March 18th SPEAKER — “Writing Novels for the Young Adult Market” with LAURIE MCLEAN

The healthiest segment of fiction these days is the young -adult market for teens aged 13-19. If you want to sell a book to this tough crowd, you have to know the teen voice, teen dreams and fears, the teen hive mind. Who better to be your guide than literary agent Laurie McLean, who has YA success aplenty.

At Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents in San Francisco, Northern California’s oldest literary agency, founded in 1972, Laurie represents adult genre fiction (romance, fantasy, science fiction, horror, nouveau westerns, mysteries, suspense, thrillers, etc.) as well as middle-grade and young-adult books. She looks for great writing, first and foremost, followed by memorable characters, a searing storyline, and solid world building.

For more than 20 years, Laurie ran a  multimillion-dollar eponymous public relations agency in California’s Silicon Valley. She is passionate about marketing, publicity, negotiating, editing, and a host of other business-critical areas. She is also a novelist herself, so she can empathize with the author’s journey to and through publication.

Check out her blog, www.agentsavant.com, for tales of the agenting life, and www.larsenpomada.com for valuable information and links, plus her submission guidelines. Query her at query@agentsavant.com.

Laurie is also the dean of the new San Francisco Writers University at www.SFWritersU.com and on the management team of the San Francisco Writers Conference.

2:00 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library

FREE TO THE PUBLIC

click to download flyer (link)