Meet Veronica Park

Tags

Book Marketing, Corvisiero Literary Agency, Writing, Writing Conferences

Veronica Park is an agent, author, journalist, and marketing consultant with more than ten years of experience writing and editing for publication. Veronica will make a return visit to the GLVWG Write Stuff Conference™ on March 24, 2018, to offer marketing advice for attendees  who sign up in advance.

Her favorite categories are YA (anything with a unique voice, but particularly romantic and/or LGBT at the moment), Adult (particularly Romance in all sub-genres) and Non-Fiction that is funny and/or centered upon current events and controversial issues. (Because real life is funny and full of issues.) Also, Middle Grade (MG) with a particular emphasis on diversity, high concept ideas, and graphic novels.

Themes to avoid: controlling boyfriends (unless your story is clearly anti), werewolves, vampires or zombies (unless you’ve somehow found a new spin I haven’t seen), Mary Sue heroines (look it up), edge for the sake of edge, or characters who do things for reasons which psychology can’t explain. Please pay special attention to accurate, non-stereotypical representation in your diverse stories. #OwnVoices preferred, particularly for concepts dealing with issues unique to marginalized communities.

Meet Vanessa Robins

Tags

Corvisiero Literary Agency, Genre Fiction, Social Media, Writing, Writing Conference

Vanessa Robins of the Corvisiero Literary Agency is a writer, reader, and lover of food.   From Lancaster — no, she’s not Amish — she graduated from York College of Pennsylvania in May of 2015 with a degree in English literary studies and a minor in professional writing. Vanessa was Managing Editor of her college’s undergraduate literary magazine for two years, where her love of literature thrived, and her passion for the publishing world was created. When she isn’t reading or working, Vanessa can be found playing rec league softball (her team is called (Na)16 Batmen (and Women) in case you were wondering), experimenting in the kitchen, knitting, or screaming at her favorite sports teams (go Eagles!). Her submission preferences include sports-centric, accurate or alternative history, thought-out thrillers, heavily based science sci-fi, and reimagined fairytales. She gravitates towards a strong independent female POV with humorous, but socially relevant dialogue. Depending on her relationship status, she might also like romance novels.

*****

 Interview by Geoffrey Mehl

 

GLVWG: Thank you for sharing some time with us today, and we’re looking forward to having you as one of the agents at the Write Stuff Conference in April.

Vanessa Robins: You’re welcome. I’m looking forward visiting with everyone at the conference.

 GLVWG: Genre fads come and go, yet we hear that the process of producing a book is a lengthy one. This begs the question: what is the industry moving toward, say a year or two from now? What trends are fading? Which appear to have staying power?

Vanessa Robins: Working in a bookstore allows me to see what the customers are currently gobbling up. Aside from the normal fiction purchases I’m seeing a huge interest in humor based memoirs. For example, Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance, Mindy Kaling’s Why Not Me, Yes Please by Amy Poehler. Now all of these people are famous, yes, but there’s a trickle down method going on. We’re seeing it with the “sort-of-famous” online stars such as Miranda Sings who take their online fame and turn it into written fame. My projection is that in two to three years the shelves are going to be filled with memoirs all containing a hint or more of humor.