Crafting Your Query: A Workshop

In this hands-on workshop, Brianna Jett (WCYA ’22) and Hannah Morgan Teachout (WCYA ’22) discuss the purpose and process of querying and walk through the building blocks of query letters, including explanations, examples, and exercises. With built-in writing time, you’ll be challenged to begin (or re-imagine) your pitch and query. By the end, you’ll walk away with a draft of a query letter and time to revise it or ask questions. The course is designed for all writers, no matter what stage in their career, agented or published. Pitching never stops!

The course will run for 2 hours and includes a presentation on the building blocks of a good query letter, generative time, and (if time allows) opportunity to workshop ideas as well as a 10-minute break. Please bring laptops and/or writing utensils and be ready to write!

Join us on December 9 at 7pm ET. Register in advance here or at the link below.

*For those of you who have a query letter ready to go and are interested in a live critique, please send your query letter to [email protected], with the subject line: ”YOUR NAME query critique”. We’ll select two for a live (anonymous) constructure critique. We also aim to have time for break-out groups to allow for workshopping ideas in smaller groups (a great, low-pressure opportunity to bounce ideas off a peer).*

Moderators: Hannah Morgan Teachout and Brianna Jett are 2022 VCFA WCYA grads. Brianna is a mentor with PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing program and spent 9 months as an intern at the Tobias Literary Agency. She’s currently represented at Triada US Literary Agency. Hannah interned with Tobias Literary Agency as well and is currently a literary assistant at Folio Literary Management. During her tenure as a bookseller, she helped found Love Y’all Romance Book Festival in Atlanta, where she still works as operations director. Brianna and Hannah presented and moderated, respectively, a panel on YA Romance at the 2023 AWP Conference.