Writer’s Digest Annual Conference asked us to be their promotional partner this year. We love writers’ conferences—for inspirations, to improve our craft, and to meet and network with other writers, agents and editors, so we were happy to say yes! To announce this partnership, we invited Writer’s Digest to share a guest post highlighting the success story of Tiffany Jackson, author of the YA thriller Allegedly (see our review) and the newly released Monday’s Not Coming.
Tiffany Jackson always knew she wanted to be a writer, from the time she could spell. “I wrote stories all the time, participated in writing contests, and even begged my mom for a subscription to Writer’s Digest, which meant giving up my YM Magazine subscription,” Jackson says. While she didn’t take the traditional path to becoming a published author, her journey to publication offers plenty of nuggets for aspiring authors.
Tiffany was discouraged from pursuing a full-time career as a writer by older, jaded writers. Instead, she studies film in undergrad and media studies at graduate school—landing a career in the television industry where she has spent over a decade. All the while, she continued to write.
“In 2012, when I read the real case of a nine-year-old charged with murder, the idea just stuck with me and wouldn’t let me go.” That story became the inspiration for Allegedly, described as “Orange is the New Black meets Walter Dean Myer’s Monster.” While inspiration for Allegedly’s main character, Mary Addison, came from real life, crafting the entire novel took a lot of hard work and hands-on research. Jackson interviewed teens who lived through youth detention centers and group homes. She also spent plenty of time researching the location of the novel, Brooklyn, New York.
“I was born and raised in Brooklyn, but there are places I had never been to before I started researching,” Jackson says. “For example, Mary’s childhood home was in Ditmas Park, a place up until four years ago, I barely knew existed and it’s only ten minutes from my apartment. “I spent a fall day walking around, studying these beautiful Victorian homes in awe, given I’ve only been exposed to brownstones and apartment buildings. So even though a place can be familiar, you still have to dig deeper into the nooks and crannies.”
Allegedly, which has received starred reviews from School Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist, shows off the study of those nooks and crannies—from the detailed setting to the terrifying life of a girl convicted of murder at the age of nine.
Originally, Jackson thought the novel was meant for an adult audience, until advised that it would work better in the Young Adult market. But while the book was written for the YA category, the difficult subject matter has also appealed to adults. “Books today are taking risks, exploring hard topics, and have a lot of the answers to questions adults never got as kids. I always tell students, high school never ends. Adults are just a bunch of super seniors still trying to figure life out.”
Even after writing the novel, Jackson had plenty of figuring out of her own to do. As any writer knows, writing a novel is only half the battle. Before landing all those starred reviews for her debut novel, Jackson had to find a literary agent—a search she credits to dedication, perseverance, and money. “I set a goal for myself that I would query one-hundred agents before reevaluating my novel,” she says. “I got to twenty-six.
“[I] bought the yearly Guide to Literary Agents, combed through, researched, and targeted agencies by genres. I set up an Excel spreadsheet, organizing the agents in tiers, kept a tracker of e-mails sent, and followed up every two weeks.”
The monetary aspect of landing a literary agent might be a tougher pill for writers to swallow—but a necessary one. Jackson regularly attended networking events and writing conferences, including a Writer’s Digest Annual Conference. While these types of events can be costly, Jackson says the sacrifice is worth it—even if it means giving up “new clothes, Saturday boozy brunches, and premium cable.” In the end, like so many other writers, she landed her agent, Natalie Lakosil, thanks to cold-querying.
Now, Jackson is giving back at the same networking events she once attended. She’s returning to the 2018 Writer’s Digest Annual Conference for a second straight year as a speaker, where she’ll present on crafting the perfect pitch to land an agent and speak on a panel about what happens after you land a publishing deal.
So Jackson may tell you she hasn’t taken a traditional path to publication—but, in reality, there is no one set path to breaking out as a writer. It will happen how it happens.
Jackson’s second novel, Monday’s Not Coming, released on May 22 from Harper Collins/Katherine Tegen Books.
You can find out more about the speakers, workshops and panels at the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference here. Winged Pen readers can use promo code TWP18 when they register for $25 off the cost of the conference.
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Cris Freese (crisfreese.com) is a technical writer by day and a freelance editor and writer at night. He’s currently interning with the Corvisiero Literary Agency. As the former managing editor of Writer’s Digest Books, Cris has worked with bestselling authors such as Donald Maass, Paula Munier, Jeff Somers, Jane Cleland, Jennifer Probst and more. He also edited Guide to Literary Agents (online and in print) and Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market.
