Today we have an update from the 2018 contest. Vong Bidania won a mentorship with Jennifer K. Mann and is sharing her experience with us today. 

I was really fortunate to win a mentorship with Jennifer Mann in 2018. Jennifer’s picture books are so charming and her illustrations are beyond adorable. I felt honored that she picked me as her mentee.

At the time of the mentorship, I had two manuscripts I was working on. One was a picture book that I was hoping to query.The other was a folktale chapter book I had submitted to a publisher. The publisher requested I revise this chapter book into a picture book. I had been struggling with this revision for months because I found it so difficult to cut it down to picture book length. Jennifer graciously helped me with both manuscripts.

First she gave me feedback on my picture book and query letter for that book, and then after some edits she said they were ready to go. Next she read my folktale chapter book. Jennifer talked to me about mentor texts, gave me incredibly helpful comments about paring down text, and asked me important questions about my character. After that, she advised me to scrap my original manuscript and start from scratch instead of trying to cut it. It seemed like this would be overwhelming, but because I had already answered the questions she provided me, I was able to rewrite the entire chapter book as a picture book in just a few days. I absolutely loved my new manuscript.

When I felt I had polished this manuscript enough, I resubmitted this to the publisher. They got back to me and said they were interested! They even asked for more picture book ideas because they wanted them to be part of a whole series. When I sent them my other ideas, I decided to pitch another chapter book series I had started writing. A few months later, I received a publishing offer for my chapter book series! Shortly after, I found an agent. I am now represented by Tina Dubois of ICM and my chapter book series ASTRID AND APOLLO is being published by Capstone in 2020. For now, Capstone is holding off on the folktale picture book series and they plan to relook at this at a future date.

This mentorship helped set off a chain of events that led to my publishing deal. Because I won the mentorship with Jennifer, I was able to revise my folktale manuscript into a picture book and submit it to Capstone, who requested more picture book ideas from me, and when I shared ASTRID & APOLLO with them, they wanted to publish it. This would not have happened if it weren’t for Jennifer’s comments and guidance. I learned so much about writing picture books from her. Her revision notes were extremely useful and I will continue to use the process she taught me for all of my picture books. I am really grateful for WWTS and for the time and thoughtful feedback that Jennifer gave me. She was supportive, kind and encouraging. I gained so much from working with her and I still can’t wait to publish that folktale picture book series someday! I will always be thankful for this mentorship, which helped set me on my path to becoming a published author. 

Thank you Vong, for that update and I’m so happy for your success.