How to Get Noticed by Anthologists and What to Expect When You Do

Have you ever wondered how contributors to anthologies receive their invitations? How do those writers—particularly those who have yet to publish books or secure agents—get noticed? Are you curious about what anthologies expect of contributors (number of revisions, turnaround, publication timeline, etc)?) Or maybe you simply want to learn more about a small, but thriving corner of children’s publishing? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, please join anthologists and collaborators, Nora Shalaway Carpenter (WCYA ’12), Rob Costello (WCYA ‘12) and Erin Entrada Kelly, for this FREE 60-minute panel. In addition to Q&A, topics include:

• What anthologists look for when selecting contributors
• How to get those credentials and make them publicly available
• How to improve your own short fiction skills, especially if you mainly write novels
• First-hand accounts of what different contributor experiences are like
• The relationship between the anthology editor and acquiring editor and the dynamic between each editor and each contributor

While you will learn a bit about the process of compiling anthologies, this panel is designed specifically for people who are hoping to be contributors.

Join us on March 20 at 5pm ET. Register in advance here or at the link below.

Nora Shalaway Carpenter is an award-winning author, anthologist, and writing educator. Her first novel The Edge of Anything was named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews and Bank Street, and was North Carolina Humanities’ selection for the Library of Congress’s Discover Great Places Through Reading list. Her newest novel Fault Lines won the 2024 Green Earth Book Award for YA Fiction and was named to the prestigious Texas Library Association TAYSHAS state reading list. Other accolades her books have earned include making NPR’s Best of the Year list, the Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, the Whippoorwill Award for authentic rural fiction, and the Nautilus Award championing “better books for a better world.” Her newest book, a benefit anthology titled SPINNING TOWARD THE SUN: Essays on Writing, Resilience, and the Creative Life is just out from Burlwood Books. Nora holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and serves as faculty for the Highlights Foundation’s Whole Novel Workshop. A neurodivergent author with an invisible disability, she champions busting stereotypes of all kinds. Learn more at noracarpenterwrites.com

Rob Costello (he/him) writes contemporary and dark fiction with a queer bent for and about young people. He’s the contributing editor of WE MOSTLY COME OUT AT NIGHT: 15 QUEER TALES OF MONSTERS, ANGELS & OTHER CREATURES (Running Press Teens, 2024), named a 2024 CYBILS Award Finalist, as well as a Notable/Recommended/Best Book of 2024 by the New York Public Library, Ginger Nuts of Horror, PseudoPod, Reactor Magazine, and Locus Magazine. He’s also author of the short story collection THE DANCING BEARS: QUEER FABLES FOR THE END TIMES (Lethe Press, 2024), named a finalist for The Whirling Prize. His debut novel, AN UGLY WORLD FOR BEAUTIFUL BOYS, is forthcoming from Lethe Press in April of 2025. His stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and have appeared in The Dark, The NoSleep Podcast, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, PseudoPod, Hunger Mountain, Stone Canoe, Narrative, and RURAL VOICES: 15 AUTHORS CHALLENGE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT SMALL-TOWN AMERICA (Candlewick, 2020). An alumnus of Millay Arts, he holds an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and has served on the faculty of the Highlights Foundation since 2014. He is co-founder (with Lesa Cline-Ransome, Jo Knowles, and Jennifer Richard Jacobson) of the R(ev)ise and Shine! writing community, and he lives in upstate NY with his husband and their four-legged overlords. Learn more at: www.cloudbusterpress.com & www.revise-and-shine.com

Erin Entrada Kelly is a two-time Newbery Medalist, Newbery Honoree, and National Book Award Finalist whose work has been translated into more than dozen languages. She is a New York Times-bestselling author and teaches in the Master’s Program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Hamline University. She lives in Delaware.