Kevan represents a lot of Young Adult (YA) authors. She has a great ability to pick talented authors who write amazing stories. Kevan also does a great job of picking authors who are really nice people.
Many of my agency-sisters attended the Romance Writers of America (RWA) conference held in Atlanta 17-20 July. I was there too—and loved meeting authors like Katie McGarry, Colette Ballard, Chanel Cleeton, and Jennifer Armentrout.
I know that there are authors around who act like divas. They are reluctant to share their wisdom. They want to be treated like they're special--without remembering that it is our readers that make them special. But that is not the norm, thankfully.
I met my sister-authors this week, and they were instantly my friends--each one a fun, real, generous part of my writing team.
It didn't matter how long we'd been in the business; we each had something to share. The multi-published authors gave advice to those of us who aren't. I (who'll spend 18 months between selling and releasing my debut book) was able to share my experiences with contracts, promos, editing, and all of the other details that new authors encounter. And the newly-contracted authors were able to remind us how exciting, thrilling, amazing it is to be launching into our dream career.
And, of course, we all love our readers—the ones we have now and the ones we look forward to having in the future.
I almost didn't go. It's a busy time of year for me. But I learned a lot in the conference workshops. And I made friendships that'll last forever.
