Wednesday, January 21, 2015

YA Guy Says Goodbye... to the Fall Fourteeners!


YA Guy's debut year wouldn't have been half as much fun--or half as bearable--without a writers' group called the Fall Fourteeners.

The brainchild of my agency buddy Sarah J. Schmitt, the group--which included 14 debut YA authors, all of us with books due in or around Fall of this past year--provided opportunities for networking, celebrating, commiserating, brainstorming, back-patting, thumbs-upping, and everything else a debut author needs. (Trust me, we needed it: through Kirkus reviews, the collapse of a couple of our publishers, and other vicissitudes of the writing life, we REALLY needed it.) I also belonged to the much larger debut group OneFourKidLit, which was wonderful too. But the Fourteeners, being small, enabled me to forge even closer relationships with peers embarking on the same journey as I.

It being 2015, we're ringing down the curtain on the Fall Fourteeners as an official entity. If you haven't visited our website, check it out before it goes (sometime later this year). And if you want to track down our books, here's the complete alphabetical roster of our members, with links to their websites:















For anyone who's debuting in the next year or two, I strongly encourage you to join (or, if no existing group is available, create) a writers' group comparable to the Fall Fourteeners.

Though in my mind, of course, no group could ever compare to this one!

4 comments:

  1. Um, Josh, you should know better than to make me cry at work! All I can say is that I couldn't have had a better group of friends to go on this crazy, insane, surreal, amazing journey with. So proud to call you my agency bro!

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  2. Well, of course I read and loved your book, Josh, and on your recommendation I read (and loved) The Islands at the End of the World. I started Tabula Rasa yesterday, right before I heard the news about Egmont, and I am crushed for Kristen, who I know just turned in her sequel. And I really need to pick up Salt and Storm, since Kendall is an agency sister and I exchanged emails with her before she signed with my agent, giving my endorsement. That's a good start on your list!

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    1. Yes, the news about Egmont is shocking, and I know Kristen is reeling (though I also know she's too good a writer and TABULA RASA is too good a book to keep her down for long). You'll love SALT & STORM too--but really, you can't go wrong with Fall Fourteeners books!

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