By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
About 20 aspiring local authors, of varying ages, showed up at the “Writing for Kids and Teens” event held at the Ron Dalley Theatre at Moapa Valley High School on Saturday evening. The event was sponsored by Clark County Parks and Recreation.
Presenting in a panel discussion were three published writers including Logandale resident Myrna Foster, Mesquite author Krista Van Dolzer and southern Utah novelist Shallee McArthur.
The evening began with each panelist talking about their lifelong development as writers and the path that led to their first commercial publication.
Foster, who is an MVHS graduate, explained that she had been a vociferous reader since childhood. In addition she has been writing poetry and short fiction since her early teens. She told about the process of getting many of her poems published in Highlights magazine for children.
Van Dolzer said that she had started writing at a very young age, attempting to write a novel when she was eight years old. She made several starts at novel ideas in her early childhood before hitting upon an idea on which she was able to reach completion.
“I finished my first novel length manuscript when I was 12,” she said. “But it was terrible. And I don’t think that anyone, including my own parents, ever read it.”
During her college and early career years she said she had little time for writing. But then she had her first child and quit her middle school teaching job to stay home with him. While the baby slept each day, she suddenly found time to write again.
She wrote a couple of books and submitted them to agencies but didn’t get anywhere with them. Then she began networking with other writers and authors in person and online. She traded manuscripts and accepted critiques of her work.
“A line for a book came to me one night,” she said.
The line was: “Mama said it was plumb foolishness not to clean the blood off of my cousin’s dog tags.”
“That line kind of stuck with me and I wanted to get to know the character that would say it,” Van Dolzer said. “I wanted to know the story around it.”
She began to think about a story involving World War II era dog tags that had been recovered during the 1950s when the chemical structure of DNA was first being discovered.
In a relatively short time, Van Dolzer had a manuscript on which she was receiving very positive feedback from her critique groups. Within four months she had an agent representing her on the book.
Van Dolzer’s novel The Sound of Life and Everything was published in May.
McArthur said that she had naturally gravitated to science fiction writing. Her first original story, written at the age of 8 or 9, was about a girl who was abducted by an alien race.
She continued writing through childhood and high school and studied English and Creative Writing in college.
After graduation she worked for a time as a writer. But it wasn’t very fulfilling, she said.
“I was writing materials for online courses in food handling and preparation,” she said. “And I thought I was losing my soul as a writer!”
She joined a writers group and submitted the manuscript of a novel to the group for their feedback.
“I thought it was just awesome,” she said. “But my critique group tore it apart. It was kind of heartbreaking. But I kept working on it and eventually it got to a point that they were being nicer about it.”
Along the way, she came in contact with a fellow writer, Hannah Bowman, who was working as an intern at a literary agency. They agreed to critique each other’s work. McArthur sent her manuscript to her and received some excellent feedback on it.
Later she wrote another manuscript that would become her first published novel: “The Unhappening of Genesis Lee.” By this time Bowman had become a full agent at the company. She asked McArthur to send the manuscript to her for consideration. Later she offered representation as an agent.
It took ten months for the book to find a publisher, McArthur said. The book was published last November.
The panel took questions from the audience. They talked about the proper format for writing queries to potential agents to pitch a book idea. They also discussed the benefits and pitfalls of self-publishing books as opposed to going along the traditional publishing route.
They talked about working with other writers to hone skills and accepting good feedback and criticism on one’s work. And they touched upon the importance of having a trusting relationship with a good agent and editor to help work through the process.
“It is important to have someone who gives good feedback but doesn’t run you down and make you feel bad about yourself,” said McArthur.
The three women talked about how to find a good agent and what the customary percentage that the agent should be paid out of the proceeds of a book contract: “not more than 15%.”
The discussion continued for about ninety minutes before it was over. A drawing was held at the end for attendees to win copies of the authors’ books. Books were also available for sale to the audience. These books are also available for purchase at most major booksellers.
