Grants & Awards

Over 110 upcoming deadlines, plus 6 new awards, and 221 recent winners.

process than the first, many of the challenges I encountered felt familiar to me,” she says. “Things like a character falling flat or the plot stalling or the brutal helplessness of feeling stuck in the middle of the story—it’s not that they were easier to navigate, but at least this time, I knew that getting past them wasn’t impossible, because I’d done it once before. As for knowing that your readers and reviewers are out there? I found that the critical reviews and reader comments that hurt the most were the ones that I agreed with. Ultimately, the best thing you can hope for as you write the second book and beyond is that you’ll grow and improve with each one.”

That growth requires patience from everyone. “For publishers,” says Karchmar, “this means understanding that writers aren’t football players: They seldom peak at twentyfive, and a couple of sidelined seasons don’t have to add up to career suicide. For writers, it means broadening and deepening their work, keeping the faith in the face of a contracted marketplace, and recognizing their role in promoting themselves and their books—being actively engaged in the cultural conversation, and connected to the broader literary community.”

After all, the narratives around second novels belie the fact that even publishers don’t know the fate of a book in advance. High-profile titles flop; word of mouth turns low-budget books into best-sellers. The industry’s unpredictability can be freeing, a reminder that a writer’s sphere of control rarely extends beyond the page.

“You’ve written a novel,” my agent told me before we submitted The Immortalists. “Let me do this part.”

In urging me to trust her—and, okay, to be a little bit less controlling—she was also giving me permission to trust myself.

As Sylvester puts it, experience is empowering. “For once,” she says, “I could face doubts head-on and say, ‘Oh, I remember you. I remember how you work.’”

The narratives around second novels belie the fact

that even publishers don’t know the fate of a book in advance.

High-profile titles flop; word of mouth turns low-budget

books into best-sellers. The industry’s unpredictability

can be freeing, a reminder that a writer’s sphere of

control rarely extends beyond the page.