that her health is good enough to survive a taxing move across the country, too. She was always part of my plans in NYC and I hope she stays that way. All signs point to “yes” so far. Thank you for all your continued Sushi love!

Tennessee auction update: Where do I begin? My full manuscript auction ended last night, with a highest bid of $2,800. Demand for this item was so high that I offered a full manuscript critique and phone call to the top 5 highest bidders, at the lowest bid amount of the 5 ($2,125). If all 5 highest bidders want to participate, that means my item will raise over $10,000 for Tennessee flood relief. I am floored and more than happy to do the extra critiques. I immediately got on the phone with Victoria, one of the auction organizers, last night and we just kept going in circles of “Dude…” and “Thank you”/”No, thank you!” I really hope I can swing a trip to Nashville sometime this summer to meet the organizers. Mandy, Victoria and Myra are heroes. They are doing so much good, and I’m honored to be a part of that. Congratulations to the winners! I can’t wait to read your manuscripts!

My query critique sold over the weekend (to fabulous blog reader Marybk, who got it for herself as a Mother’s Day present! Yay!). I’m so thrilled to be able to help (with your help, of course) the flood victims in Tennessee.

Next up from me is a full manuscript critique that you can bid on until midnight, central time today: Do the Write Thing for Nashville. (Direct link to the item here.)

This opportunity includes:

• One full manuscript (up to 100,000 words, please) critique of a YA or MG novel
• A 30-minute post-critique phone call for the winner to talk about the notes and answer any publishing or career-related questions

My critiques are in-depth and thorough, as many readers would know from the workshop series I did on the blog a few months ago. Now imagine that for your whole manuscript! Plus, I don’t know you personally and have no other goal beside making your manuscript the strongest it can be, so you’ll get honest, professional, constructive, helpful feedback that’s not sugarcoated. I want you to grow as a writer and really get to that next level.

So head on over to the blog and bid on my full manuscript critique. You have until midnight Central time today to bid. I’m so grateful to all the people who are bidding over there and changing lives with their generous donations!

Check in with the blog tomorrow for the promised BIG NEWS!

Every now and then, members of our community, friends, and colleagues come together to mount a truly heroic effort in the face of disaster. My client, Amanda Morgan, and a group of other writers (including the fabulous Victoria Schwab) have witnessed the flood devastation in central Tennessee firsthand…and they’re doing something about it.

These wonderful ladies — with donations from many people — are putting on an auction over the next few days. You can check it out here:

Blog: Do the Write Thing for Nashville
Facebook: Do the Write Thing for Nashville

How it works:

Exciting book/publishing/writing-related items are posted every day and interested parties have exactly three days to bid in the blog comments to win the item they want. The highest amount bid by someone in comments wins the auction item. The winner pays by PayPal, gets a receipt for their taxes and receives the critique, book, phone call, or whatever, that they bid on. All auction proceeds go to the Community Foundation of Central Tennessee to provide disaster relief.

Here’s where I’m hoping you come in.

I have donated the following items and they will become available over the course of the auction:

• one query critique
• one PB manuscript critique
• one YA or MG manuscript critique (of one manuscript of 100,000 words or less, please. This one is really special, guys. I have never offered a full manuscript critique before because they are so in-depth and time-consuming. You won’t get another opportunity like this unless you become a client!)

My auction items will become available over the next several days. If you love Kidlit, if you’ve ever wanted to be critiqued by me, if you want a really in-depth look at your manuscript, if you’ve got some spare tax refund cash lying around, even if you’ve never heard of me but love to help people in need…please bid generously to support the writing community and the greater community of central Tennessee.

So check out the Do the Write Thing for Nashville Facebook page and blog to see if you can bid on a critique from me or any of the other fantastic items generously donated by my colleagues in publishing. I can’t wait to see all the good we can do together. Now go and bid on something, the first items have just been listed. None of my items have popped up yet, but keep checking back, and bid on some other goodies in the meantime.

To all the writers who blog and Tweet and Facebook and post on Verla Kay and Absolute Write: please get the word out about this auction and about the items I’m offering (not in an annoying, spammy way, though, please). Even if you can’t bid on an item, lend a helping hand by spreading the word!

She’s been to the vet and has quite a collection of medicines that I’m hoping will make her comfortable and heal her right up, but I don’t know if it’s looking good. She still hasn’t eaten on her own and the longer that lasts, the less chance of recovery. In lieu of a blog post today — I doubt I’d have anything intelligent to say, as my thoughts are elsewhere — I want to ask for some good energy and some well-wishes for my beloved Sushi, seen here.

Speaking of overwhelming, my schedule has been INSANE. I’ve loved meeting all of the blog readers (and welcoming any new ones!) I met these last two weeks. However, three consecutive weekends of travel (NYC, Dallas and Reno/Tahoe) have really taken their toll. I’ll be back with a new post on Wednesday.

A fair number of critique relationships these days happen online. Partners exchange manuscripts, give notes, talk on the phone or on email. It often takes several tries with several partners to get a good and mutually constructive relationship going. You want to look for someone who knows what they’re talking about, that can articulate not only what doesn’t work in a piece of writing but why, you want someone you can get along with, and someone whose writing you think is good and that you wouldn’t mind reading over and over.

I can’t guarantee that I can facilitate match-made-in-kidlit-heaven-style critique partners for everyone, but I did want to make sure you guys who are looking for crit partners had a venue to post. I have all of your questions from the last few days in mind and will get back to writing regular posts soon, but for now, let me make this a personals board for the critique-partner-less.

POST IN THE COMMENTS ON THIS ENTRY ONLY IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A CRITIQUE PARTNER. Put your genre (fantasy, paranormal, realistic, etc.) and your audience (picture book, MG, YA, etc.) and what you want to work on (a complete manuscript of XX,000 words, a partial, a query, etc.). Let’s see if we can’t make any matches here. The worst that can happen is you could share your work with someone, get some notes, and decide it’s not a fit.

ETA: If you see anyone here that you think might be a good fit, leave a comment with your email address or a way to get in touch with you. I can’t look through the comments and match people up, you should take the lead if you think anybody’s stuff sounds good to you. Use this as a personals board! Lots of people are looking for critique partners… now reach out to each other and try to connect and run with it!

Boo! Hiss!

The good news is, today I’m heading to Dallas for the DFW Writers’ Workshop! By a stroke of good luck, I seem to have lots and lots of readers who are coming to this conference and I’m excited to meet them. And have them take me out to get some ribs. *wink wink, hint hint*

Yay! Woo!

This is a good time to post any of your burning writing or publishing questions in the comments. I have plenty to write about in the coming weeks but I love to check in from time to time and see what y’all (getting into the Texas spirit, don’t mess with me…) want to know right this minute.