Meredith Mansfield, Author

So, I spent all day yesterday at the Agents Day put on by the Orange County chapter of the Society of Chilren’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). It was a fascinating, informative, exciting, and exhausting day.

Five different agents spoke to a group of ninety writers.

1. Natalie M. Fischer of Bradford Literary Agency talked about how to successfully re-envision and revise. The text of her talk should be available on her blog: www.adventuresinagentland.blogspot.com. She had several interesting and useful suggestions, so I recommend taking a look.
2. Rosemary Stimola of Stimola Literary Studio talked about the importance of finding the right agent and creating a career-long relationship.
3. Edward Necarsulmer of McIntosh and Otis talked about the various kinds of things agents do during a day to help their clients.
4. Anna Webman of Curtis Brown, Ltd. talked about the kinds of things authors can do to help generate their own publicity and help sell their books.
5. Stephanie von Borstel of Full Circle Literary talked about her agency’s approach and brought one of the authors she represents, Rene Colato Lainez to talk about the author’s experience of working with an agent.

A lot of learning about the business crammed into one day and I’m not sure I’ve completely processed all of it, yet.

After the presentations, we broke into five smaller groups. The agents rotated among those groups for about fifteen minutes each so that we could have a chance to talk to them and ask questions.

Most exciting, MAGE STORM attracted the interest of the agent who read the first chapter for a critique. Now I have some revising to do, based on her suggestions, and send it on.

If you get a chance at one of these types of events, I would definitely recommend it.