Please share your exciting news (agent signing, book sale, etc).
I have an agent! I signed with the amazing Taylor Martindale Kean at Full Circle Literary recently. I’m thrilled to be part of this agency. One of my picture book biographies is going out on submission next week!
How did studying/retreating at The Writing Barn support you in achieving this goal? What workshop/intensives/classes have you taken with us?
I wouldn’t be at this point in my journey if not for The Writing Barn classes I’ve taken. No way! I’ve taken several classes, workshops, and intensives: Picture Book I and II, Writing Nonfiction Picture Books and several intensives, as well as Write, Submit, Support. My picture book biography about Luz Jimenéz was started in Picture Book II and refined in the nonfiction class. It won Lee & Low’s Honor Award and was one of the manuscripts my agent reviewed. It’s the one going out on submission first. The other is a fictional picture book I drafted in Picture Book I. I have received invaluable feedback on these and other work from Bethany Hegedus, Aimee Thomas, editor Erin Murphy from Erin Murphy Literary Agency and other authors I met during intensives. I’ve learned about craft—so much about craft—but I’ve also learned about being patient, staying the course, and finding the heart of a story!
How long have you been writing/pursuing an agent/publishing deal?
I’ve been writing since I was a child. I wrote my first poem on my own at about nine years old, and I continued to write and publish poetry throughout the rest of my life. I also wrote a play in seventh grade that my teacher had a more outgoing student read to the class. I was very shy. It is hilarious now to think that as a country girl outside of Austin, I wrote about a family in a tenement slum in New York, about which I knew next to nothing. About four or five years ago, after trying to write a book for my young granddaughters, I decided to learn about writing children’s books through The Writing Barn.
I’ve been searching for an agent for about a year. I thank Bethany and my writing friends for supporting me through a tumultuous year.
What fears/hopes did you have before the event?
On one day I would think I’ll never get an agent, or it’ll take years. On other days, I believed in myself and realized that if I just kept at it, it would happen.
How did the atmosphere of The Writing Barn aid you in achieving this goal?
The Writing Barn is friendly, open, and supportive. We get to know the other students and teachers, and it doesn’t matter if you are agented, published, or not. The fact that the leaders share their writing life journey, make themselves vulnerable, and share their doubts and rejections along the way helps every one of us in the group feel we can make it. We are able to share our vulnerabilities and our strengths.
Have you made friendships/colleagues as well? How has that supported you?
I’ve made friends with the members of my first two picture book classes that I’m still in contact with and added others along the way. We are a writing community and share our journeys in the crazy world of writing and publishing.
The Write, Submit, Support group is wonderful for the shared hugs, laughter, and tears during the rollercoaster dips and highs. Bethany Hegedus, Claire Campbell, and the members of our group are a close-knit group of writer friends that are there for each other to help us get through life issues beyond just the writing ones. In addition, the feedback on the writing and the writing life is so important. Writing is solitary, but sharing the writing life, the rejections, and the acceptances is better with a group that truly understands.
Why do you think attending workshops/classes is important to writers at all stages of their career?
It’s all about lifelong learning. We can all improve our craft, and we all need the family of writers that The Writing Barn enables.
What is a takeaway you will carry with you far beyond this good news as you continue to build and develop your career?
There is so much. One is that I still need to develop my skill and learn. I also need the support of a writing family to cheer when good things happen and to support me when they don’t. I need to give as much as I’m given. I have taken several steps to be at this point, but teachers have shown me the way. Like a toddler, I needed the encouragement to take those first steps with a hand at my back to catch me when I fell. I’m walking now, but I want to run.
Any advice you have for writers/creatives having trouble staying the course in pursuing their goals?
If it’s your dream, you have to go for it. It can actually happen, but you have to do everything you can to achieve it. Don’t listen to the ugly voice inside you that says you’re not good enough. Listen to the heart core that says you can, and you’re worth it.
More about Gloria:
Gloria Amescua loves books that reach a young person’s heart, head, or funny bone and strives to do just that in her writing. A native Austinite, Gloria received both her B. A. and M. Ed. degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. A Hedgebrook alumna and a CantoMundo fellow, Gloria’s poetry has been published in a variety of literary journals and anthologies, including Rattle, Weaving the Terrain, Ocotillo Review, Bearing the Mask, Entre Guadalupe y Malinche, The Crafty Poet II, and Echoes of the Cordillera. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt recently acquired one of her poems for their upcoming national textbook series.
Gloria is working on several fiction and nonfiction picture books, including a nonfiction picture book written in verse on Luz Jiménez, which won Lee & Low’s New Voices Honor Award in 2016. She is a member of SCBWI and was a finalist in 2017 for the Austin Chapter Cynthia Leitich Smith Mentorship Award. She was also a finalist in the We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) mentorship program in 2017. A nature lover, Gloria believes in pets, children, and possibilities.
You may follow Gloria on Twitter @glo.amescua
Gloria is a wonderful author I have admired through the years. Her works will transport you to other places!