I HAVE AN AGENT!

HOLY SMOKES GUYS BEST NEWS EVER: I HAVE A LITERARY AGENT.
HERE’S A PRESS RELEASE BECAUSE I’M VERY EXCITED AND ALL ABOUT THE ALL-CAPS TODAY.

PRESS RELEASE – EMMA MAREE URQUHART JOINS JJLA

 

Emma Maree Urquhart has joined the John Jarrold Literary Agency. Her new novel ALL THE BROKEN THINGS reads like Pacific Rim with a Scottish mythology kick. It might also be viewed as a twisted SF version of TWILIGHT. Disabled engineer Anna is metal from the waist-down, badass from the toes up, and Scottish through and through. She patches up glossy military war machines built to fight supernatural monsters. When a monster she saves becomes dangerously obsessed with her,  Anna sets out to turn the tables on the increasingly violent Enli. But there are monsters on all sides, and her fight uncovers secrets about the machines that threaten everything she’s been fighting for.

 

Her debut children’s fantasy novel DRAGON TAMERS was self-published in the UK when Emma was 13, with sales of over 35,000 copies and has been traditionally published in Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Greek, and Portuguese. Emma is now in her late 20s and is a software tester, spending her days finding creative ways to break websites and apps and her nights finding creative ways to break fictional characters. She lives in the north of Scotland and on the weekends can be found learning roller derby, binge drinking tea and taking long brainstorming walks in the woods.

 

“The immediacy of Emma’s writing grabbed me straight away, from the first page,” said John Jarrold. “There were times I wanted to scream at Anna, others that I wanted to hug her. And the world and creatures that Emma has imagined are totally believable, while the story unwinds in ways that are entirely unexpected and heart stopping.  Brilliant!”

You can also read this press release at John’s site here.

And here’s some questions for folks who are unfamiliar with the writing industry.

What is a literary agent?

A literary agent is a writer’s business partner and advocate throughout the publishing process. Most of the big publishing houses only accept submissions from agents, to avoid being flooded with endless piles of manuscripts. A literary agent knows the tastes of publishing house editors and ensures a manuscript is sent to the editor most likely to love it.

Are agents hard to get?

Oh god, you can’t even imagine.

What does this mean for my writing? What’s next?

With guidance from John, I’m going to give this manuscript another round of edits. After that, it’ll go out on submission to publishers, and we’ll see what happens! While that’s going on, I’ll be writing new books and keeping you up to date with all goings on.

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Got anything to celebrate? Tell me about it below, and join the party!