The Yellow-toothed Baddy
This morning I was taken from Malaysia to Manchester, spent some time on the moon and was catapulted into the future. I visited one dystopian world that has been drowned, and another that has been starved of water. Heroic teenagers led me to university and into despair and I followed them into – and […]
AMERICA HERE I COME!
Posted by Polly What an exciting day 21.05.18* is for me! Today, I start representing North American authors and selling to publishers there too. We have terrific writers and editors and publishing houses in the UK and Ireland and these have always been my focus and love . . . but it is amazing to […]
Building a fantasy world – by Greenhouse author Joanna Meyer
Fantasy writing is not a skill for the faint-hearted author! The world you create – maybe one very different to our own, with its own rules, logic and appearance – has to totally convince the reader or you lose them because they either aren’t interested or because they just don’t buy in to what you’ve […]
JADED OPENINGS (& how to avoid them . . .)
The view from behind Polly’s reading pile. There are lots of blogs/articles/opinions/advice out there about how not to begin a novel. Indeed, Sarah Davies has written a great one on this very site (see her ‘Beginnings’ post). They all say pretty much the same thing. I’m going to annoy you by saying it again. […]
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF . . . AGENT NOLAN
Recently, two authors asked me – independently of one another – what exactly I do each day. At first I thought the question was challenging (in that I appeared to do nothing) and I got quite a fright. Once they clarified and I realised they were simply curious, I thought a blog might shed some […]
An interview with MEGAN MIRANDA – author of both adult and YA fiction
1 Megan, congratulations on ALL THE MISSING GIRLS – your debut adult novel! Can you give us a quick synopsis of the storyline? Thank you! ALL THE MISSING GIRLS is about a woman named Nic who returns to her small hometown ten years after the unsolved disappearance of her best friend, Corinne, when they were […]
Reflecting on 2016
I’ve never been a big fan of the traditional New Year’s Eve. The bonhomie, the yelling of Auld Lang Syne with people you often hardly know, the feeling that if you’re not whooping it up at a party then you must be pretty lame. But I do like some aspects of the year change. Sending […]
Beginnings
I often get asked, “What problems do you most often see in queries and manuscripts?” That’s a big question, so let’s narrow it down a bit and focus on openings. Are there any kinds of beginnings to manuscripts that I frequently see and which tend to turn me off? Yes, there are! Here are six […]
Sarah Aronson talks desserts, playing, and rebooting one’s writing career
From time to time, I ask our Greenhouse clients to write a piece for my blog. It’s really tough to keep it going these days on my own, and our clients have so much good stuff to tell you about the publishing industry! Sarah Aronson‘s recent writing adventures are pretty exciting, and also inspiring. Here […]