I’m thrilled to feature Pooja Nukala today to share her PBParty Success Story. I love celebrating with everyone and am still happy dancing. 🙂
You can find Pooja on her shiny new website and on Twitter.
Here’s Pooja with her inspiring story–and some awesome tips for you!
Mindy, thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my PBParty 2020 success story!
My journey with PBParty really began about 4 years ago. I was new to Twitter and stumbled upon Michelle Hauck’s tweet about a contest for PB writers. I was also kinda new to the kidlit world and decided to give PBParty a try. But my entry wasn’t selected that year. Not even in the next year, and the year after that. It was disappointing but I’m glad it happened that way.
Every year, when I looked at the winning entries, I was in awe of them. They were clear, concise and grabbed my attention. I realized I had so much to learn! As I continued to grow in my craft, I decided to study the opening lines of fiction and non-fiction PBs. So, I went out and got a pile of books (that I haven’t read before) from the library and gave myself a challenge – read just the opening lines and then make a decision whether I want to read the rest of the book or not. If I did want to read more, I made a note of why I felt that way? If I didn’t want to read, I made a note of that as well. This really opened my eyes. Though I always heard that the hook should be right at the beginning, I understood what it really meant, to me. The setting, the MC, and the tone of the story are all part of the hook and they should all be weaved into the first few lines to grab the reader’s attention (of course, this is what I took away from my own little exercise and I understand for different writers, genres and story structures, this could be different). But that’s how I got my entry ready for PBParty last year.
Coming to the actual contest, I revised the first 50 words for my NF, Ownvoices, PB biography a few times with help from my awesome critique group. When I saw that my entry was one of the finalists, I was over the moon! This was March 2020, so COVID was just getting started. Everything seemed scary, dull and dark, but PBParty was the absolute light of my day. I had requests from three agents. I submitted the full version to all of them and got a response within a day from an agent who said she loved reading my story and that it teared her up. Over the next month, we went back-and-forth over email and I was asked to send more of my work. As the agent shared some of her feedback on my manuscripts, I felt she was somehow able to read my thoughts in an uncanny way! We both shared the same opinions on most of my manuscripts and our thought processes were similar. That’s when I knew, I would work well with her because she really understood my stories. Lucky for me, she asked if I was ready for THE CALL. And the rest, as they say, is history. I’m beyond happy to be represented by the amazing Kaitlyn Sanchez at Red Fox Literary!
I’m truly grateful to Michelle, and you, Mindy, for hosting PBParty. And I’m very lucky to be amid this wonderful kidlit industry.
To the participants this year, I can’t wait to read all about your success stories soon. GOOD LUCK!
Aw, now I’m tearing up. I’m thrilled that you and Kaitlyn found each other, and absolutely love how you kept working on your craft. You found a fantastic way to study the openings of picture books. It definitely paid off! Last year wasn’t a great one for bios…but yours demanded to be in the finals.
Congratulations again, Pooja! With you and Kaitlyn working together, I’m sure we’ll be celebrating a sale soon.
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