For those of you who have been reading my blog every week, this blog will be a big change. For those of you who are reading this for the first time, welcome!

Many of you know by now, I am an Indian-American writer located in Atlanta and I am an MFA thesis candidate in Writing. My thesis, which I will submit on Friday (***stressed***), is part of my first book--my memoir.  

Through the process of putting together my thesis, I have written half of my memoir. I shared this process every week on this blog and had great conversations with many of you that kept me motivated. Now, I am taking a slightly different turn with my blogs. I will blog about the experience of being a brown woman in the United States who writes.

In the #browngirlwrites series, I will still discuss the writing process, however, it will be tailored to my experience as a brown woman. I will discuss the experiences I have had in the writing world from going through an MFA program to talking to agents and editors as a woman of color. I will talk about what it means to write diverse stories, how they are perceived by the people in the industry, and the interesting conversations I have had with other women of color who are writers or are in the publishing industry.

I’m tailoring my blogs to be specific to my experiences. This will make them more authentic and allow me to have deeper, more meaningful conversations about being a woman writer of color. I will also be sharing more of my memoir writing with you all and reviewing books written by authors of color. These blogs are about to get very personal!

I’m excited to share these more intimate blogs with you all and hope that you will join me in sharing your own stories using #browngirlwrites. If you are a woman writer of color, I would love to interview you and share your story on these blogs as well. Being a woman of color who writes opens us up to many unique experiences (good and bad) and I want to hear these experiences from you all so we can create a stronger community and support each other. I know I am not alone in this journey.

Again, thank you all for reading my blog. Please feel free to leave comments below with your thoughts and experiences.

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Next Wednesday’s blog will be more stories of #browngirlwrites
Until then…


Happy Writing! :)


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My last few blogs were about how to put together a manuscript. In this blog, I’m sharing what I learned through my MFA program and my personal experiences about how to find an agent.

Once again, I will break down this part of the publishing process in a list.

1. Look through the acknowledgements page in books in your genre and find the agent that represented that author. The agents you find using this method, will be more likely to accept your manuscript because they have represented and been able to find publishing houses for books that are very similar to yours. They will already know how to market your book. Take all the books you have read in your genre that are good Comp Titles to your manuscript and make a list of the agents acknowledged in those books. Google them to find out their submission requirements and contact information.
2. Look online. There are many websites that list literary agents. They will tell you the name of the agent, their agency, and their genres, etc. Use this information to narrow down a few who fit your needs. Once you’ve short listed a few agents, thoroughly research their query and manuscript submission requirements. I mentioned this in my previous blog, but if you don’t follow their submission instructions, you will most likely get ignored. Here are some websites with literary agent databases:

• Poets & Writers 
• Association of Authors’ Representatives, Inc. 
• Literary Marketplace

3.  Writer's Market. This is a great non-digital resource you can find in libraries or Amazon. The second half of the book lists hundreds of literary agents for you to choose from. 

4.Writers’ Conferences. As the publishing industry continues to evolve in the internet age, the ways of finding an agent have also changed drastically. The last writer’s conference I went to was The Atlanta Writers Conference. All the agents I met there said they found writers to represent at conferences. A couple of agents said they now almost exclusively represent writers they meet in person at a conference. Writers conferences can be an expensive way to meet an agent. Also, they are usually held in big cities so they can be difficult for writers to commute to. The good news is that there are scholarships and grants available for writers to attend these conferences. Although most agents still accept queries through emails, this is a new trend that writers need to prepare for.

5. Social media. Many agents are active on social media now, especially Twitter. Don’t solicit them on Twitter directly or slide into their DMs. That’s rude and creepy. Try starting genuine conversations with them in a way that they can know who you are. You can turn this social media relationship into a real one if you leverage it correctly.

6. Connections. Of course, as with most opportunities in life, the best way to find an agent is by leveraging your connections. If you know published authors, ask them about their agents. If you don’t know any published authors, go to more writing clubs/events/conferences so you can get to know some.

I hope you found this information useful. As always, thank you to all of you who have taken the time to read my blogs and shared your advice and experiences with me. I’m in this writer’s journey with you and I hope to continue learning from you all.

You can also sign up for my newsletter at the bottom of the page for updates on my writing.
Stay tuned for next Wednesday’s blog. Until then…

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Happy Writing! :)


Find me on social media. Links at the bottom of the page 👇🏽

Whether you are writing a novel, memoir, or biography, when submitting your manuscript, you must include a one page synopsis of the book.

I submitted a manuscript with a synopsis in March for the first time. Similar to query letters, I am not the most experienced at this. I had the opportunity to show my synopsis to a professional editor who helped me clean it up. However, I’m still working on building my confidence with this process and continuing to learn more about it.

Here are the basic things I learned during the synopsis writing process:

1. Begin with the log line and elevator pitch/hook for your book.
2. Mention what type of book you have written (Memoir/Novel/Biography/etc.) in the beginning.
3. Talk about your characters. Who are the protagonists and antagonists in your book?
4. Go in depth with the book summary. Include the story arch so agents know that your story is going somewhere. 
5. In the summary discuss the setting(s)- locations, time periods, seasons, etc. so the agent gets a clear idea of the environment the story is set in.
6. Include the conclusion of the story- don’t leave the agent hanging. They want to know the entire story before investing in you.

This is the basic format I stick to in my synopsis. As I said earlier, I’m still working on developing this skill. If you have any advice, suggestions, or personal experience about this part of the publishing process, please share with me in the comments! You can also contact me through the website for a one-on-one conversation.

I used several resources from the internet to help figure out this process. One useful resource I found was “How to Create a Synopsis for Comics.” Even though it’s meant for writing comics, it can be applied to any book. It does a good job of breaking down the process and also has a free downloadable synopsis template at the end!

I hope you found this information useful. As always, thank you to all of you who have taken the time to read my blogs and shared your advice and experiences with me. I’m in this writer’s journey with you and I hope to continue learning from you all.

You can sign up for my newsletter at the bottom of the page for updates on my writing.


Next Wednesday’s blog will be about how to find an agent.

Until then…
​
Happy Writing! :)


Find me on social media. Links at the bottom of the page 👇🏽

Hi everyone!

As I finish up the editing and revision part of my process, I have had the opportunity to write a query letter for my memoir and get it critiqued by my professors, professional agents and editors.

After going through so many critiques, my query letter has reached a decent place and has been submitted to one agent so far. Unfortunately, I am still not the most confident in this arena and am nervously awaiting the response.

I have learned a lot of things about writing strong query letters and I am sharing those with you all in this blog:

1. Research the agent and agency you are querying to. The better you know them, the stronger your query will be.
2. Learn what books that agent or agency has represented that fit the genre or topic of your book. This will help you list comp titles (comparative titles)  in your letter.
3. Address it to a person. Address the letter to the agent you are querying and not the agency.
4. Make it personal (without getting creepy). Use the research you do on your agent and include it in your query letter. This includes things you admire about them professionally (that are relevant to your book) or works they have represented that would make them a good fit for you. If you met them at a conference or event, mention that in the letter. Again, don’t get creepy or talk about things that aren’t relevant.
5. Elevator pitch. Begin your query letter with your elevator pitch which contains a few lines about your book including the hook. Sometimes this elevator pitch is what will get printed on the back of your book cover so spend some time thinking about it.
6. Comp Titles. After you have the agent hooked, list some of the comp titles you researched. This will help you become more confident about the exact genre/subgenre your book falls in if you aren’t already sure. This will help the agent place your book on a bookstore shelf and know that there is a market out there for it and how they can sell it.
7. In the last part of your query letter, include your relevant credentials. List past published books (if you have them), list your relevant degrees (if you have them), list anything else that shows you are qualified to talk about the subject in your book (especially if it is nonfiction). Also, mention your platform (if you already have one) that will be interested in buying your book.
8. Finally, thank the agent for taking the time to read your query letter.
9. Read good and bad query letters online. The best way to research is to see what other writers have done. This is a great source for bad query letters: SlushPileHell. This is a great source for good query letters: WritersDigest.

I hope you found this list useful. As I said, I’m still in the learning phase when it comes to query letters so please share with me any words of advice or suggestions to add to this list.

If you have any advice or personal experiences to share about the information in this blog, please comment below or contact me personally through the contact form on “contact” page.

As always, thank you to all of you who have taken the time to read my blogs and shared your advice and experiences with me. I’m in this writer’s journey like all of you and I hope to continue learning from you all.

You can also sign up for my newsletter on the bottom of the page for updates on my writing.


Next Wednesday’s blog will be about my process of learning how to write a synopsis.
Until then…
​
Happy Writing! :)


Find me on social media. Links at the bottom of the page 👇🏽