What happens when a senior editor reads your query in real time? In this Manuscript Academy feedback session, literary agent Jessica Sinsheimer is joined by Ruqayyah Daud, senior editor at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (Hachette Book Group), for an hour of warm, honest, practical feedback on real submissions. Narrator Jaida Hancock reads each query and first page aloud, then Jessica and Ruqayyah share what caught their attention and what they would tweak to help each piece shine.
The submissions span a fantastic range: a hybrid memoir about fear and courage and what they do in our lives, a historical horror with a suspiciously pale visitor, a YA fantasy competition story, an upper middle grade about a girl who has stopped writing, an upmarket suspense query, a literary opening on the South Carolina coast, a charming cozy mystery chapter book, an urban fantasy, a timely essay collection, and a romantasy set aboard a privateer ship.
Along the way, you’ll learn why clarity beats cleverness in a query, how to choose genre labels that help agents place your book, why nonfiction writers need to think about platform, and why middle grade is not doomed. Stick around for the Q&A, where Ruqayyah explains what’s really happening when you’ve been on submission for months, Jessica shares the etiquette for re-querying an agent, and both weigh in on whether dystopia is back (spoiler: it is!).
You’ll come away with fresh ideas for your own query and pages, and a reminder that the people on the other side of the inbox are rooting for you.
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About the Instructor
Ruqayyah Daud View Faculty Page
Ruqayyah Daud is a senior editor at LBYR and Requited. She acquires everything from middle grade through New Adult. Some of her titles include the #1 New York Times bestseller, Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma, the critically acclaimed As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh and the upcoming buzzed about romantasy, Bitten by Jordan Stephanie Gray.