Walker BFYR Bought My Book!

OMG! Yesterday, Firebrand agent, my Firebrand agent (wow!), Ted Malawer struck a deal with Stacy Cantor of Walker BFYR for my middle-grade novel, Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning. I'm ecstatic! Athrill, cool crazy, delirious, euphoric--I looked these up in the thesaurus and they all apply. (Cool and crazy had a comma between them, but I like cool crazy better.)

I had signed up for a critique at this summer's SCBWI workshop, and I received Stacy as my reviewer. Talk about a divine appointment! She immediately connected with the novel and suggested I submit it to her at Walker. I didn't send it to her right away because I had chapters out for paid critiques, but after a month passed and the critiques hadn't come back yet, I'm like, Forget it! I've got to send it to her!

I carefully prepared my submission package, suffering secretly from signature stress syndrome and mailed it from Florida to New York by regular mail. Two days later, Stacy emailed me. She wanted more! I still hadn't received those critiques--everything was moving so fast! I sent her the manuscript and queried a few, very select, agents. Then Ted Malawer popped into Verla Kay's website and described his likes and dislikes. I thought Hey, he might like my book! And he might like my other manuscript, too. I liked that he described himself as an editorial agent and that he liked books that made him laugh, but if a submission could make him cry, even better. I queried him immediately.

Meanwhile, Stacy and I traded emails. I couldn't believe how perfect her suggestions were and how they fit with my vision for the book. Before I knew it, VIOLET RAINES was going to acquisitions and then Stacy said We're interested! and I was like I've got to get a hold of Ted! So of course my phone went on the fritz, the second line went down, my cell phone ran out of minutes and Ted didn't get my emails. I COULD NOT SLEEP FOR DAYS until Nadia Cornier called and said Ted had been very sick and was actually getting blood work done right at that moment. She was funny and nice, not scary like how I thought an agent might be.

Not much later, my cell phone rang. It was Ted! I still can't believe he rose from his sickbed to call me! We talked for a long time. It was wonderful! In that conversation and the ones that have followed, he's given me a real education on how all of this works. Such a patient guy--my questions are so newbie!

I really feel my book is in the hands of people who love it.

Here's the blurb from PM:

18 October, 2007
Childrens: Middle grade
Danette Haworth's debut VIOLET RAINES ALMOST GOT STRUCK BY LIGHTNING, about a vivacious eleven-year-old whose life changes drastically when a new girl moves to her backwoods Florida town, to Stacy Cantor at Walker, on an exclusive submission, for publication in Fall 2008, by Ted Malawer at Firebrand Literary.

I'm happy and so grateful to Stacy and Ted for their vision and belief in VIOLET RAINES. I'm happy for my fellow writer, Courtney Summers, who recently sold her YA book. Courtney, I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to copy you and say THANK YOU in a loud voice! THANK YOU, LORD! And THANK YOU to my husband and sister for believing in my work and reading it twice, to my mom who loved it, and to my beautiful dad who, when he still walked this earth, read a little piece I wrote and said, "If I could write like this, I wouldn't do anything else."

In the words of Mary Katherine Gallagher, my feelings can best be expressed by a musical number: