Beautiful Children by Charles Bock 
The Compound by SA Bodeen 
The Fiction Class by Susan Breen  
Have You Found Her: A Memoir by Janice Erlbaum  
The Soul of Creative Writing by Richard Goodman  
Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian
by Scott LaCounte 
How Not to Write a Novel
by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark 
The Sky Isn't Visible from Here: Scenes from a Life
by Felicia Sullivan  
After Hours at the Almost Home by Tara Yellen 

Dear Gotham,

I just learned that Ingram Book’s booksellers magazine will be featuring my co-authored novel, Unraveling (available July 7, 2008 from Random House) on the cover of their July/August issue. Here's a recap of how this happened.

In Susan Breen’s Fiction 1 class, I revised Unraveling. At the end of this class, we discussed query letters. Armed with one, I handed it to panelists at book events, and snail mailed everywhere. I did not have an agent. Three miracles occurred in just a few months— three houses said I could submit my ms to them. Marking those envelopes “Solicited Manuscript” was a thrill I’d never have dreamed possible before Gotham. Over the next few months, one house passed, another never responded, and one editor sent a letter discussing what worked and what didn’t. And, if we revised, she’d take a second look. IF?! Advanced Fiction classes were about to begin and I enrolled, despite missing the early enrollment specials.

Once again workshopping our novel, I came away with suggestions for making the time frame easier to follow, the mother character more sympathetic, and the opening “hookier.” The pearls of my peers and Susan Breen facilitated enormous changes to the manuscript. Several months later, my co-author and I delivered our stone tablets, Random House made an offer, we accepted (duh), and sought out an agent to finalize contract details. Yes, with a subject line like “have offer, need agent” it’s not as daunting a process.

Because of Gotham and a large dose of chutzpah, I’m awaiting the birth of Unraveling, first in hardcover and two years later in paperback!

I can be contacted through my website, www.lynnbiederman.com. I hope writers reading this see that it really can happen.

Sincere thanks,

Lynn Biederman