Queries, Qualms, & Quirks

Romance novelist Mary Ann Marlowe joins Queries, Qualms, & Quirks this week to discuss getting into Pitch Wars but not getting an agent, finally finding and losing an agent, the importance of loving the writing first, imposter syndrome, and the relief in being a hybrid author. ✦

Mary Ann lives in central Virginia where she works as a computer programmer/DBA. She spent ten years as a university-level French professor, and her resume includes stints as an au pair in Calais, a hotel intern in Paris, a German tutor, a college radio disc jockey, and a webmaster for several online musician fandoms. She has lived in twelve states and three countries and loves to travel. ✦

Mary Ann: Query Text | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Amazon | Bookshop: Dating by the Book | Kind of a Big Deal | Some Kind of Magic | Libro FM: Some Kind of Magic | A Crazy Kind of Love ✦

QQQ Home Base | Support on Patreon ✦

If the links aren't clickable, find them at: http://bit.ly/qqqmaryann ✦

Middle Grade author Alyson Gerber joins Queries, Qualms, & Quirks this week to discuss separating the art from the business, gaining confidence as a writer, writing to understand your own truth, being waitlisted for your dream, and the importance of persistence. ✦ 

Alyson Gerber is the author of the critically acclaimed, own-voices novels Braced and Focused published by Scholastic. Her third novel Taking Up Space released on May 18, 2021. She has an MFA from The New School in Writing for Children and lives in New York City with her family. ✦ 

Alyson: Query Text | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Amazon | Bookshop: Taking Up Space -- Braced | Audiobooks: Taking Up Space -- Braced ✦ 

QQQ Home Base | Support on Patreon ✦ 

If links aren't clickable, find them here: http://bit.ly/qqqalyson

YA Author Jenn P. Nguyen joins Queries, Qualms, & Quirks this week to discuss fanfiction as a gateway drug, querying by mail, starting over after separating with your agent, trying for a publishing hail mary (and getting it!), and trying to like coffee. ✦ 

Jenn P. Nguyen is the author of THE WAY TO GAME THE WALK OF SHAME and FAKE IT TILL YOU BREAK IT. She was born in Mississippi, raised in New Orleans, LA (Go Saints!), where she currently lives with her husband and high school sweetheart along with their two wonderful although slightly crazy kids. ✦ 

Jenn fell in love with books in third grade and spent the rest of her school years reading through lunchtime and giving up recess to organize the school library. Partially because the weather in New Orleans was always scorching, but mainly because she loved to be surrounded by books. Now Jenn get to spend my days reading, dreaming up YA romances, and binge watching addicting Korean dramas all in the name of ‘research’. ✦ 

Jenn: Query Text | Website | Twitter | Amazon | Bookshop: Walk of Shame -- Fake It Till You Break It ✦ 

QQQ Home Base | Support on Patreon ✦ 

If the links aren't clickable, find them at: http://bit.ly/qqqjenn

Editor and fantasy author Rebecca Enzor joins Queries, Qualms, & Quirks this week to discuss unlearning passive voice, writing nine books before finding success, the importance of critique partners, and the surprising ending to her publishing career.

✦ Rebecca Enzor is an analytical chemist in Vancouver, WA, where she lives with her husband, two dogs, two cats, and sometimes chickens. Her articles on writing science in science fiction can be found in Writer’s Digest “Putting the Science in Fiction”. Obsessed with everything ocean, she studied fisheries biology in college and electrocuted herself collecting fish in a river, which inspired several key scenes in her debut novel, Speak The Ocean, out now with Reuts Publishing. 

✦ Rebecca: Query | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Amazon | Bookshop

✦ QQQ Home Base | Support on Patreon

✦ If links aren’t clickable, find them here: http://bit.ly/qqqrebecca

Mystery novelist Abby L. Vandiver (aka Abby Collette) joins Queries, Qualms, & Quirks this week to discuss the differences in self-publishing and traditional, being a hybrid author, acknowledging you can’t edit yourself, and learning from other authors. ✦

Wall Street Journal and USA Today best selling author, Abby L. Vandiver also writing as Abby Collette, has penned more than thirty novels and short stories. She is a hybrid author, being traditionally and self-published. Abby writes cozy mysteries and has a women's fiction book, Where Wild Peaches Grow, coming in August 2022. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio. ✦

Abby: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Abby Vandiver Amazon | Abby Collette Amazon | Bookshop: Secrets, Lies, & Crawfish Pies | A Deadly Inside Scoop | Libro.fm ✦

QQQ Home Base | Support on Patreon ✦

If links aren't clickable, find them here: http://bit.ly/qqqabby

Middle Grade author Waka T. Brown joins Queries, Qualms, & Quirks this week to discuss transitioning from screenwriting to book writing, how a single hurtful rejection can almost derail your writing, finding inspiration on runs, and the importance of writing community. ✦ 

Waka T. Brown is graduate of Stanford University and the first American born in her family. Her debut memoir While I Was Away was published in January 2021, and her second novel Dream, Annie, Dream will be released in 2022, both through HarperCollins / Quill Tree Books. ✦ 

Waka: Query Text | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Amazon | Bookshop | Libro.fm  ✦ 

QQQ Home Base | Support on Patreon  ✦ 

If links aren't clickable, find them here: http://bit.ly/qqqwakatbrown

Romance novelist Denise Williams joins Queries, Qualms, & Quirks this week to discuss waiting for it to be your turn, debuting during a pandemic, your worst fears coming true (and it being okay), not reading your reviews, and no trade review ever being as harsh as her young son’s feedback. 

✦ Denise: Query Text | Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Amazon | Bookshop: How to Fail at Flirting | The Fastest Way to Fall | Libro.fm 

✦ QQQ Home Base | Support on Patreon

✦ If the links aren't clickable, find them here along with the transcript: http://bit.ly/QQQdenisewilliams

Science Fiction author Michael Mammay joins Queries, Qualms, & Quirks this week to discuss diving in too soon, the book that saved his writing, the power of a one-sentence compliment, and the single quality that will guarantee a writer’s success.

Michael: Query Text | Website | Twitter | Facebook | Amazon | Bookshop: Planetside | Spaceside | Colonyside | Libro.fm <>

QQQ Home Base | Support on Patreon <>

If the links aren't clickable, find them here: http://bit.ly/qqqmichaelm 

Historical fantasy author Cass Morris joins Queries, Qualms, & Quirks this week to discuss pitching too early, the perils of the acquisitions board, accepting that some readers won’t like your book, the importance of knowing the business side of things, and being too stubborn to quit.

Cass: Query Text | Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Patreon | Worldbuilding for Masochists podcast | Amazon | Bookshop: From Unseen Fire | Give Way to Night >>>

QQQ Home Base | Support on Patreon >>>

If links aren't clickable, find them here, along with the transcript: http://bit.ly/qqqcassm

Hello, I'm Sarah Nicolas and I would like to welcome you to my new podcast Queries, Qualms, & Quirks. The show will officially launch on April 8th, 2021 and will release an episode every week on Thursdays.

This podcast is for authors early in their career, those who are writing their first book, and those who are querying. It's for those who are wondering what exactly a successful query letter looks like, if other authors share the same worries as them, and if anyone else has a similar writing process.

Queries, Qualms, & Quirks will ask published authors to share their successful query letter and discuss their journey from when they first got bit by the writing bug to the day of publication. I will interview authors of all genres about how they got started writing, their writing process, getting their book deal, and their experiences with publication.

I hope that these stories will help inspire you on your own publishing journey and remind you that you are not alone in what can be a long, complicated process and a confusing industry.

Please subscribe now and look out for that first episode on April 8th. I look forward to sharing these stories with you and hope we’ll soon be able to talk about your own queries, qualms, and quirks.

If you're a published author interested in appearing on the podcast, go to sarahnicolas.com and click on the image in the sidebar. That's Sarah with an h, Nicolas with no h.