Guest editor Sunny Frazier: Why you got that rejection letter

Sunny Frazier
Acquisitions Editor
Oak Tree Press

You've worked hard on your query. You followed all the “rules” you read in writing magazines. You've sweated blood to create a great opening, to get the synopsis down to a page. I'm the acquisitions editor who received this carefully constructed letter.

To be honest, before I read your synopsis, I googled your name. Where is your website? I didn't see a blog. You're on Facebook—I'm not impressed. There was no activity indicating that you read and comment with the writing community. I'm not just evaluating your manuscript, I'm evaluating you. Are your ideas for success realistic? Are you dreaming of a NY Times bestseller listing? Do you hear Hollywood knocking on your door? 

I feel marketing and platform building starts the minute a writer decides to write a book. Yes, that early. Anyone aspiring to a career in publishing in the 21st century cannot be blind to all the posts and forums talking about branding. So, where is your voice?  

When I write and ask you about this void in your social marketing, you ask, “What am I suppose to market? You haven't published my book yet!” You market what you've got—your name. Name recognition is the first step toward building a platform. You make contacts, commenting on the blogs of others so people can see YOUR NAME. You add a bit about yourself so people can get to know the person behind the name. You blog at websites that give you your own page, like Book Town and Book Blogs. You “friend” others on the site, people who are readers, writers like you, industry people like me. You network and build connections.

I can understand when you tell me you don't know anything about marketing—that can be corrected. It's a learning process. But I tune you out when you tell me it's somebody else's job to market your book. You are the author, the artist, not a person who soils their hands with promotion.

Prima donnas need not apply. In this day of tough competition and stretched budgets, nobody gets to sit on the sidelines and wait for royalty checks. We all get out there and hustle. I would rather contract a good book with a strong marketer than a great book from an author who won't lift a finger to promote.

Don't undercut yourself by adding in your query, “I have macular degeneration, can't drive anymore, get around with a walker, have a phobia about flying and I'm computer illiterate. My dream is to have a book published before I die.” Why anyone would give full disclosure so early in the game is beyond me. What can I do except send a rejection?

And finally, please don't try to sway me with a list of university accomplishments, lofty credits and literary aspirations. You read the guidelines on our website, right? We're looking for genre fiction. You know, the stuff average people want to read: a good mystery with a dead body on the second page; a romance where the boy always gets the girl; a Western where the good guys wear white hats and ultimately win the gunfight. Not highbrow, but immensely entertaining. Something we can sell.

So, all I can do is write, “Thank you for your query letter, but I'm sorry we cannot publish your book at this time.”

Sunny is giving away a copy of Fools Rush In to one lucky reader chosen at random from the comments. Good luck!

—Sunny Frazier is a Navy veteran and former newspaper reporter who has worked with an undercover narcotics team in Fresno County. After 17 years in law enforcement, she turned her energies to writing the Christy Bristol Astrology Mysteries. Based in the San Joaquin Valley of California, the novels are inspired by real cases and 40 years of casting horoscopes. Frazier is also acquisitions editor for Oak Tree Press. 

Guest editor Monica Harris: The e-reader question

As Senior Editor at Kensington Publishing, Monica Harris initiated and edited Arabesque, the first African American romance series by a major publisher. There she also edited historical romances, mysteries, women’s mainstream novels and non-fiction. Harris has won a number of important honors, including Waldenbooks Special Achievement Award, New York Chapter of NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2003 Emma Trailblazers’ Award, and is listed in the Who’s Who of African Americans and the Cambridge Who's Who. Her company MHM Editorial Services provides re-writing, line-editing, manuscript critiquing and revision help for authors and publishers. 


My eldest child had to read a geography lesson for homework. He went straight to the computer. When I asked why, he answered: “To study.”

It’s hard for me to say “stop reading” in any format. One of my earliest photos was of me with a book in my hands. I taught myself to read before I entered school and have saved my favorite childhood books for my own kids to read. I love the feel of a book’s pages between my fingers, I love the weight of a book while I’m toting it around ready to read at any quiet moment, and I love what a shelf full of books symbolizes. No doubt, I love the physical book.

I also have the Kindle app on my iPhone.

I understand that Baby Boomers have embraced the e-readers and Generation X (my generation) enjoys all that the tablets and smart phones can provide. Today’s schoolchildren are learning their subjects on individual laptops. This week, Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet came out with much fanfare to compete with the Apple iPad. Having a book available electronically has several advantages: instant accessibility, convenience, and privacy are among the top. Also, the e-reader benefits for schoolchildren and others with little access to libraries, assistance for those with learning disabilities and the ability to easily retrieve global information are beyond debate.  Plus, not using paper is good for the environment. E-readers are one of the products of a Star Trek imagination that has truly been realized.

However, an e-reader does change the way we read and in my opinion, how we process information and in essence, enjoy a good story. Writers want to share their stories, their ideas. They want their own imaginations to spark others’. I wonder if passive e-readers can go beyond the words on the screen and develop their deeper thoughts about the book.

Trust me, I love a good story and I know that people who want to write will do so, no matter the method. We’ve come a long way from papyrus. And there will always be readers, no matter the medium. Even William Wordsworth’s sister complained that he wasted his mind on newfangled newspapers. My editorial services company works with authors to make their manuscripts into an e-books. I embrace technology professionally and personally, even if I’m a half-step behind.

Nevertheless, I am a firm believer in how physical activity adds to the retention process. I believe that by writing information on a piece of paper or turning a page,  your brain and body register the work therefore making that info more easily recalled. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence. Fortunately, experts support a connection between the physical and the brain. Dr. Amir Soas of Case Western Reserve University Medical School in Cleveland advises to do “anything that stimulates the brain to think.” He also recommends watching less television because “your brain goes into neutral.” Is there a difference in the way the brain absorbs information when it’s presented electronically?

In October 2009, the New York Times posited similar questions to a panel of teachers and doctors. The experts thought there was nothing terrible about the medium, yet  they were unsure how e-readers worked on developing brains or if going from link to link added to a lack of attention to detail. E-Reading is not just decoding for information and entertainment. E-Readers must also fight distraction. Gloria Mark, a professor in the Department of Informatics at University of California, Irvine notes that people “switch simple activities an average of every three minutes (e.g. reading email or IM) and switch projects about every 10 and a half minutes.” Not a lot of room for deep thoughts.

To read, attention is needed. Can a reader of e-books acknowledge ideas beyond the text? Will the reader ever get to what Proust once said – the heart of reading – the ability to go beyond the author’s wisdom and enter one’s own? What does that mean for writers? Do their readers love their books for the same reasons whether presented electronically or physically?

People need time to process and absorb the written word. How often have I reread beautiful passages marked by dog-eared pages? How often have I looked at a cover to be sure I envision what the author described? How often have I reread difficult pages in order be sure I really understood what was being said? How often have I used the properties of the physical book to kick-start my thoughts?

I make my children read physical books because at school they are often using e-books. I insist we go to the library for the “stumble upon” effect – to find a book or spark an interest one wasn’t expecting. I know by the time they are in college, the kids will be downloading their schoolbooks onto their tablets but they will know how to grasp meaning and do research at a library in case of a power outage.

Maybe I’m just a book lover who knows e-readers will be with us until technology evolves. Fortunately, humans have ability to multitask and ignore the unnecessary; we get what we need from our books in whatever manner we read them. However, until we figure out how to ignore the easy distractions and learn to ponder the words on screen, maybe we should practice what we do with the physical book: take a pause every few pages to review and marvel over the words.

Monica Harris
MHM Editorial Services, LLC

Guest editor Eric T. Reynolds: What Are the Bounds of Speculative Fiction?

Eric T. Reynolds is Editor/Publisher ofHadley Rille Books, a publisher of fantasy, science fiction, and archaeology fiction. Hadley Rille just celebrated five years in publishing. Eric has edited over 30 books over the past five years, many of which have received critical acclaim. He is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, has had fiction published by small press and nonfiction published by science-related publications. Visit him on Facebook “Eric T Reynolds” and his blog,ericreynolds.livejournal.com. 


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Several authors I've worked with and I recently had a long conversation that could have been titled: "What is speculative fiction?" We were focusing on what might be called the fringe of speculative fiction, that gray area where fiction strays close to the borders of mainstream.

What about stories that don't have any of the tropes of speculative fiction?  Science fiction author James Gunn's definition of science fiction includes stories that deal with the human condition, and how humans interact with nature.  Such stories might include castles and spaceships, but many stories may not be recognizable at all as speculative fiction.

At Hadley Rille Books, where I serve as editor/publisher, we publish a series archaeology-correct novels about common people who lived during ancient times.  These are being written by archaeologists and anthropologists.  So while we love the non-mundane, we have found a place for the mundane as well, which we think fits within the speculative fiction genre.  The exploration of the ancient world is full of drama, discovery, and excitement, and involves the exploration of other worlds, worlds vastly different from what most of us experience today.

Take for example K.L. Townsend's Song of the Swallow (which we will release in December of 2011), a book set during the collapse of the Southern Song Dynasty in China during the 1200s CE.  The story follows the struggles of a young woman who is taken from her home to serve as a concubine in the Emperor's palace.  She has a horrible life there, but during that time she manages to befriend another woman, form a sisterhood, and grow as a person.  She is subjected to a way of life that should never be experienced by anyone, but as a human being manages to explore ways to overcome and perhaps escape her predicament.  Townsend explores many aspects of the human condition and her knowledge as an anthropologist allows her to speculate about human life during that time.

Another example is anthropologist Shauna Roberts’s Like Mayflies in a Stream, which although it’s based on the fantastic account, The Epic of Gilgamesh, it speculates (also based on current archaeological and historical knowledge) how people lived in ancient Mesopotamia.  She took care to show us what their daily lives were like, how they performed ceremonies, how their society treated women, and what kinds of conflicts they had.  She shows us the most accurate portrayal of daily life in Mesopotamia as it may have been over 4000 years ago.

In classicist Jenny Blackford’s The Priestess and the Slave, we follow the lives and deaths of common people who endured the Plague of Athens nearly 2500 years ago in ancient Greece.  We learned how they cooked, how they mourned their losses, what their dwellings were like, what they believed in and how those beliefs drove their actions for coping during bad times.  Again, Blackford worked from her extensive knowledge and study of that culture and from her efforts, we get to follow a very real and riveting drama of the people who lived through those times.

Taken individually or taken as a whole, novels such as these accomplish many goals of speculative fiction.  The very word “speculative” is the basis of stories like these, speculation based on knowledge and discovery about different snapshots of the human past.  What we find is that people are alike all over whether geographic or temporal.

To a casual browser in a bookstore, these books won’t strike him or her as speculative fiction.  But when a story explores the bounds of human endurance and enters the realm of the distant past (which is a different world), it may be seen as mainstream.  But we really know it’s a speculative fiction story.  And it seems that speculative fiction has a much bigger audience than many of us realize.

Guest editor Monica Harris: To self publish or not to self publish...

Monica Harris of MHM Editorial Services focuses on improving the talents of writers and providing publishing opportunities for authors. Harris is proud of the many authors she has assisted in becoming bestsellers and her participation in creating profound changes in the publishing industry and the media.

As Senior Editor at Kensington Publishing, she initiated and edited Arabesque, the first African American romance series by a major publisher. There she also edited historical romances, mysteries, women’s mainstream novels and non-fiction. Harris has won a number of important honors, including Waldenbooks Special Achievement Award, New York Chapter of NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2003 Emma Trailblazers’ Award.

To self publish or not to self publish...

That is the question. As every writer now knows, the publishing industry is in flux. What is the “it” genre now? Have vampire love stories seen the end of their run? Are comic memoirs still bestseller material? Is there any space for contemporary Christian stories? What self-help is popular now? What are publishers really looking for? What if I just want to tell a story?

Why do writers write? Because they feel they have something important to say to their readers. Authors have worked long and hard on their books so, of course, they want good reviews and big sales. However, when it seems harder and harder to break into a big publishing house, what‘s a writer to do? Some are now looking toward self-publishing.

Time has proven that major publishing houses are wonderful places to launch, grow and maintain writing a career. This still holds true -- if you find a loyal and large following quickly. Publishing houses can do well what individuals find difficult to do on their own: edit the book, design the book, market and publicize and sell the book. Publishers have reach and influence and can make a new author a bestseller in months.

Self-publishing requires diligence, patience and energy. The self-published author must believe in her book and in her own potential. Fortunately, there are new technologies and services that allow writers to publish with much more ease. Outlets such as Amazon CreateSpace and Lulu.com offer packages that will take the writer from page to print. Publishing professionals (who have either been shuffled out or left to build their own companies) offer services that include editorial, marketing and do-it-yourself public relations. Options such as Print-on-Demand or E-books have eliminated the trouble of having 10,000 books for sale stored in your basement. Social media is an easy and cheap way of promotion. Spend a little money and the hard parts can be given to others who will make sure the book is the best it can be.

I have worked in many aspects of New York City publishing over the years. As an editor, I have often counseled my authors to take advantage of the professionalism that the House can provide; they could concentrate on their writing. Fortunately, I have also spent the last few years helping writers learn more about self-publishing. I have been amazed at how much easier it has become and am happy to refer writers to those who can assist in marketing and PR. The writers who decide to publish on their own end up very savvy about the business and themselves. That’s a priceless education.

I love this industry because I love the stories and experiences people share. Now there are so many ways to do so; there is nothing to stop a dedicated author. I’m excited about the technological possibilities that are on the horizon and the opportunities to create one’s own future. I believe we’re on the cusp of a new age of publishing. I look forward to seeing your next bestseller -- whichever way it comes.

Guest editor Eric T. Reynolds: A Book's Journey

Eric T. Reynolds is Editor/Publisher of Hadley Rille Books, a publisher of fantasy, science fiction, and archaeology fiction. Hadley Rille just celebrated five years in publishing. Eric has edited over 30 books over the past five years, many of which have received critical acclaim. He is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, has had fiction published by small press and nonfiction published by science-related publications. Visit him on Facebook “Eric T Reynolds” and his blog, ericreynolds.livejournal.com.

An author creates something from nothing, a whole world of people, situations, places, and conflicts that up till now did not exist. Her words ultimately enter the minds of readers who then get to experience her genius. Even after he is gone, thoughts from the author’s mind can continue to speak to people for countless generations through his book. Here I present that book’s journey from when we receive it to publication from the point of view of an editor.

After the author has completed the book, revised it, had it critiqued by other writers, revised it again (and tossed it into the trash and resurrected it), and so on, the author must then find a publisher, which is not an easy task. Larger publishers generally only allow agented submissions while small press will often allow authors to submit manuscripts directly. Guidelines can vary and are generally posted on publishers’ websites. (Best not to ignore those guidelines. Why give an editor another reason to say no?) If the author is fortunate to have the manuscript accepted--usually publishers can only accept a small fraction of what they receive--the author and publisher start a new relationship and the first steps toward releasing the book.

When an author hears her book has been accepted (after waiting forever) she generally celebrates. Little known fact: the editor also celebrates, which sometimes involves much jumping around and screaming (but only in private), particularly if the book is from a new author, one the editor has now “discovered.” (Editors have egos, so go ahead and let them believe that.) The time toward publication varies, but for our press it can take up to a year, depending on the schedule of books already in the works. During this process, we offer an advance to the author and work up a contract.

Even a well-written book must be edited. The author may think his book is perfect--but it isn’t. Almost. Maybe. At our press, one or two editors and I will go through it and make comments and changes, each of which we run by the author. This usually involves passing the document back and forth with a “track changes” option enabled. Changes for which we disagree, we argue about, then the editor wins (but actually, we work with the author closely on any disputes and can be swayed to the author’s favor). When the manuscript reaches its almost final form, we send that to at least one proofreader who will search for typos and any inconsistencies that have slipped by our expert eyes. We run those by the author and when all corrections have been made, we produce a PDF “proof” layout for the author to read through once again. Sometimes we wait until this stage to send it to a proofreader. Any corrections--usually minor at this point--are made and we produce a file to send to the printer for advance reading copies (ARCs) to be made.

Meanwhile, we have been working on the cover. Sometimes we find already existing art that fits the story well; other times we commission an artist to produce the cover art. In either case, we involve the author in every aspect of this process, as much or as little as the author feels comfortable. Our goal is to produce an eye-catching cover, one that represents the book well (rather than have a catchy cover that has nothing to do with the book, or a rendering of a person who looks nothing like the character in the book). We hope the casual browser will want to pick up the book, read the cover blurbs, open the book, and buy it. The artwork is the foundation for whole cover design layout (the layout design is done by someone other than the artist). We try to have the cover ready in time for when we produce ARCs. The ARC is then very similar to the finished book.

When the ARCs are ready, we send them out to reviewers, including the large review magazines such as Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, and to various genre publications such as Locus, SF Review and many others, including prominent bloggers and anyone else we can convince that we are just about to release the best novel of the year. Additionally, we send books to authors and others who have agreed to blurb the book. ARCs are usually produced at least three to four months before publication to keep within the submission requirements of the review magazines.

When the ARCs are in circulation, we have one last chance to make corrections to the text and cover, which we can do up to about a month before release. Then the book goes to the printer in its final form. During those last three months we also we concentrate on marketing. Publishers, large and small, generally expect authors to help market. This includes getting around their communities and getting word out. Authors are often familiar with local bookstores and other venues that work for launching a book. We have done bookstore signings, house parties, and held launches in local historic places that will accommodate a good number of attendees. Often, the author will get an interview at a local publication and get the book launch included in local events schedules.

But we don’t expect the author to do the majority of the marketing. Our publicist produces press releases for local papers. We market the book directly to bookstores, particularly those where we’ve already done business. We contact libraries (especially those who already have titles by us) and let them know about the reviews. We place ads in the large magazines to support the books being reviewed there. Each book brings a new challenge and we always look for new ways to get attention. We attend conventions such as the World Science Fiction Convention and the World Fantasy Convention, and other conventions where we can meet all kinds of fascinating people. Sometimes we launch new books at those. We partner with convention-attending booksellers to make our titles available and sometimes we acquire a dealer room table and masquerade as hucksters ourselves. We make sure awards committees are aware of our titles--and we’ve had several books requested, including one that made the final list. Stories from our anthologies have been included in “best of” anthologies and have been nominated for awards such as the Hugo. All of these help lend much-deserved credibility to the new book.

Just before release, the book is placed with distributors from which booksellers and libraries will be able to order. The physical book is ready for the author to hold in her or his own hands. And then on the day of release, we try to make a lot of noise and we encourage the author to do so as well.

We not only produce hardcovers and paperbacks, but we offer titles on Kindle and soon they will be available in other formats. We’re entering a whole new world of publishing and we want the be at the forefront of new markets for author.

Publicity is essential for a successful release. Some of the areas where we’ve been successful have come from positive reviews (it’s during this time, just before or just after release, that libraries and book sellers are seeing reviews of the book), blogging by friends and acquaintances and their friends and acquaintances, and podcasted interviews. As the book makes its way to readers, word of mouth becomes an important way of getting books out to even more readers. (I remember a certain book that had a first small print run, only to gain from word of mouth. . .) After the book is released we continue to market it, and can set up book tours to help increase visibility of the book and its author.

Our titles remain in print for as long as the authors have granted us rights (and if we want to keep publishing them, we’ll beg for extensions). Best of all, with each new author, we have formed a new relationship that we hope lasts forever.

Guest editor Marco Palmieri: Deal With the Devil

Marco Palmieri is the editor behind Otherworld Editorial, a recently launched private consultation service for both aspiring and experienced authors. He is a former Senior Editor at Simon & Schuster, Inc., where from 1996-2008 he acquired and developed over 200 titles of fiction and nonfiction.







Make friends with your editor.

It sounds elementary, doesn’t it? That’s why I’m perplexed whenever I hear about authors who regard their editors as adversaries rather than allies. And while I’m pleased to be able to say I can count on one hand the number of times I met this attitude in my own fourteen-year career as a professional editor, the few occasions on which it did happen stand out vividly in my memory, for the simple reason that they were all so unnecessary.

From where I sit, the fact that some writers believe editors are evil incarnate has always struck me as odd. I might understand it if a particular editor had already proven himself to be damaging to an author’s work. Honestly, I have nothing but sympathy for writers who were once burned and have promised themselves never to let it happen a second time. But to then conclude all editors are clueless agents of darkness, lacking souls or sensibility, whose suggestions must be fought at every turn – well, that’s just plain silly.

Some experienced authors, especially if they’ve enjoyed great success, come to believe they’ve outgrown the need for an editor, or that they’ve earned the right to be published without one – as if being edited was something they had to “put up with” early in their career, but which is now no longer required of them because those dues have been paid. This belief, in my opinion, has never failed to backfire on a writer, resulting in books of noticeably diminished quality from their earlier, edited work.

There are also cases when a writer is so committed to maintaining the “purity” of his or her art they view any editorial suggestion beyond correcting a misspelled word or an inverted apostrophe as corruption. I can appreciate the desire to be able to offer a book to the world and declare, with pride, “For better or worse, these words are mine, no one else’s.” But no artist creates in vacuum. We’re influenced in innumerable ways by innumerable sources, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we realize it or not. To draw the line at an editor is, frankly, absurd.

It’s true not all editors are created equal. There are some pretty lousy ones out there, to be sure, and there are lousy writers, too. But just as no author sets out to write a bad book, so too no editor wants to do harm to one. The goal of each party should be to get the other’s A-game, and therein is the delicate balancing act of the editor-author relationship, and the attitude of each party toward the other can have a big influence on how a book turns out.

The most important thing to remember is that editors and authors have responsibilities to each other. It’s the editor’s obligation to offer the author another perspective on her work, and to suggest ways a manuscript may be improved. But he also has a responsibility to listen to the author, and to allow her to come up with her own solutions to any problems he has identified.

An author has the right to refuse any editorial recommendations she doesn’t agree with, but also a responsibility to carefully consider those recommendations first, with the understanding that these suggestions come not from a callous disregard for a manuscript’s identity or integrity, but from an earnest wish to see it succeed on as many levels as possible.

In my own experience, these considerations more often than not come naturally to authors and editors, and the majority of such working relationships are fun, energetic creative partnerships, built on honest communication, mutual respect, and a shared excitement for work being undertaken. But even then, no author or editor should expect to agree on everything – it would be a poor and stagnant collaboration if they did. That’s exactly what makes the editor-author dynamic work, when it’s at its best: the willingness to disagree without becoming contentious or adversarial. Such partnerships invariably lead to better books…and sometimes even enduring friendships.

—Marco Palmieri

Guest editor: Writer’s Block: What to do when you get stuck

Monica Harris is something of a legend. As Senior Editor at Kensington Publishing, she initiated and edited Arabesque, the first African American romance series by a major publisher. There she also edited historical romances, mysteries, women’s mainstream novels and non-fiction. Harris has won a number of important honors, including Waldenbooks Special Achievement Award, New York Chapter of NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2003 Emma Trailblazers’ Award, and is listed in the Who’s Who of African Americans and the Cambridge Who's Who. She now consults with several publishers featuring romance, self-help, commercial women's fiction and Christian fiction.

It happens to every writer, the experienced and the newcomer, those at the beginning of their story or at the end . . . the ideas that were once bursting in your head have faded. It’s only after you’ve stared at your blank page for several unproductive minutes when you realize you have nothing to give. Instead, you have writer’s block.

What to do?

The first thing is to separate yourself physically from the writing and relax. Stand and take a deep breath for five seconds. Then take another breath. Stretch, walk away and take a drink of water. Attempt to clear your head from your writing; the intention is to allow new thoughts to come naturally. You can listen to music, take a walk outside, call a friend, or get a mani-pedi. Give yourself a break but only a break - not a four-day relief. You do want to get back to your writing only with a fresher outlook.

You go back to the computer and still feel uninspired?

Let your imagination roam. Talk out your troubles aloud. When writing fiction, put your voice to your characters and see what they would say to each other. Record the words and play them back. Fool around with your plot and characters; what you brainstorm isn’t written in stone. If your characters are silent? Talk to a fellow writer or someone who is sympathetic to your issue. Bounce ideas off that person even if you think they are silly. The act of hearing your characters’ voice rather than writing them on the page can give you a different perspective.

Now you’re determined; you’re at the computer and you’re staying. Unfortunately, the words are still hard to come by.

Write anything for ten minutes. Just let the words come – whether they make sense or not. Break your writing task into parts, such as write only five pages or for only one half of an hour. You can break up your writing into short periods when you can reward yourself with chocolate or a chore. Once you’ve accomplished your task, then put the work away. You’re done. Look at it tomorrow to see if it’s work you want to keep or toss.

Most of all, keep positive. It happens to everyone and everyone comes out a more experienced writer.

—Monica Harris