An Awkward Hug from Andrea Hannah: The World Traveler Who Became a Writer

Hi, sweet readers!

First of all, let's get that awkward hug out of the way. 

Okay, so now that that's taken care of, let's get to the story of how I went from globe trotter to word monger, shall we?

I won't start off this tale with how I've always wanted to write, or how I used to craft stories from crayons and construction paper. Instead I'll tell you how I wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of Michigan. And how I did it. 

Well, at least for a little while. 

I started globe hopping in college, after I got my first taste of a different state. That's right, I said state, not country. Truth is, we didn't have a ton of money for vacations when I was younger, and I'd been to Florida and Ohio... and that's about it. But I went on my first trip to California, and I fell in love with the idea of being anywhere but home.

So after Cali came a dozen other states, and then a summer trip bouncing around Spain, France and Italy. I came home from that trip and spent the next couple of years racking up frequent flyer miles like a boss; every vacation, every long week, I scraped pennies together and went somewhere. Later came Mexico, the Caribbean, and Hawaii. But in between those places came Africa. Twice. 

I lived and taught English in South Africa for a few months, and fell in love so hard that I refused to leave that continent alone. I returned the next year to donate school supplies and travel around Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya.

Yep, that's me. In Africa. And that kid in the front looks super angry.

What's funny about all this globe trotting is that I never once thought about being a writer. Not once. I thought about starting a nonprofit (and did), teaching in public schools (and did), and selling my art (and did). Never writing. Sure, I kept journals. I wrote snippets of poetry and short stories during my travels. But I never imagined anything would come of that. 

It wasn't until a family emergency forced me to move out of my condo in Savannah, GA and into an apartment five miles from where I grew up in order to take care of my mother that I started seriously thinking about writing. 

Circumstance shoved me back into my hometown, in a dank little apartment, dealing with the my mother's failing health and my teenage brother's grief. I had to hit pause on my life. So I opened up a fresh Word doc and started typing. 

And I fell in love with writing. Slowly, gently. And then all at once. 

I wrote mostly about my travel experiences at first, and then began to play with stories set in different worlds entirely. Writing became the only escape I had from a life that was somehow mine, even though it felt itchy and uncomfortable, like a sweater that just didn't quite fit. Then I attempted my first novel, at the very end of 2010. Like my fellow Secret Lifer Leah Miller, I also wrote about dreams. And my main character woke up from a dream in the first chapter. Guuuhhh. *Insert shudder here*

But despite all that, I entered that thing in some contests and won third place in the WriteOnCon YA contest. (Keep in mind, this is based on the first 500 words. I've always been good at pretty pose. Plot? Not so much.) 

I got rejected after that. A lot. Obviously. 

A year later, for NaNoWriMo 2011, I wrote my second novel, THE DIARIES OF ELLA GRAHAM. But this time I attempted the task with a boatload of knowledge of both technique and industry. I'd read over a hundred recently released YA books in that year. I'd stalked the crap out of blogs, forums, and Twitter. And then I wrote. And rewrote. And revised. 

I queried in February 2012 and immediately had infinite more success than I'd had the first go around. In the end, I sent out only 14 queries. I had done extensive research on agents before I queried, so I was very specific in who I targeted. If those 14 wouldn't have gone well, I would have sent out a second round, but I didn't have to. Out of those 14 queries, I had 9 requests for fulls/partials. I ended up with 3 offers of representation in the end, but I went with Victoria Marini of Gelfman Schneider. (Fun fact: I gave birth to my son the same day Victoria offered rep. She called me on my hospital phone!) 

So, this is the part where your eyes have begun to glaze over. Which is great, because it's also the part where I give you what you're actually here for: query letter + giveaway. So here it is:

Dear Ms. Marini, 

I read in an interview that you seek edgy stories with an unexpected twist. As such, I thought you might enjoy my 70,000 word magical realism young adult novel, THE DIARIES OF ELLA GRAHAM.  

After her little sister mysteriously vanishes, seventeen-year-old Claire Graham has a choice to make: stay snug in her little corner of Manhattan with her dropout boyfriend, or go back to Ohio to face the hometown tragedy she's been dying to leave behind. 

But the memories of that night still haunt her in the city, and as hard as she tries to forget the wolf's eyes or the blood-speckled snow, Claire knows she has to hold true to the most important promise she's ever made: to keep Ella safe. She must return to her sleepy hometown in order to find Ella and keep the wolves at bay before they strike again. But time is quickly running out, and as Ella's trail grows fainter, the wolves are growing impatient.  

Now Claire must deal with her attraction to Grant, the soft-spoken boy from her past that may hold the secret to solving her sister's disappearance, while following the clues that Ella left for only her to find. Through a series of cryptic diary entries, Claire must unlock the keys to Ella's past—and her own—in order to stop another tragedy in the making, while realizing that not all things that are lost are meant to be found.  

Though the novel has been written with potential for a sequel, it can stand alone. I believe it will appeal to fans of Nova Ren Suma's IMAGINARY GIRLS and Michelle Hodkin's THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER. My previous manuscript was a finalist in The Reading Room/WriteOnCon's 2011 Young Adult Fiction contest. I live in Michigan and am currently working on my next YA novels. 

Thank you for your time, 

Andrea Hannah

 So, there you have it. It's funny because there are several errors in that query letter, the biggest being genre. THE DIARIES OF ELLA GRAHAM is most definitely not magical realism; it's a psychological thriller. I just wasn't quite sure at the time. BUT, it's totally cool, because if you write a solid query letter, are professional, and create an interesting premise, agents will request regardless of that. So chin up! It doesn't have to be perfection.

AND NOW THE GIVEAWAY. (DUN DUN DUN.)

I'm giving away copies of THE DIARIES OF ELLA GRAHAM's comp titles, plus a query critique/brainstorm session.

SO, if you win this baby you get:

• IMAGINARY GIRLS by Nova Ren Suma
• THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER by Michelle Hodkin
• Query critique (or if you don't have one yet, a brainstorm session to make the best one ever

Contests ends Friday at 11:59pm EST! 

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