• A new Query Qorner featuring WriteByNighter Yi Shun Lai
• A question/prompt about your ideal home library
• This week in Yak Babies
• What am I writing? What am I reading?
• And... that's it?

Yes, that's it. For this week. But as I continue to field responses to our survey (more on that directly below), I'll revamp, create a few new regular features, offer more words of wisdom from our coaches, and (try to) make this thing generally awesomer.

Survey Says...

Query Qorner: Yi Shun Lai

Longtime WriteByNighters will remember Yi Shun Lai, author of some of our most entertaining blog posts. On Tuesday, Simon & Schuster released Yi Shun's debut YA novel,  A Suffragist's Guide to the Antarctic. 

Congrats, Yi Shun!

The book has already seen glowing reviews in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus. Why don't you go ahead and add it to your Goodreads list, while we're here.

Yi Shun was kind enough to let us run her query letter, which she first sent to Kate Testerman at KT Literary. "I've known Kate on a social basis since the late '90s," Yi Shun says. "But I'd never written anything she could represent until now, so when I figured out this novel was YA, I gave her a heads-up about it, at which point she said she wanted to see it first." 

Remember, folks: Your query is your only chance to make a good first impression. That's why we have a whole service devoted to getting it just right.

"I love query letters," Yi Shun tells me. "I love their concision and the puzzle that is piecing the biggest parts of your story together, figuring out what to reveal and where to end the thing.

"But I am a weirdo."

Dear, dear Kate--

(I am so excited to send this to you. Thank you for making room for me in your query line. I'm happy to hold this as an exclusive for you. Let me know if you'd like me to do that; if I don't hear from you within the week, I'll assume it's okay to query other agents.)

 

When 18-year-old Clara Ketterling-Dunbar lands herself a coveted spot on an Antarctic expedition with an eccentric British expedition leader, she’s pretty certain she will finally find the equity her mother has sought for them both all her life: What better place to escape the trappings of Edwardian society than a place with no society whatsoever?

But when the ship on which the expedition’s success depends sinks and the crew is marooned on an ice floe, Clara is dismayed to discover the men on the crew have viewed her as just a woman and nothing more all along. To make matters worse, one of the crew members has made it his job to make sure no one forgets that women can’t do for shit back at home in Merrie Olde.

The crew’s fate is tied to the weather; the ice and snow. But Clara is laser-focused on proving some kind of equity is possible, especially because the women's suffrage movement has rolled over to "support the war effort." Clara's trying to prove she can handle everything from shooting the crew’s sled dogs to preserve meat to rescuing crew members from falling through cracks in their floe—but whether or not she can prove herself “just one of the guys” might be more than she can handle. 

 

And, oh, yeah, the whole expedition might just, uh, go south while she’s at it.

Part Ada Blackjack, part Lucy Christopher’s Gemma in Stolen, Clara lets us in through her diary. A SUFFRAGIST'S GUIDE TO ANTARCTICA is the resulting 66,000-word YA novel. It leans on my unhealthy obsession with Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 Trans-Antarctic Expedition. I visited Antarctica in 2015 and have dedicated time in the appropriate archives and locations researching the expedition itself. I know the crew well—and on it, I found room for Clara. 

I’m the author of two books, one a novel; the other a memoir dealing with my long, ragged relationship with outdoors sports, and what that’s taught me about living in a man’s world. My novel was a semi-finalist for the 2017 Thurber Prize in American Humor, and my memoir was in its third printing within three months of its release. I’m a columnist for The Writer magazine and teach in an MFA program. And finally, I'm a member of an elite disaster-response team, and have too much experience myself dealing with all-male crews.

 

I'm very much looking forward to hearing from you, and hope you'll find space for Clara in your roster of strong female characters.

"I wrote three drafts of this query," Yi Shun says. "I drafted it once when the book had some kind of backbone, drafted it again after the book had changed dramatically, between drafts (how dare it), then sent it to some trusted friends and beta readers, who said, 'yeah, but what about the fact that she COULD DIE,' and I was like, oh, yeah, that whole stakes thing."

Yi Shun gave Kate a two-month exclusive... an exclusive that, she says, "ran out on the day that researchers released the news that they'd found Ernest Shackleton's Endurance on the bed of the Weddell ... I'll always remember the eerie, magical timeliness of all of that."

Yi Shun adds, "[Kate] used a lot of this query letter in her pitch letters to editors when we went out on submission."

The lesson there? Take the time to get it right.

Many thanks, Yi Shun!

If you'd like to become a candidate for a future Query Qorner, send me your letter, let me know which agent you signed with, and include a link to the book.

Your Turn (Prompt): Your Dream Home Library

Lately I've had fantasies of turning my entire apartment into a library, lining it with (IKEA, let's be honest) bookshelves. And by "lining it" I mean turning my whole apartment into a bookshelf maze that I'll never be able (or want) to escape from.

More realistically, what I'd like to do is cordon off a corner, accessible only by sliding aside a wheeled shelf. A little book cocoon. A bookcoon, if you will. (Don't.) A chrysalit? (Please make it stop.)

What about you? Let's say money and space aren't a factor. What would your ideal home library look like?

Reply to this email and describe it to me in 50 words or fewer. I'll run some fun excerpts next week.

Writerly Quote of the Week

"The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering. It cheapens and degrades the human experience, when it should inspire and elevate."

-- Tom Waits 

Happy writing!