This week we speak with author and teacher Lani Forbes about her YA fantasy novel, The Seventh Sun, and her agent, Samantha Wekstein at Thompson Literary Agency. Samantha represents a wide range of authors from picture books up through adult.

We talk about how they knew they were the right fit--how they work together on edits--and how Samantha actually stayed up all night to read this book by the offer deadline. (#Dedication.)

Then the main part of the episode—worldbuilding!

9:48: How Lani approaches worldbuilding

14:03: Common worldbuilding problems Samantha sees in her submission pile

14:56: How to get the reader into your world without info dumps

17:23: The part of querying that’s hardest on fantasy writers—and what to do about it

19:56: Strong female characters versus the Strong Female Character trope

27:02: Lani’s method for adding tension

33:06 Their editorial process working together as author and agent, and what authors should look for in this relationship

43:53: The mistakes Lani made along the way (even successful published authors make them)

You can find Lani's work here: https://bookshop.org/books/the-seventh-sun-9781982546090/9781982546090 and https://laniforbes.com/

You can find Samantha at @SWekstein on Twitter, and at https://manuscriptacademy.com/samantha-wekstein