Tag Archives: Author

Newly published author Jennifer Hayward

8 Sep

Lunch with Mary 067

Date of lunch:
Thursday, September 5, 2013

The company:
Jennifer Hayward is Harlequin’s newest author. Her new novel, The Divorce Party, was just released as an eBook and will hit stores in paperback later this month. Jen and I used to work together until she decided to take more time to focus on her writing and fulfill her lifelong dream of being a published romance author. And she did it!!! Every time Jen posts a new update on Facebook about her book, I just want to ask her “how does it feel to have your dream come true?” It seems like such a cheesy question but it’s totally sincere. Jen’s lifelong dream has come true! What is that like? I decided to ask Jen out for lunch and find out the answer.

The food:
We ate at Lola’s Kitchen on Church St. It’s really near my work but I have never tried it. Lola’s is delicious and I will totally go back and there are tons of options for people who are gluten-free. I had the California bowl with brown rice. It had tempeh, kale, nuts, avocado and veggies. It was really good, filling but not heavy. Jen had the special frittata with salad and she enjoyed it very much. We each drank water. Total bill was $30 with tax.

The lunch lesson:
While I like to try to keep quiet about anything I start in case I don’t finish, perhaps writing about it here will keep me accountable and ensure I go through it (or not, see podcast). Well might as well spill the beans. I am writing a book. I have said for years I was going to and now I am actually doing it. It’s a young adult novel, takes place in the future and involves aliens. And I hope it will be funny too. The reason I am telling you all this is because I talked to Jen quite a bit about it and she gave me amazing and helpful tips. First we talked about character development. She said you need to make sure that every main character has an external and internal conflict and you need to be overly obvious in presenting them to the readers. Second, I need to have a part in the book where all hope seems lost, where the main character appears to have no chance of overcoming their conflicts. Finally, we talked about outlines. I am currently working on mine and it is extremely detailed as I want to make sure that I know what happens to each character and plot line throughout the book. I am actually using a script outline technique I learned in university to lay everything out. Jen told me that while it’s important to outline the story, you don’t have to include every detail in the outline because a lot of the story comes through as you write and a lot of the outline will change. Jen recently finished a book that she completely re-wrote the ending three times before she knew she had it right. Basically be organized before you start writing but let the natural writing flow come through. Leaving lunch I was even more excited to write.

Jen's book

The lunch:
Jen first submitted a novel to Harlequin when she was 20. Although they didn’t publish it, she did get feedback. They let her know that this wasn’t the right story but they liked her writing and encouraged her to submit a different manuscript. Any feedback at all is pretty amazing considering many hopeful authors only receive a form letter.

Years later, Jen decided she needed to write that new novel. At this point, she was working full time and had a family. She decided to cut back on her hours at work and fully commit to her lifelong dream. She wrote several different stories but it was her entry into Harlequin’s So You Think You Can Write contest that got her the publishing deal. The contest has writers submit the first chapter of their novel online and the public votes. Jen made it to the final three, submitted her full manuscript and then won the whole thing. With winning the contest, she received a publishing deal for the book she entered, The Divorce Party. But it didn’t stop there. Harlequin so enjoyed her story, they gave her a second book deal right away. But it didn’t stop there either. As Jen’s dream continues to come true and she continued to submit manuscripts, she now has a six book deal with Harlequin.

As mentioned in the beginning, I wanted to ask Jen what it feels like when your dreams come true. I think that often about Olympians. Like Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir winning Olympic gold at 20. So you’ve worked and dreamed for your entire life to achieve this one goal and you’ve achieved it. So now what?

First, Jen told me the whole thing is still surreal, which is not surprising to hear. I mean how could it not be? Jen says that when the book comes out in paperback is when it will really hit her, when she sees her book on the shelves at Walmart, Indigo, Shoppers and more. I can’t wait to see it myself so I can only imagine what it feels like for Jen.

And then she told me something that was the true answer to my question. When your dream comes true, you make a new dream! Jen has always wanted to see her name on the New York Times bestseller list. Well I hope she gets there. If this six book deal is any indication, I think it’s only a matter of time. Go Jen!

Jen and her books

Jen sitting on a pile of her book!

Penguin Canada Publishing Director Lynne Missen

27 Sep

Lunch with Mary 056

Date of lunch:
Tuesday, September 27, 2011

The company:
Lynne Missen is publishing director of Penguin Canada Young Readers, its children and young adult program. Lynne has been an editor for over 20 years. Prior to joining Penguin Canada, she was executive editor of children’s books at HarperCollins Canada. Young Adult (YA as Lynne calls it) is at a really interesting spot right now as the books that fall in this category are being read by adults too and some of the best-selling books out today fall in this category – think Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games. Next spring, she will be launching Razorbill books here in Canada, an imprint of books for teens that are authentic, compelling and entertaining. I, like many others, have always dreamed about one day being a published author so it was great to hear from Lynne about what goes into publishing a book.

The food:
We ate at Barque Smokehouse on Roncesvalles. I have been meaning to check out this place for a while so was happy when Lynne suggested it. If you haven’t had the chance to check out Roncy since the construction was completed, you should definitely get down there and go for a stroll. It’s lovely. The lunch menu at Barque is a bit too small. They offer five or so sandwiches, a few salads and sides. That’s it. Lynne had the special – pulled pork sandwich with a spinach salad on the side. I had the pulled chicken sandwich with bacon and a smoked tomato soup on the side. My sandwich was delicious but the soup was too acidic – it didn’t have anything in it to cut the acid. We both drank sparkling water. Overall I will be back to try the dinner menu as I’ve seen pictures of the ribs and they look amazing. Total bill was $27 with tax.

The lunch lesson:
I asked Lynne how one might hypothetically get a book published, say if that was, you know, something someone might want to do. She let me know that Penguin, as well as most of the other big publishing houses, doesn’t accept unsolicited manuscripts and they receive manuscripts from unknown authors through agents. She mentioned that there are publishers that do accept unsolicited manuscripts. She said that finding an agent can be just as or more difficult than finding a publisher. She said the most important thing is to find a publisher or agent that is putting out the type of books that you’re writing. Lynne doesn’t publish a lot of picture books so if that’s what you’re shopping around, she isn’t the best target. Finally, she said when you do pitch your book, don’t say “it’s the next Harry Potter” but do indicate what type of book it is similar to and then explain why it’s similar and most importantly, what makes it different and more interesting than what else is already out there. It helps them to understand how it will fit into today’s market.

The lunch:
I was really excited to meet Lynne for lunch because I have long thought about taking a publisher for lunch to learn more about the book world and once I did outreach to Penguin, Lynne was incredibly kind in her emails and seemed to be looking forward to the lunch as well.

Lynne spends a lot of her time editing manuscripts. She reads through them and provides a list of questions and comments and sends it back to the author – questions about character development, plot lines, areas of confusions, etc. The author revises the book, sends it back to her, she reviews, then it goes to a copy editor, then proofreader, back and forth a few times and then printing. To be safe, Lynne says it can take about a year from when a manuscript is received to publishing. However, Penguin’s sales reps are now meeting with book sellers about Spring 2012 releases, so orders come in for books while they’re still going through the editing phases. She showed me a brochure of Penguin Canada’s 2012 titles that include a novel that Lynne was going home after lunch to continue editing. Now that’s a lot of pressure. But even with the pressure, reading books all day, revising them and making them better does sound like a pretty fun job.

I have always loved reading and usually my reading falls into three categories – beach reads (chick lit, detective novels, etc.), more serious fiction (mostly chosen by the smart people in my now defunct book club) and non-fiction (like Thomas Friedman and my previous lunch guest Doug Saunders). To be honest, I haven’t read a lot of YA books as an adult but I think they would fall nicely into my beach reads category – great stories, great characters and the inability to put the book down. I think Lynne really won me over on our lunch today.

But whenever I do think of YA, I think of an overabundance of books about vampires. And I don’t really want to read a bunch of books about vampires. Well Lynne said that the vampire market is pretty saturated right now. She said a popular genre right now is dystopian, which Hunger Games falls into. These are stories that take place in a society in a repressive or controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian. I wonder if somehow vampires could exist in this state. Two birds, one stone. Boom. Best seller.

I remember reading YA books back in the day. We had Babysitter’s Club, Judy Blume, Sweet Valley High and one of my faves – Christopher Pike. His books scared the crap out of me. I used to throw it on the ground when it got too scary and would wait days to pick it back up. But when I was growing up, we never had a Harry Potter type series that EVERYONE read. Seeing kids in line to buy a book is pretty awesome. And that’s what Lynne thinks too. Not every book has to have a lesson – getting kids into stories and reading can create a lifelong passion for books and is just as important.

**Lynne was kind enough to give me some books. I was SO excited about it that she said she is going to send me a few more so I can do a giveaway! I will post it soon. Stay tuned.