Debut authors: How they did it, what they learned, and why you can do it, too.

Yeji Y. Ham

The Invisible Hotel (Literary horror, March, Zando)

“In the aftermath of the Korean War, a young woman dreams of an abandoned hotel with infinite keys to infinite rooms, waking up to the unsettling truth about her nation’s collective heritage.” WRITES FROM: Korea. PRE-HOTEL: Before writing this book, I … was wrapping up a short story collection. … While searching for something new, I found a note from my master’s class, discovering a scatter of random sentences and images—a bathtub of bones, an old man carrying a window and a door on his back, an abandoned hotel, and many more. At first sight, I knew they would come together to create one whole story. TIME FRAME: It took a year for me to begin understanding how all those random images were coming together to speak about the inescapable, collective space of fear of war in Korea. This realization resonated deeply with me, as I was reminded of my grandfather’s story. He was a North Korean who endured torture and had to escape the North during the war, leaving behind his family whom he never saw again. From then on, it took another four years to write and revise. ENTER THE AGENT:

I met my wonderful agent, Danya Kukafka, through AWP’s Writer to Agent program. BIGGEST SURPRISE: Writing is revision. … It involved a continuous back-and-forth with the manuscript, reaching a point where I felt I had done everything I could. WHAT I DID RIGHT: Being patient— patient to myself and patient to the work—helped me break in. I feel it is important to have faith that time does not pass meaninglessly on the pages. It helps to wait, allowing the right words and sentences to reveal themselves in their own time. WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY: The past five years have been a period of growth for me, not just as a writer but also as a person. Looking back, I don’t think I would have done anything differently. ADVICE FOR WRITERS: Don’t throw out any of your writings, no matter how small or hastily scribbled—even those on napkins or receipts. At times, one can become so immersed in their creation that they cannot see the big picture or forget the original spark. Returning to those early writings, no matter how small, can serve as a guiding thread to lead you out of the labyrinth of your own creation. NEXT UP: I have returned to my short story collection while also brainstorming ideas for my next novel.

WEBSITE:

YejiHam.com

Gwenna Laithland

Momma Cusses: A Field Guide to Responsive Parenting & Trying Not to Be the Reason Your Kid Needs Therapy

(Nonfiction/parenting, March, St. Martin’s Press)

“A field guide to learning what responsive parenting is, how to raise emotionally aware humans, and trying not to be the reason your kids need therapy.”

WRITES FROM: Noble, Okla. PRECUSSES: I started Momma Cusses in 2019 as a publication on the e-zine and essay publication site, Medium. … From there, it became clear that a smattering of ’60s videos was not enough of the resource I wanted to provide my growing followership.

So, a book became the next project: a field guide detailing my “in the trenches” parenting experience. TIME FRAME: I started a very early draft of

the manuscript in summer of 2021. … I dove into the manuscript, and it was completed by Christmas of the same year. ENTER THE AGENT: Wendy Sherman found me and reached out. Her assistant, Callie, had been following me on social media, and while Callie herself was not a parent, she found that my content appealed to her as she navigated some of the gaps in her own emotional processing. When Callie showed my online work to Wendy, Wendy instantly agreed there was a book in there. BIGGEST SURPRISE: Reading it back through the editorial process, I more than once forgot that it was my work. I’d read a sentence and think to myself, Oh, that’s good. Who came up with that? And it was me. I came up with that. I found a way to explain that concept in that creative, engaging way. It was sort of surreal. Rereading my own work felt almost like an out-of-body experience. WHAT I DID RIGHT: Honestly, I spent more time than I care to admit fighting back my own imposter syndrome. … When I no longer had to consistently remind myself that there is room for my book right alongside Carla Naumburg, Michaeleen Doucleff, Emily Oster, and the hundreds of other resources that came before, it made everything flow just a little better. WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY: One day, I will find a cure for procrastination. I had approximately six months to do the bulk of the manuscript building. … I wrote most of the book in about a month of the six months I’d been granted. I’m 100 percent sure [my editor] could tell too. ADVICE FOR WRITERS: This process taught me that NaNoWriMo lied to me.

You might be able to get some good ideas out, but for a good work, an efficiently crafted work, a complete concept, you need to plan. Finding the right mode of planning for you, individually, is vital but planning is a must, I now think. NEXT UP: I have a solid concept, plan, and outline for a second book in the same genre. This one is fashioned as a field guide again but this time a little more focused on a specific stage and age of parenting.

MommaCusses.com WEBSITE:

Myah Ariel

When I Think of You (Contemporary romance, April, Berkley) “The unexpected spark of two former flames may force them to choose between their moviemaking dreams and each other.” WRITES FROM: Los Angeles, Calif. PRE-THINK: With degrees in film studies and arts journalism, I’ve written about creatives and culture for a while. But writing my own fiction didn’t come about until the pandemic. I spent a lot of time escaping into romance novels during lockdown and was inspired to write a book that felt like the Black romances I fell in love with in movies and TV shows from the ’90s and early aughts. TIME FRAME: I wrote my first draft over the course of six months in the latter half of 2021 and promptly went to prematurely query it in early 2022. ENTER THE AGENT: My agent, Kim Lionetti, represents some of my favorite romance authors. So, I knew from the outset that she was at the top of my aspirational query list. I queried her in early January of 2022 and got a full request within a few days! By March, that full turned into a rejection—but one that came with brief yet helpful feedback. I then decided to risk it all and ask her if she’d take a second look after I revised. Luckily, she agreed to! Then, I got to work. I applied to a few mentorship programs and was accepted to [now defunct] #DVMentor, which paired me with an author, Sami Ellis, who was further along in the “journey” than I was. Sami worked with me on revisions, and by August, I re-queried Kim, and she very quickly offered representation. BIGGEST SURPRISE: First, it’s vital to get other eyes on your work before you begin to query. This can be fellow writer friends or even just avid readers in your family. But having that quality check from another person is essential. And secondly, since this is a journey that comes with a lot of feedback built in, it’s important to protect yourself. In doing so, I’ve learned to not take criticism too harshly from anyone you wouldn’t seek out for advice in the first place. WHAT I DID RIGHT: I did deep dives into the business and processes of publishing. I did so mainly because I’m a nerd and tend to over-research anything I want to pursue. But also, I wanted to know what I should expect before the proverbial cliff dive. So, I’ve ingested scores of YouTube videos, MasterClasses, craft books, and X (Twitter) threads pertaining to publishing and all its many idiosyncrasies. WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENTLY: I would have started writing creatively years ago! ADVICE FOR WRITERS: Read your writing aloud as you draft. … If something sounds off to the ear, that’s likely because it wasn’t executed well on the page. NEXT UP: I’m writing my second book and working on some exciting things for book one, which I can’t quite talk about yet. WEBSITE: MyahAriel.com