Write Hope

From YA author Margie Gelbwasser: a critique of your query and first 20 pages (MG/YA).

In Margie's own words: "I always wanted to be a writer, and when I was seven I got my shot. My second grade teacher held a writing contest. I wrote this ten page story about a girl who was kidnapped, taken to an island, and tied to a coconut tree. She found a way to use the coconuts as weapons and escaped, against all odds! I didn’t win. The girl who won wrote about a talking strawberry, and her story was only 3 pages long. Talk about being robbed!

I recovered, continued to write, edited my high school and college literary magazines, wrote an adult multi-generational novel about a Russian-Jewish family, scrapped the novel but realized the part about the teens really came alive. So I started writing a YA book about a Russian-Jewish girl with an alcoholic mom that is now called INCONVENIENT. I then found an agent, and in a little less than two years landed a two-book deal with Flux. During all this, I got married and had an amazing son who I consider my good luck charm.

These days, I’m home with my son and between our music, library, Mommy and Me classes, and truck and lawn mower spottings, I’m working on my second novel. Like with the first book, there’s some Russian stuff and some Jersey stuff (Jersey makes for great settings—take that all of you who think Jersey is a smelly state and nothing more) but it’s really dark, edgy, and the culture is more background/setting than center stage."

International

Bidding is open until April 6th, 8PM EDT