✨Read with Jenna Pick Alison Espach on Fueling Curiosity and Plot✨
Plus, Q&As with genre-hopper Hannah Mary McKinnon and debut author Soma Mei Sheng Frazier, The Query Lab and course offerings!
Happy Friday, friends of The Sh*t!
How was everyone’s week? We assume you’re all out there smashing whatever your latest writing goals are, but if you find yourself feeling a bit stuck, we’ve got another great issue today that should definitely help unstick you.
First, it was an exciting week on the podcast as Bianca was joined by Alison Espach, whose upcoming The Wedding People is not only the latest Read with Jenna pick, but destined for the big screen, too! 🎥✨🍿Among other things, Alison and Bianca discuss how much plot you really need to have worked out before you sit down to write, and why Alison isn’t a big on detailed outlines. This week’s Book with Hooks is another one from the archives while our hosts take a summer break, but we do have two brand new written critiques of queries from our listeners in our paid Tuesday newsletters this month and next. (If you haven’t already, now is a great time to upgrade to paid!)
It’s another two-fer Author Q&A week. First up, we’ve also got internationally bestselling suspense author Hannah Mary McKinnon, who shares her querying journey and the simple formula she follows to write a book (or more!) each year. Next, if Off the Books by debut novelist Soma Mei Sheng Frazier is half as funny as some of her answers to our questions, it’s going to a good one when it releases next week.
Plus, Treena Orchard shares her successful query in this week’s Query Lab for her memoir (Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps) which she pitched as “Jane Goodall meets Carrie Bradshaw” (don’t know about you, but we’re intrigued!), and, finally, don’t forget to check out our latest course offerings!
Thanks for reading! ❤️
The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Team
P.S. Still not sure about upgrading? Check out our Tuesday Teaser below to see what you’re missing!
This Week’s Podcast✨🎙️✨
In today's Books with Hooks, we’re throwing it back to an early backlist segment.
After which, Bianca interviews creative writing professor, essayist, and author of Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance, Alison Espach. They discuss:
Falling into the mode of writing the same sorts of novels repeatedly;
The genre that Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance was pitched and marketed as;
Alison's latest release, The Wedding People;
Going from writing a book that spanned a long period of time to one that spanned only a few days;
Writing a voicey third person POV;
Inciting incidents that happen off the page and that fuel curiosity;
Giving characters changing wants and needs and how that leads to plot points; and
Why Alison chose a single POV for The Wedding People.
“As a writer, especially a writer of a novel, you need questions like fuel to keep you interested [in writing], the same way you want to be wondering things when you're reading a good book, the same way you want to be wondering things when you're watching a great movie. So I'm the kind of writer who doesn't overly outline for that reason. I need to keep some of the mystery alive. Otherwise, I will just put it down.”
- Alison
More information about Alison can be found on her website here. She is also on Instagram.
You can purchase The Wedding People on our Bookshop.org affiliate page here. Buying books through this link supports a local indie bookstore, as well as The Shit No One Tells You About Writing 📚❤️
Author Q&A with Hannah Mary McKinnon
I was born in Manchester, UK to British & Swiss parents. A year later they moved my older sister and me to Switzerland. Rather unsurprisingly I love mountains, chocolate and cheese…or mountains of chocolate and cheese, and my sister, of course. My writing career began after we moved to Oakville in Ontario, Canada in 2010. Maybe it was the failed attempt at a start-up company, or an early mid-life crisis, but one morning I decided to follow my oldest passion, started writing, and never wanted to look back. My first book was a romantic-comedy, but then I switched to the dark side of suspense (say it with me: muahahaha).
In 2023, I returned to the softer side with the holiday romantic-comedy The Christmas Wager, written as Holly Cassidy. If rom-coms aren’t your jam, fear not. More thrillers are coming your way.
TSNOTYAW: Do you have a go-to mantra or pep talk for the days when writing feels hard?
Hannah Mary McKinnon: Bum in seat = words on page = something to edit = finished draft = will become a book!
Were you ever close to giving up on writing and, if so, what stopped you?
No - my previous business venture failed and that failure lit a fire in my belly that still burns bright today!
What would you say you’ve done right to build a strong and supportive writing network?
Hopefully others would answer it's because I'm kind, supportive, and a big believer in paying it forward. My first exposure to the writing community was at Bouchercon Toronto in 2017, and I fell in love with how wonderfully generous and supportive everybody was. It showed me exactly how I wanted to be with others.
What one piece of advice (craft- or publishing industry-related) has always resonated with you?
A book doesn't need to be written in the order that it's read. Meaning: if you get stuck as you're writing, skip ahead. Or, if you're e.g. writing a non-linear timeline, write it in linear fashion and then interweave the chapters. The beautiful thing? Nobody will ever know...
How do you ensure you have enough time to write amidst so many obligations competing for your time?
Honestly, it's a constant challenge. I'm a self-confessed workaholic and I love what I do which leads to working far too many hours at times. But it also means I get to share a book or two a year...
What do you wish you had known about writing before you published your debut?
How the self-doubt never goes away. Having said that, I'm now 11 books in and I know how to shut that overly self-critical voice down, fast. I let it come out when I'm editing but never, ever when I'm writing the very first skeleton draft because all it does is slow me down.
How did you get your literary agent? What was the querying process like for you?
I rushed to query, and got rejected a lot. I spent 18 months reworking the manuscript, taking creative writing courses and going to workshops. It was at one of these workshops that I met the boss of my first agent. So, I was in the querying trenches for a while, but it was networking that got me my first agent in the end.
You can purchase Only One Survives on our Bookshop.org affiliate page here. Buying books through this link supports a local indie bookstore, as well as The Shit No One Tells You About Writing 📚❤️
The Query Lab 📝🖊
Welcome to The Query Lab where each Friday for the next few weeks we’ll be
sharing a successful query letter that got an author their agent AND their book deal.
Today we’ve got a query from Treena Orchard author of Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps 😍:
Dear Carly,
I was referred to you by Hilary Swanson, formerly Senior Editor at HarperOne and now freelance editor. I am seeking representation for my non-fiction work Sticky, Sexy, Sad: An Anthropologist’s Account of Lust, Longing, and the Darker Side of Dating Apps. The 68,000-word manuscript falls under the Memoir/Dating; Lifestyle/Relationships; and Feminism & Female Sexuality categories. Think Jane Goodall meets Carrie Bradshaw, who is hotter than ever with the Sex & The City reboot.
This book is a frank, feminist record of how digital dating culture is transforming sexuality, relationships, and how we feel about ourselves as we move through the trials of modern courtship. It documents how dating apps are directed primarily by male desires and capitalist aims, with algorithms that reproduce patriarchal inequities and hook users through false promises of easy intimacy. With detailed ethnographic observation, keen analysis, and comedic honesty Sticky, Sexy, Sad reveals that dating apps are powerful sites of social and sexual change that deserve a closer look. Giving readers a front row seat to the cringe-worthy and vulnerable moments while providing a riveting examination of sexuality, this ground-breaking account is a manifesto about staying true to yourself amid the digitization of life and love in the 21st century.
I am an anthropologist, author, and activist who studies sexuality, gender, and the politics of health among marginalized populations. As an internationally recognized researcher and award-winning professor at Western University in London, Ontario, I have conducted fieldwork in India, sex work strolls in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and traveled to remote Indigenous communities, where I work with women, men, and gender-variant people to understand life through their eyes. I’ve authored two academic books, 40 peer-reviewed journal articles, and my research is featured in 17 anthologies about sex work, health, and anthropology. My online articles about dating apps and popular culture have generated hundreds of thousands of views. Besides writing, I love interior design, gardening, and yoga.
Our partnership would be exciting given your interest in unique memoirs, the great feminist projects you’ve represented, and the fact that you are a seasoned agent who could maximize Canadian, US, and International interest in my book. Your glowing client recommendations, impressive sales history, and the wicked The Shit No One Tells You About Writing podcast are additional reasons why I would be grateful to work with and learn from you. Sample material from the Introduction Chapter is included below, and I have a full proposal ready for review. I hope that you like what you read and look forward to hearing from you.
Take care,
Treena Orchard, Ph.D.,
You can learn more about Treena on her website here. ❤️
Sticky, Sexy, Sad: Swipe Culture and the Darker Side of Dating Apps is out now. 🥰
Click below for the downloadable version of Treena’s successful query!
Author Q&A with Soma Mei Sheng Frazier
Soma Mei Sheng Frazier’s debut novel, Off the Books, is forthcoming from Henry Holt & Co. in July 2024.
Soma is Founding Editor of Subnivean, the undergraduate-staffed literary publication of the State University of New York at Oswego. Her work has won nods from authors and entities ranging from HBO to Zoetrope: All-Story, Glimmer Train, HYPHEN, The Sewanee Review and The Mississippi Review; from Nikki Giovanni to Daniel “Lemony Snicket” Handler, Gish Jen to Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, and Michelle Tea to Billy Collins.
She has published three award-winning prose chapbooks: Salve, Don’t Give Up on Alan Greenspan and Collateral Damage: A Triptych. You can also find her stories, poems and essays in ZYZZYVA, Hyphen, Story, Glimmer Train (RIP), The Mississippi Review, Eclectica Magazine, Carve Magazine, Kore Press and elsewhere — or read her interviews with CBS, SF Weekly, Women’s Quarterly Conversation and more. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and earned numerous accolades including being named Notable by the storySouth Million Writers Award.
TSNOTYAW: Do you have a go-to mantra or pep talk for the days when writing feels hard?
Soma Mei Sheng Frazier: Nope: when writing feels hard, I don't write, because those pages are rarely salvageable. Instead, I've leveraged "habit stacking" to create conditions in which writing feels easier. For instance, habitually indulging in a particular treat, in a particular place, when you write is both a cue and a reward. Nowadays, sitting down in my armchair with a lemon cayenne drink immediately triggers my brain to transition into writing mode. For you, it might be a Slurpee and an office, rooftop or library corner.
What would you say you’ve done right to build a strong and supportive writing network?
Be honest and kind.
What one piece of advice (craft- or publishing industry-related) has always resonated with you?
When I was at Sarah Lawrence College, Joan Silber (a stellar writer and teacher) took one look at a story I'd decked out in meticulous metaphors and said, "This is so complex it's nearly inaccessible." She said it in a much gentler way, but I got defensive anyhow and mumbled something about not wanting to spoon-feed the reader, to which she said, "If you don't care what others think about your work, or whether they'll understand it, you're wasting your money here. You may as well quit the program, go home to write whatever you like." That taught me the difference between literature as dialogue and literature as monologue.
What is something you’ve learned about yourself later in your writing career that would have surprised your younger self?
Nothing is wasted. That essay that never quite worked out? It became the short story that won me my first major award (and literary agents' attention). And all those deleted or recycled pages I wrote before my lemon-cayenne-drink-and-armchair days? They'll never be in a book of mine. But they taught me something about how to write, or how not to.
How do you ensure you have enough time to write amidst so many obligations competing for your time?
Sleep is for the weak.
Do you have any regrets about your journey so far? Do you wish you had done anything differently?
I wish I hadn't written "Sleep is for the weak." Does that make me an asshole? Will people think I'm serious? I mean, I do stay up late in order to write—so late I've become acquainted with the hoot owl beyond my window who only calls out in the wee hours—but I don't think that's the ideal solution. Get your sleep! Wait, does giving a lighthearted answer to >this< question make me an asshole? Am I wasting people's time? Is my writing worth anything at all? Maybe if I slept more, I wouldn't be so crazy.
You can pre-order Off The Books on our Bookshop.org affiliate page here. Buying books through this link supports a local indie bookstore, as well as The Shit No One Tells You About Writing 📚❤️
Tuesday Teaser 😉
Although our listeners and readers are all at varying stages in their writing journeys, we know that at some point, for most of you, querying is going to be a big part of it—as well as one of the most potentially intimidating, frustrating and discouraging. If that sounds like you (or future you) and you’re not already a paid subscriber, you might want to consider fixing that before next Tuesday’s newsletter! Last week our very own Carly Watters shared an advice- and insight-packed essay on what to look for in an agent, and this week she flips the script, giving you the inside scoop on what agents look for in *you*.
We’ve also got Jessica Waite with an author’s advice on querying. She shares the “bold approach” (it really was) that landed her an agent overnight (literally!) and (some time later) landed her memoir The Widow’s Guide To Dead Bastards on the Toronto Star bestseller list. It was also called a notable book by The Washington Post, so Jessica clearly did something right!
Plus, we’ve got two brand-new written critiques of queries from our listeners—this time featuring a romantic thriller and a contemporary novel—while recording of new 📕Books with Hooks🪝 is on pause.
Here’s everything else you have to look forward to if you subscribe for just $8USD a month or $80USD a year:
an exclusive newsletter on Tuesdays featuring bonus author Q&As and other exclusive content from industry experts
weekly access to Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra’s written notes on queries from the podcast’s Books With Hooks feature
monthly bonus podcast episodes, AND
regular Ask Me Anythings / Q&As with Carly, CeCe, and Bianca Marais.
If that doesn’t kickstart your writing journey, we don’t know what will!
Be part of Carly’s Masterclass 😍📝
Carly’s class includes 10+ hours of writing and publishing video lessons you have lifetime access to, monthly Q&A sessions, and fresh content every quarter.
Did we mention there’s an app, too? You can keep learning on the go. Don’t miss a minute of Carly’s top career advice for aspiring, emerging and published writers. Get the writing career you’ve always dreamed of.
Bianca’s Great Beta Reader Match Up!
Are you looking for beta readers, some of whom might potentially become writing group members down the line?
Are you wanting to be matched up with those writing in a similar genre and/or time zone, so they can critique your work as you critique theirs at the same time?
Your manuscript doesn't have to be complete to sign up for this 3000-word review!
Registrations are open from now until July 31, with the match emails going out on August 1.
For more information and to register, click below!
It’s Time to Get Emotional with CeCe
What do all great stories have in common? They make us feel. Which is why the ability to weave emotion into a story is so important. Indeed, no matter the genre, being able to effectively convey a range of emotion will draw your readers in from the very start and compel them to read on.
The 3+ hour class covers various aspects of weaving emotions into your story, including:
Active vs. passive emotions;
How to effectively convey emotion (showing vs. telling);
Most common mistakes in writing emotion (and how to get it right);
Common challenges in writing emotions (and how to turn them into successes);
How to include emotion in your outline and synopsis;
Tips and tricks to effectively convey emotion;
The role of emotion in the query letter; and
The importance of emotional context the first 10 pages (or: How soon should I introduce emotion?).
PLUS we'll have a live, cozy Q&A session on Monday, August 12th at 8pm ET in which attendees will be able to turn on their camera (optional) and ask questions to CeCe.
If you cannot attend the live Q&A session, you are welcome to submit your questions during webinar on August 8th.
Writers of all categories and genres are invited to attend.
If you cannot attend live but wish to watch the webinar, please sign up as the recording will be emailed to you 24hr later. Recordings will be available to the viewer for one month.
That’s all for this week’s news! If you enjoyed it, why not share the love? 🥰
Tune in again next week for more invaluable wisdom from our wonderful hosts! Until then, happy writing! 😍
❤️ The Shit No One Tells You About Writing Team
Our work takes place on land now known as Toronto and Ottawa and we acknowledge that these are the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat Peoples as well as the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation. Toronto is covered under Treaty 13 and the Williams Treaties. We respect and affirm the inherent and Treaty Rights of all Indigenous Peoples across this land and acknowledge the historical oppression of lands, cultures, languages, and the original Peoples in what we now know as Canada. We invite you to learn more about the land you inhabit, the history of that land, and how to actively be part of a better future going forward together at Native Land or Whose Land.
Carly Watters and CeCe Lyra are literary agents at P.S. Literary Agency, but their work in this newsletter is not affiliated with the agency, and the views expressed by Carly and CeCe in this newsletter are solely that of themselves and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of P.S. Literary Agency.