Critique of the Month Club

Donated by:  Jennifer Nielsen, Kristin Wolden Nitz, Jeanne Ryan, Peter Adam Salomon and Carrie Gordon Watson


Item Description:    If two heads are better than one, how about five heads providing feedback on your writing? That’s right, five clients from the Erin Murphy Literary Agency, one of the top-selling U.S. literary agencies representing children’s books, will each provide a critique of your work. Each month, over the course of five months, one of each of these EMLA writers (Jennifer Nielsen, Kristin Wolden Nitz, Jeanne Ryan, Peter Adam Salomon and Carrie Gordon Watson) will critique up to twenty pages of your YA or MG manuscript. How you divvy up those critiques is up to you! For example, you can choose to work sequentially through the first hundred pages of a manuscript (providing a brief recap of prior scenes to each subsequent reviewer), keep reworking your opening pages until they’re polished to a high gloss, or use the critiques to focus on “problem” scenes that could use a fresh set of eyes. Our collective work covers a broad range of genres (fantasy, mystery, contemporary, suspense) and includes published and soon-to-be-published YA and MG novels.The winning bidder may schedule their first critique between December 2011 and April 2012, and then will proceed with the remaining critiques monthly from that time on.

Their Amazing Author Bios:

Jennifer Nielsen is the award-winning author of THE UNDERWORLD CHRONICLES, beginning with Elliot and the Goblin War (Sourcebooks, Oct 2010), and the ASCENDANCE trilogy, beginning with THE FALSE PRINCE (Scholastic, Apr 2012).  She is a member of SCBWI and a former theater and debate teacher.  Her website is http://www.jennielsen.com/index.php

Kristin Wolden Nitz has written a lower middle grade fantasy, an upper middle grade sports novel and a young adult mystery because she tends to write what she likes to read. Her SAVING THE GRIFFIN was nominated to statewide readers' choice lists for middle grade readers in Georgia and Kentucky. Her YA mystery SUSPECT was a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults nominee. You can visit her website at http://www.kwnitz.com/

Jeanne Ryan decided to become a writer at age eleven, but her career path took a few huge detours along the way, from controlling war game simulations in Germany, to working as a researcher in the area of delinquency prevention. Naturally, the next step was to write commercial fiction. Her debut, NERVE, a young adult suspense, will be published by Dial/Penguin, and her website is http://jeanneryan.com/

Peter Adam Salomon is the author of THE MEMORY OF HENRY FRANKS, a YA suspense-thriller scheduled for publication in Sept. 2012 by Flux. He is a member of SCBWI and blogs at www.peteradamsalomon.com.

Carrie Gordon Watson is a young adult author, high school teacher, conflict resolution trainer, and former performing songwriter.  Her award-winning debut novel, QUAD, was published by Razorbill/Penguin in 2007. Visit Carrie at http://www.cgwatson.com/.

Market Value: $200
Starting Bid: $10