GENRE: SEL, Lyrical
WORDS: 343
Query:
Dear Agents & Editors,
I am thrilled to share my lyrical picture book for ages 4-8, Aria, complete at 343 words.
When Sam reaches his first birthday since the passing of his father, he tries to reconnect to his memory of him through their shared past activity: making paper airplanes.
Aria is about discovering that while grief may lead us to hold on to the material things that connect us to our loved ones, it is our inner relationship with them that matters most. Letting go is a healing act, and we don’t have to go through our loss alone.
I am a volunteer member of SCBWI Florida, a member of Julie Hedlund’s 12×12 challenge, and am currently enrolled in Renée LaTulippe’s Lyrical Language Lab. In addition to a PhD in music composition, I later earned a BFA in creative writing for entertainment (2019). I recently signed my first picture book manuscript contract with Bushell & Peck Books.
Thank you so much for your time and consideration.
Excerpt:
Sam couldn’t sleep.
Tomorrow would be his birthday.
The first without his father.
Sam asked for only one gift:
Paper. Five hundred sheets of it, smooth and white.
“Blow out your candles!”
“Every sheet has a story inside. And a secret wish,” Sam’s father said.
“This one told me it wants to be…
your plane.”
Sam whispered it across the room.
It landed butterfly-quiet on the sofa.
“Show me how!”
What inspired you to write this story & what do you have in common with it:
My mother passed away when I was young, and I was there when she died. Over time, as I moved from place to place, I had to choose to move this or that item from my childhood home to yet another place, and I found each letting go of a thing easier to manage, a healing, a release, like so many paper airplanes.
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