On January 12, 2024, I found out that I had been chosen as a Round Table 2024 mentee. Jessica Yoon had picked me as her mentee among the many applicants. Unlike the PBChat mentorship of 2022, which was for three months, this would be a year-long mentorship. Here’s how it went…

Many Zoom Meetings

The Round Table mentorship included quarterly Zoom meetings with your mentor, but Jessica was open to meeting more regularly, which I really appreciated. As I write picture books, I don’t need a whole quarter to revise a manuscript. Jess and I met on Zoom almost every month to go over drafts and discuss different story ideas. In between meetings, we used Google Drive to share revisions of multiple stories. We also worked on story pitches and query letters, as well!

Many Manuscripts

During our time together, Jess and I revised five manuscripts and began revising two others. The first few manuscripts were near-polished already, but my mentor’s feedback helped tighten them even more. The fifth manuscript we finished revising together took the most time, since it’s a story that has gone through many, many rewrites. I imagine it will further transform in the future, but I’m happy with its current form.

The final two manuscripts were the biggest surprises. One was directly inspired by Jess, as she read another manuscript and suggested I write a whole story about one small piece of it. I started drafting that story late into the mentorship and I see it as having a lot of potential. It’s next on my list to work on.

The last manuscript we started working on together was a revision of a story I wrote a long time ago. Again, I think this story has a lot of potential. It had been sitting on a “shelf” for a long time before I decided to work on revising it during the mentorship. My experience with this manuscript showed me that I need to spend more time going through my “shelved” first drafts to find the potential diamonds in the rough.

(Not Too) Many Queries

In August, I started querying again for the first time in 2024. I had put querying on hold while working on the revisions with my mentor. By August, I had enough polished stories that querying became the obvious next step. Jess helped with my queries and off went the first batch!

In total, from August to December, I sent 21 queries.* Among the non-responses and form passes, I received 2 requests for more stories. And from a third agent…

…an offer of representation!

The surprising path to that offer might be its own post. For now, I’ll just say that “The Call” happened on December 30th. The offer was made on January 3rd. So within a year of starting the Round Table mentorship, I became an agented author.

I am now represented by Sheila Fernley at Storm Literary Agency!

I’m very thankful that Jess went above and beyond during this mentorship experience. And I’m incredibly excited to see what 2025 will bring on my writing journey.

*During my querying journey as a whole, I sent more than 120 queries.