From Query to Published

Having a deal is just the start! We will walk you through the process from contract basics, to working with an editor and/or designer, to what to do if your editor leaves or there are other major changes at your publisher, to working with illustrators/covers, marketing folks and more.

Panelists include WCYA alumnx Jacqui Lipton (’16) and Catherine Laudone (’23), Victoria Wells Arms (’19), moderator.

Join us on November 18 at 7-8:30pm ET. Register in advance here or at the link below.

Catherine Laudone is a children’s book author and editor living in New Jersey. She works at Beach Lane Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. She has over ten years of experience editing children’s books, including New York Times bestsellers, Indie Kids’ Next Picks, Junior Library Guild selections, titles with starred reviews, and state award winners. She has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She Kept Dancing: The True Story of a Professional Dancer with a Limb Difference is her picture book debut coauthored with Sydney Mesher and illustrated by Natelle Quek. When not writing or editing, she enjoys traveling, drinking chocolate tea, baking, and playing with her cat, Biscotti. Learn more at catherinelaudone.com.

Jacqui Lipton is a 2016 graduate of the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults and the author of Law and Authors: A Legal Handbook for Writers. She is a senior literary agent at The Tobias Literary Agency as well as a law professor who teaches contract and copyright law.

Moderator: Victoria Wells Arms is a literary agent at Hannigan Getzler Literary Agency where she specializes in children’s for all ages, as well as select adult fiction and food books. Before becoming an agent, she spent twenty years as an editor and was the founding editorial director at Bloomsbury USA’s Children’s Division, where she worked with many bestselling and award-winning authors. She has an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Victoria lives in New York City and Ithaca, NY.