The Quill Track opens on Thursday afternoon with a reception hosted by our tote bag sponsor, Wattpad. Through the afternoon, many fine authors will be hosting displays of their own books til about to 5pm as part of the Book Faire. Be sure to also say hello to Omnific (a publishing company that grew out of fandom), and the following authors who’ll be joining Lindsay Ribar, Aimee Carter, Michelle Hodkin and Lev Grossman. Read More…
Just when you thought you couldn’t get more excited for The Quill Track… amazing YA author and Printz award winner Libba Bray will be joining us at Ascendio! Libba is the brilliant mind behind Beauty Queens, Going Bovine and the Gemma Doyle series (witches at boarding school – you can’t go wrong!). If you haven’t read her books (any or all of them!), the Ascendio staff are huge fans and highly recommend them all.
Libba will be speaking about girls in YA, the power of friendship and LGBTQ and diversity in YA fiction on the following panels:
12:30-2 p.m., Tuscan IV
Katniss, Bella, and Hermione: Finding the Balance Between Asskicking Prowess and Emotional Realism in the Girls of YA Fiction
5-6 p.m., Venetian III
Friendship is Magic: Relationships Beyond Romance in Harry Potter & YA
11-12:30 p.m., Tuscan IV
Say Yes To Gay YA:LGBTQ and Diversity in YA Fiction
Additionally, Libba will be doing a reading/signing — details TBD!
The Quill Track is exclusively available to Ascendio attendees and is a unique opportunity to hear all your favorite authors — and new authors you’ll be thrilled to discover — speak on Harry Potter, young adult lit and the publishing industry. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to meet them, get your books signed and ask your burning questions!
Ascendio is pleased to announce a roster of fans-turned-erotica professionals who will be joining our Quill Track!
Now fans of romance and erotica, especially m/m erotica, will have an opportunity to learn more about this end of the industry, exciting changes it’s seeing, and how several Harry Potter fanfiction writers made the jump from fanfic to pro! The following guests are confirmed:
http://saritzahernandez.blogspot.com
E-Pub Agent extraordinaire and avid coffee-drinker, Saritza is as short and simple as this paragraph. Give her a good paranormal or fantasy romance, a giant mug of steaming Cuban coffee and a corner to put her feet up to read, and she’s one happy camper!
Saritza represents both new and established authors and is currently looking for strong erotic romance in the following sub-genres:
Paranormal, sci-fi, steampunk, cyberpunk, fantasy, BDSM, historical (emphasis on Ancient Egypt, Caribbean/MesoAmerican), intercultural and all GLBT-themed erotica for the digital marketplace. Find her submission guidelines and status on her blog: saritzahernandez.blogspot.com and follow her twitter @epubagent.
In fandom, Saritza is known as Madame Minnie, and is one of the founding members of The Quidditch Pitch.
The Ascendio Quill track is growing leaps and bounds — Harper Collins editor Molly O’Neill will be joining us for discussions of publishing, YA and more! Molly is the editor who discovered Veronica Roth‘s Divergent, and she’s a HUGE Harry Potter fan.
Not only will Molly be joining a panel on Dystopia in YA, Molly, Veronica Roth and Veronica’s agent Joanna Volpe will be doing a “behind the scenes” talk giving insight about how the author-agent-editor relationship works, and how a book goes from draft in an author’s computer to published book.
We are thrilled to have Molly join us!
Molly O’Neill started falling in love with the children’s/young adult book industry while she was a college student—which was right around the time that the world started falling in love with books about a boy wizard named Harry Potter—and the legacy of The Boy Who Lived has shaped the near-decade she’s worked in the children’s publishing industry in countless ways.
She started her career on the Marketing/Publicity side of the business, but is now thrilled to have her dream job at the Katherine Tegen Books imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books, where she edits, acquires, and champions picture books, middle grade books, and young adult novels. In addition to being the editor of Veronica Roth’s DIVERGENT series, she is also the editor of the forthcoming YA sci-fi INSIGNIA trilogy by S. J. Kincaid, which prominent booksellers have said is perfect “for those missing Hogwarts.” You can learn more about Molly and the books she edits on her publishing blog http://10blockwalk.blogspot.com or by following her on Twitter.
Ascendio programming is by the attendees, for the attendees — so we need YOU to submit proposals for our formal programming slate! We’re seeking proposals of all shapes and sizes, to discuss/probe issues in Harry Potter and beyond.
Our formal programming deadline has been pushed back to February 29, in order to give everyone a little more time to work out their schedules, topics and panels, BUT! All proposals submitted by the original deadline of February 1st will be considered by our vetting committee right away. Ascendio plans to begin accepting proposals in mid-February (while still allowing proposal submissions until February 29 — we’re nice like that! XD)
What kinds of things should you propose? Here are just some examples:
Want to know more? Check out or Call for Papers, or jump right here to submit your proposal!
And if you have any questions, you can always email us or ask us on Facebook or Twitter. Many new proposals have come from discussions on our social media platforms, including discussions on our LiveJournal.
If you’re a fan of YA, general book geekery or an aspiring writer (original or fanfiction!), Ascendio has the programming track for you! The Quill Track will be an entire track of programming (both formal and informal!) dedicated to all things books and writing.Best of all, the Quill Track is 100% included in your Ascendio registration!
Currently, several authors, all bonafide Harry Potter fans, are confirmed for the Quill Track, including Lev Grossman, Beth Revis, Veronica Roth and Aimee Carter.
We will also have not one, but THREE literary agents who will be in attendance: Carlie Webber of the Jane Rotrosen Agency, Lindsay Ribar of the Sanford J. Greenburger Associates agency, and Joanna Volpe, Vice President of the Nancy Coffey Literary Agency. Carlie, Lindsay and Joanna will all be hosting pitch sessions, as well as leading discussions on the publishing industry and writing.
Here are some of the great things you can look forward to as part of the Ascendio Quill Track:
Of course, Ascendio is still all about Harry Potter, but we realize that many fans — including many of us on staff! — love books in general, and have been inspired by Harry Potter and fandom to move on to our own original writing. Hence, the Quill Track was born, by Harry Potter fans, for Harry Potter fans… who also love books and writing! You can expect most, if not all, topics on the Quill Track to relate to Harry Potter, though some will also discuss other titles in YA, middle grade and adult contemporary canon. All of the authors, agents and presenters on the Quill Track are Harry Potter fans, and many of them either wrote Harry Potter fanfic or have actively participated in HP geekery in the past.
The Quill Track is still a part of Formal Programming at Ascendio — we just decided to give all writing/publishing programming a special name so it’s easy to find on the program and at the con! What does this mean? The Quill Track needs you! You can submit a programming proposal for the Quill Track about any of the above topics, or anything you come up with — if it has to do with writing (original or fanfiction!), publishing or books other than Harry Potter (such as The Hunger Games, Divergent), you can propose it for the Quill Track!
Agent Bios:
Carlie Webber is a long-time HP fandomer who worked as a YA librarian and reviewer for publications including Kirkus Reviews prior to becoming an agent. Wishing to explore her interest in the business side of books, she decided to switch from librarianship to publishing and enrolled in the Columbia Publishing Course. Now she is building her agenting career on her favorite genres: young adult, middle grade, romance, horror, mystery, suspense, thrillers, literary fiction, contemporary fantasy and women’s fiction. Her ongoing submissions wishlist includes but is not limited to high-concept YA, literary suspense, grunge era nostalgia and things that go bump in the night.
Lindsay Ribar is a junior agent at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, where she also assists senior agent Matt Bialer. A graduate of New York University and the Columbia Publishing Course, Lindsay works with first-time authors, New York Times bestsellers, and everyone in between. As a writer, Lindsay is represented by Brenda Bowen, also of Greenburger. Her debut young adult novel, THE ART OF WISHING, is about a high school senior who falls for a boy two years her junior, who also happens to be a genie. The first in a trilogy, it will be published by Dial Books, an imprint of Penguin, in 2013. While Lindsay has been in the professional publishing industry for many years, she has spent at least double that time in fandom, lurking on the message boards of FictionAlley, writing one-shots, brainstorming with other writers, and beta-reading. She blames (and thanks) the Harry Potter fandom for making her realize how much she enjoys editing other people’s stories.
Joanna Volpe is a literary agent with Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation and a lifelong Harry Potter fan! She represents all brands of fiction, from picture books to adult. She has an affinity for stories that have a darker, grittier element to them, whether they be drama, fantasy or comedy. Her upcoming publications include Shadow and Bone (Book One of the Grisha trilogy) by Leigh Bardugo, Insurgent by Veronica Roth, Ever Afters: Of Giants and Ice by Shelby Bach, Chained by Lynne Kelly and Sway by Amber McRee Turner. When Joanna is not reading (which is almost never), she can be found either cooking, playing video games, or hanging out with her husband and their chihuahua PeeWee on Long Island.
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