Part of a series introducing the Mentors for the 2019-2020 SCBWI-WWA Mentorship Program. This post introduces two YA Mentors, J Anderson Coats and Jeanne Ryan. Applicants will receive information about acceptance into this program in early Fall, 2019. For more information about the mentorship program visit here: https://wwa.scbwi.org/2019-mentorship-program/.
Mentor: J Anderson Coats
J. Anderson Coats is the author of The Wicked and the Just, one of Kirkus’s Best Teen Books of 2012, a 2013 YALSA Best for Young Adults (BFYA) winner, and a School Library Journal Best Books of 2012 selection. It also won the 2013 Washington State Book Award for Young Adults. Her newest book is R is for Rebel, a middle-grade novel about coercion and resistance in a reform school in a fictional occupied country. She is also the author of The Many Reflections of Miss Jane Deming, a 2017 Junior Library Guild selection and one of Kirkus’s Best Historical Middle-Grade Books of 2017.
Q: Why do you like to mentor aspiring writers?
I like to mentor because kidlit is a community, and expanding our community outward to include more people is one way we can improve the lives of our readers – by providing more kinds of stories and more points of view.
Q: What does being a successful published professional look like to you?
To me, success means consistently putting out books that kids read and enjoy. Nothing is better than getting an excited note from a young reader.
Q: What can a mentee expect from your mentorship?
I hope this mentorship will provide a supportive, collaborative environment for my mentee to experience creative growth.
Q: What are you reading?
I’ve just started Orange is for Sunsets by Tina Athaide. I’m loving the voice so far!
Q: What are you working on these days?
I’m working on first pass pages for Spindle and Dagger, my YA historical set in medieval Wales coming out in early 2020. It’s got a warband, a precarious secret, and an abduction that just might ruin everything.
Mentor: Jeanne Ryan
Jeanne Ryan writes young-adult thrillers that could take place next week–but let’s hope they don’t! Her first novel Nerve, about an online game of truth or dare taken to dangerous extremes, was adapted for film by Lionsgate, spent six months on the NYT bestseller list, and has been published in twenty countries. Her second novel, Charisma, is about a cripplingly shy girl who accepts an underground gene therapy to transform herself from meh to magnetic, with unintended, and possibly lethal, consequences. You can find out more at www.jeanneryan.com.
Why do you like to mentor aspiring writers?
The road to publication winds through many long stretches that can feel hopeless. When starting out, the only thing that got me through those times were people who believed in my writing. It’s gratifying to be that push for someone else.
Q: What does being a successful published professional look like to you?
Getting published, continuing to get published, and maintaining joy in the work. FYI – Very few authors earn enough to pay their rent, so it’s healthier not to measure one’s success in terms of financial milestones.
Q: What can a mentee expect from your mentorship?
Someone who gives a damn, whose motive in every critique is based on wanting the mentee to produce publishable work.
Q: What are you reading?
Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay. I have a feeling we’ll be hearing a lot about this book come awards season. Get ahead of the pack and read it now!
Q: What are you working on these days?
A contemporary YA inspired by my frustration about the lack of universal healthcare in our country.