Tell us when you decided to take your writing more seriously and pursue publication. Was there a day or a moment when you felt ready to follow the dream? 
 
My dream of writing children’s books started in childhood. If you had asked eight-year-old me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my response would have been “a children’s book author!” But, an adult I trusted convinced me that an English degree was impractical, so I landed in Communication Studies instead, and took a job in professional sales after graduating from college. My dream of becoming an author moved into the background.
 
Fast forward to married life: For the first ten years of our marriage, I worked as a corporate relocation specialist for a large real estate company, but after our son was born, my love for children's books rekindled. Days spent sharing wonderful picture books with him, volunteering at his preschool, and even helping my husband in his home office (which I still do) brought me deep satisfaction. But with our son moving up to kindergarten, the time for me to return to my former career was approaching, and even though it was an enjoyable occupation when I did it, something in me had shifted—I wanted to do something else with my life, I just couldn’t figure out what “something else” was! 
 
I began thinking deeply about life purpose, legacy, and work that would bring me joy, which led me back to the idea of becoming a writer—but I had no idea how to get started. The only writers I had read about were either bestselling, breakout talents who had catapulted overnight to fame and fortune, or they had spent many years in graduate school to earn degrees that proved their qualifications. Then, one day while walking home after tutoring a group of struggling readers in my son’s kindergarten class, I prayed for guidance on what to do with the rest of my life. I loved being a volunteer reading coach at my son’s school, so maybe I should go back to my corporate job and continue tutoring on the side? Or I could go to grad school and become a Reading Specialist? Or maybe get my MFA and become a professional writer? In that quiet moment of soul searching, a line for a picture book sprang to mind. Within a few minutes the entire plot revealed itself, and I literally ran home to write it. That was my moment of “awakening.” After that I was hooked on writing children’s books and never questioned if I was on the right path. I’m grateful that my husband’s job puts food on the table and keeps a roof over our heads—writing hasn’t replaced my former income, but it brings me the joy I was missing, and I have no regrets.

 
How long was your querying experience before you landed your agent? Can you tell us a little about the journey from sending out your first query to receiving the first offer?
 
I started writing in 2008, but didn’t begin querying in earnest until 2011. I was enthusiastic, but my queries back then were pretty terrible. Query “rules” seemed too limiting—I thought it would be best to stand out from the crowd by changing things up to include philosophical thoughts about why the submitted work was important, what writing meant to me, etc., etc. My queries tended to run rather long . . .  (it’s hard not to cringe just thinking about it!) 
 
In 2011 I joined the SCBWI Blueboard and started posting my work for critique. That’s when I got some much needed tough-love on how to write a query letter! I also began swapping manuscripts with other writers there, and over time some of those writers became my friends and ongoing critique partners—we grew together as we shared information and critiqued each other’s work.
 
After a few years of writing and querying picture books, form rejections began turning into an occasional personal response. One of them was from an agent who suggested I might have an interesting voice for MG . . . but I was committed to the picture books I had written and didn’t want to hear that! Writing a novel seemed completely out of reach, but I couldn’t quite dismiss the thought either—and on a whim I picked up a few books at the library about novel structure and craft. A few months later, the first draft of Butterfly Girl was born.
 
My confidence grew, and I began entering online contests, where I occasionally won a critique from an agent or a published author. I also signed up for WriteOnCon—that’s where I met my first agent, Danielle Smith, in 2014. I was elated when Danielle requested the full manuscript, along with three of my picture books . . . and a few weeks later she requested “a chat.” Finally, an agent wanted to discuss representation! The call went well, I signed with her—hooray! A book deal was right around the corner, or so I thought . . .
 
Danielle seemed capable and kind, but we couldn’t seem to get things going—no submission list, no revision notes, nothing. This was a few years before she abruptly closed her agency, so no one was talking openly about the problems there, but the uncertainty and disjointed communication kept me on edge and unable to relax enough to be creative, and after six months I knew it was best to part ways. Thankfully, in late 2015 I signed with Essie White of Storm Literary—my experience with her has been nothing but positive. She is a phenomenal agent!
 
 
Did you ask and receive any help to polish your manuscript/s before querying? If so, who from and how much?
 
I received feedback from my CPs, especially on the first three chapters, and occasionally reached out to freelance editors for guidance too. And while between agents, I hired freelance editor Mary Kole, a former agent, for a phone brainstorming session to talk through the plot of my newest novel. Her advice and encouragement allowed me to move forward quickly, and with confidence. More recently, Kate Foster beta-read that same novel, which will be going on submission soon. (Thank you, Kate! Your feedback was SO helpful!)
 
Giving feedback to other writers has also helped me tremendously—it has taught me to spot flaws in my own writing technique. I have never read my own or anyone else’s self-edited draft and said, “Ta-Da! Done! Ready to submit!” Anyone who believes that is very likely setting themselves up for disappointment. It really does take a village!

 
How long did it take before an editor fell in love and offered you a publishing contract? How was the experience?
 
Essie submitted Butterfly Girl to Callie Metler-Smith of Clear Fork Publishing in 2016, with a plan to publish it the following year. Working with Callie and her team has been a wonderful experience! After writing a second stand-alone novel (the one that is going on submission soon), I asked Callie if I could re-read Butterfly Girl before publication to see if anything I had learned might apply. Re-reading ended with me sending her some “Before and After” excerpts to show how I would like to revise various scenes to elevate the writing while keeping the content intact. She agreed with my plan, and we pushed back the release date to give me the time I needed. I’m grateful to have landed with such a collaborative and supportive publisher!
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What advice would you give new and upcoming writers, those in the querying and submission trenches?
 
Read widely in your genre, study craft books, and join a writing community like SCBWI where you can receive support and information, as well as connect with other writers. Also, if you love your book’s concept but it’s not clicking with agents, it might be the writing itself, not the concept—I notice that when rejections roll in, many writers abandon worthwhile (but not quite ready) projects to start something new, instead of digging deeper to fix whatever isn’t working. Butterfly Girl took many years to develop to a publishable level. That timeline has been much shorter for my soon-to-be-submitted second novel, but first I needed to learn how to write for publication, which is a layer upon layer process of drafting, revising, swapping critiques, studying, querying, rinse and repeat—which grows both the work and the writer in the process. Of course we need to be willing to move on if the concept is flat, but if not, keep going! I’m convinced by my own experience that perseverance is the secret ingredient that turns writers into authors.

​I would love to know how it all happened! Did you ask your publisher if you could do the illustrations? Did you show them your work and they loved it and said yes, illustrate your cover now!!!? 

So, my first cover was a sketch that I sent to our cover designer to express what I wanted the cover to be. It was of two hands coming down around the title out of the darkness. I wanted it to represent the forces pursuing Jennifer, and her name absolutely had to be in gold. Without going into detail, let’s just say there’s a cost to her power. The cover designer at my publishing house, Dyer Wilk, saw it and went... No, you're good. You got this. I was like NO I DON'T. I DON'T GOT IT. I get very nervous about doing covers. There's so much pressure to get it right. He helped me through the process though, making me laugh along the way, and that really helped. The story doesn't stop there though. My agent saw that cover and went “It’s YA. Where is the girl?” Of course she was right. She’s very wise. I immediately came up with four or five alternate designs but none of them felt right. It wasn’t until my friend Todd Keisling, who is a cover designer and writer, suggested I take what I already did and put Jennifer in the middle. It was a stroke of genius! Everything clicked! I was nervous though. I am very self-conscious of my people designs, even though I’m doing part of it comic. A cover sells the book. I wanted to get it right. I made a kind of lineless version of Jennifer, which my friend Chris Golden pointed out to me looked actually more anime than lineless. So it was back to the drawing board again. I redid her face to reflect my character cards and BAM. That was it! That was the cover!  

And what other art exactly have you done for the book? 
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It's part comic, part illustrated journal, part book. What’s going to be the most interesting thing to me will be seeing readers react to how many different styles of art are within Jennifer Strange. There’s a style I used, that’s all pencil with very light Photoshop additions, that was for the journal portions. I wanted Jennifer and Liz’s mother Emily to have her own way of drawing, being that her job is illustration and she’s using her art to warn her daughters about the ghosts and demons that hunt them. This style is entirely different to the comic portions, which feature Jennifer and Liz. I did all of these in Procreate, a digital iPad app, that created a more comic book style. I wanted that to feel very YA, as Jennifer and Liz are both teens and their world would absolutely be different than their mother’s interpretation of the monsters. It will be fun to show readers or even fans of my maps just how many styles as an artist I can hop between that look vastly different but it’s still all me. I’ve never seen this kind of thing done in YA before. It’s definitely going to break the mold in a very visual way.

Do you have to check in with your publisher with sketches or are you free to create? 

I was totally free to create! Which I did not expect. I was totally blown away by the freedom. It's easy to get intimated by the blank page. I just started drawing and let it come to me. It took maybe eight drawings, but I got there!

Will you do my artwork for all my horrors!!!!?   

HA HA Sure! I'd love to do more illustrated horror! Or any illustrated books for that matter! I love collaborating! I'm such an extrovert. 
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SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!

So thrilled to be a part of my lovely friend's cover reveal. Yes, I'm a bit (fashionably) late but that's so not important when the cover and book is THIS GOOD.

Just pre-order this book, okay. Nuff said. 
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