Introducing: Our 2018 Superheroes!

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s — a WriteOnCon Superhero! They’re cleaning up the queries, cheering on the excerpts, recruiting new sidekicks, and looking pretty freaking adorable while they do it!

Their names have changed, but their sneaky ways have not. We’re thrilled to introduce you to our 2018 line-up of Superheroes, including SuperAgents, SuperAuthors, and SuperEditors!

How does it work?

What You Do:

Go to the forums and post your absolute best, polished query letter or writing sample in the appropriate critique threads in the forums. (Please look carefully and ask questions if you’re unsure about where to post, and make sure you follow all of our forum guidelines.)
Don your thick dragon skin, cross your fingers, and keep checking your forum posts, because our Superheroes will be flying around, leaving feedback on whatever strikes their fancy — which could very well be YOUR QUERY.
Pray you’ve perfected your work enough to generate a request. Some agents may be requesting from the posts they read.
Remember your manners. Please don’t engage in hurtful behavior toward an industry professional because of feedback they might leave on your query. Remember, publishing is SO SUBJECTIVE.

That’s it. That’s all there is to it. All you have to do is use our forums the same way you should be using them anyway (because they’re AWESOME) and you could have a super-cool Superhero critique your work. And even if they don’t comment on your work (they promise they will try to critique as many as they can), you can learn SO much from the comments they leave for others. Because really, the best part about the forums is that you can go read the feedback whenever your schedule allows.

What the SuperAgents and SuperEditors Do:

Each SuperAgent will try to swing by the forums during and immediately after the conference. You won’t know who, and you won’t know when… that’s the mystery of a superhero.
SuperAgents will be leaving constructive feedback on as many threads as they’re able to visit. They might also make requests (through DMs) on samples they like!
You can recognize a SuperAgent or SuperEditor by their fun superhero name and their avatar (which will be some variation of the samples above). Whatever their disguise, they will always have stars on their avatar!

What the SuperAuthors Do:

SuperAuthors will be leaving constructive feedback, just like the SuperEditors and SuperAgents.
You can recognize a SuperAuthor by their fun superhero name and their avatar (which will be some variation of the samples above). Whatever their disguise, they will always have a quill in hand!

Who are our heroes this year?

You won’t know which hero has which secret identity…

You won’t know when they’ll arrive to save the day…

But we can reveal who will be in the league this year!

SuperAgents:

Amber J. Caraveo, agent at Skylark Literary Agency
Joanna Moult, agent at Skylark Literary Agency
Elana Roth Parker, agent at Laura Dail Literary Agency
Tamar Rydzinski, agent at Laura Dail Literary Agency
Saba Sulaiman, agent at Talcott Notch Literary Services
Steven Salpeter, agent at Curtis Brown, Ltd.
Caitie Flum, agent at Liza Dawson Associates
Elizabeth Bennett, agent at Jill Corcoran Literary Agency
Emily S. Keyes, agent at Fuse Literary
Eric Smith, agent at P.S. Literary
Jessie Devine, agent at D4EO Literary
Kelly Van Sant, agent at D4EO Literary
Kaitlyn Johnson, agent at Corvisiero Literary Agency
Natascha Morris, agent at BookEnds Literary Agency
Patricia Nelson, agent at Marsal Lyon Literary Agency

SuperEditors:

Anita Mumm, freelance editor
Kendra Levin, Associate Editorial Director at Viking Children’s Books / Penguin
Annie Berger, editor at Sourcebooks Fire/Jabberwocky
Celia Lee, editor at Scholastic
Kate Prosswimmer, associate editor at Sourcebooks

SuperAuthors:

Alexa Donne, YA author
Ava Jae, YA author
Beth Revis, YA author
Charlie N. Holmberg, YA author
Heather Fawcett, YA author
M. K. England, YA author
Natalie Whipple, YA author
Rachel Lynn Solomon, YA author
Rosalyn Eves, YA author
Mindee Arnett, YA and MG author
Alyssa Hollingsworth, MG author
Casey Lyall, MG author
Cindy Baldwin, MG author
Dee Romito, MG author
Diane Magras, MG author
Erin Entrada Kelly, MG author
Kat Shepherd, MG author
Melissa Sarno, MG author
Jonathan Roth, children’s author
Hannah Carmona Dias, PB author
Henry Herz, PB author
Sarvinder Naberhaus, PB author

The forums officially open Saturday, February 3rd, one week before the conference begins, for you to start posting your work. This will give you time to get your writing in tip-top shape and in the forums before Friday the 9th, when our first Superheroes will arrive. Because we vastly surpassed our expectations in fundraising this year, our goal is to have at least one Superhero leave feedback on every post!

We hope this program will benefit everyone, from those who post their query to those reading the comments/opinions from some of the top people in the publishing world.

Still haven’t signed up for the events? You can do so here.

Questions? Ask them here!

karen

· Reply

January 29, 2018 at 6:50 AM

Should this query post be for the manuscript that I sent Karen Chaplin or should it be for a different, completed manuscript? I have not received my critique yet, which is fine, there was no time frame and she generously is doing many. I just am unsure what to query. Thank you for this incredible online conference you are providing.

Karen

Alyssa
· Reply

Author

January 29, 2018 at 9:56 AM

You can do either! It’s up to your preference, and what you’d most like feedback on.

Melissa

January 29, 2018 at 7:51 PM

When we post our queries in the forum, would we leave out our usual personalization paragraph at the beginning and just start with the hook (to make it applicable to everyone), or do we post a query we need feedback on that we are sending to a particular person?

Alyssa
· Reply

Author

January 30, 2018 at 8:36 AM

On the forums, it’s up to you really! Just depends on what you’d find most helpful.

Annemarie

January 31, 2018 at 8:49 PM

I can see that some people have already started posting for this year. How are they able to do that? When I enter the forums it says I cannot post and I cannot reply. I paid for the highest level registration so I could participate in everything. When I clicked the forums button off the main conference page I had to register again… it asked for my email and password and a username. I am hoping my username on the forums board will be linked back to the account and email I used for my registration so that I am able access everything. I hope this makes sense. I am hoping I don’t have 2 different accounts now?
I am so confused… please help.

Alyssa
· Reply

Author

January 31, 2018 at 9:24 PM

Hi, Annemarie! We had the forums opened briefly so Supers could register and our moderators could update forum rules, etc., and while they were open a few people slipped in a post. They are closed now to help concentrate traffic to Feb 3rd, when they open officially.

There’s a blog entry going live tomorrow that explains everything to do with the forums, which will hopefully help! We use a different server for the forums to maximize users’ security (as there was a breach several years ago (before our time) in the site-run forums) and to make the website better able to handle traffic without a forum on top of everything else it is hosting. This might change in the future as our technique continues to evolve, but for now it’s the best and safest solution for the hours in the day we have.

That being said, you will have to register with Proboards, but you can use the exact same information you use on your account here — it’s all up to you! We look forward to seeing you there!