Writing and Illustrating

Alice is Jerman editor at HarperCollin Teen looking for both YA and MG.

She loves to fall in love with characters, so she’s drawn to complex, well-drawn characters that really come to life. She’s also drawn to forbidden love, and beautiful poetic writing.

Her wish list is:

• Romantic, richly imagined fantasy, think The Winner’s Curse or Daughter of Smoke and Bone.
• She wants MG characters she can nurture…and characters she feels like need her to take care of them. So she’d love a coming of age MG, anything with a tender heart, a focus on family, platonic love, memory, and/or the every-day struggles of growing up, making friends, coming out of your shell. Something like El Deafo, Counting By 7’s, and Nightbird.
• Any realistic novels with an unreliable narrator, or big twisty reveals that turn everything on its head…like We Were Liars.
• She’s looking for a good (platonic) friendship “break-up” story–whether MG or YA– she’d like to see a story about the first time you lose a friendship. It happens to everyone and it can be the most heart-wrenching thing. She’d love to see it on the page.
• Something different and unexpected–lovingly crafted and intricately written, something like Midwinterblood (a book I re-read and re-read).

Finally, some other elements she is on the hunt for: Small town (She’s from New Jersey, so am particular to east-coast small town), recent historical (think ’60’s-’80s), and anything with a ghost.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy