Guest Post: Agent Janna Bonikowski and Debut Author Casie Bazay and Not Our Summer and Query Critique Giveaway and IWSG Post

Happy Wednesday Everyone! Hope you’re having a great start to summer, which is right around the corner. Today I’m excited to have debut author Casie Bazay and her agent Janna Bonikowski here to share about Casie’s YA contemporary Not Our Summer. It sounds like a great story about families and summer trips that I’m hoping to read this summer.

Here’s a blurb from Goodreads:

Five trips, two cousins, one family feud, and a summer that will change their lives forever.

It's bad enough that estranged cousins Becka and KJ see each other at their grandfather's funeral, but when he leaves them a bucket list of places to visit together over the summer, so they can earn their inheritance, it seems like things are about to get much worse.

However, with each trip the cousins complete -- like riding mules into the Grand Canyon or encountering a bear and a hot tour guide at Yellowstone -- they steadily learn about and begin to trust one another. That is until the truth behind Grandpa's bucket list, and their family feud, is revealed, testing Becka and KJ far beyond their limits.

 Before I get to Casie’s and Janna’s guest post, I have my IWSG post and also want to let those of you who follow by email know that I switched my email subscription service to follow.it because Feedburner is no longer going to be supported by Google. This is my first major change on the blog since Casey left the blog. She used to handle all these things. So if you're getting two email notices of posts, please delete the Feedburner one. Hopefully, you won't be getting those emails anymore.

IWSG Post

 

Posting: The first Wednesday is officially Insecure Writer's Support Group Day.

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

The awesome co-hosts for the June 2nd posting of the IWSG are J Lenni Dorner, Sarah Foster, Lee Lowery, Rachna Chhabria and me. I’m so excited to co-host this month.

First, Yvonne Lewis at Nashville Cats asked me to let everyone know that her laptop broke during a thunderstorm. She got it working, but Blogger isn't working anymore. She'll be back as soon as she gets it fixed. She's a poet and has a great blog that I encourage you to follow.

Optional Question: For how long do you shelve your first draft, before reading it and re-drafting? Is this dependent on your writing experience and the number of stories/books under your belt?

I’ve only finished one manuscript so far and am moving towards finishing my current one in the next four or five months. I think it’s a good idea to put it away for a few weeks before tackling revisions. It makes it easier to see the manuscript with fresh eyes. I’m also planning to take one of my turns in my critique group and see what overall revisions they suggest since they will have read all or most of the first draft as I wrote it.

What about you? Do you wait after you write your first draft before revising?

Casie Bazay and Janna Bonikowski Guest Post

A little about how I came to sign with Janna Bonikowski at The Knight Agency:

My path to signing with an agent and getting published wasn’t the traditional one because I actually got the publishing offer first. This occurred after an editor from Running Press Kids favorited my pitch for Not Our Summer during #pitmad in the fall of 2019. I had previously queried about sixty agents with this book (my fourth completed manuscript), and though I had quite a bit of interest, all the queries ultimately ended in rejections.

However, after getting the publishing offer, I still really wanted an agent to help guide me through the process of signing with a Big 5 imprint, so I did one last round of querying. I ended up receiving two offers of representation and decided to sign with Janna in January of 2020!

Instead of doing the usual tell-about-ourselves blog post, Janna and I decided to each share about a personal summer road trip experience since road trips and traveling are a major part of Not Our Summer. So here goes!

Casie:

Most of the road trips I’ve taken have involved camping, either in truck bed camper, RV, or fifth wheel. I grew up camping with my family quite a bit, and now, my husband and kids and I take the occasional camping trip in our teardrop trailer as well. I’ve traveled to many places over the years and have also been to three of the destination that KJ and Becka travel to in Not Our Summer: Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and Key West. They are, in fact, three of my favorite places ever, but for the purposes of this post, I thought I’d pick a road trip unrelated to the story.

The summer between my 7th and 8th grade year, my family and I packed up our late 1970’s model RV for a two-week trip to Florida. Our ultimate destination was Disney World, and even though the beloved theme park was absolutely amazing and definitely defied my expectations, some of the other places we visited along the way were just as memorable.

One such place was Manatee Springs State Park, near the Suwanee River in Florida. The spring itself was crystal clear, and bald cypress trees draped over the bright teal water, giving the area a swampy but magical feel. My family and I walked along a lengthy boardwalk through the trees, which allowed us to venture across the marshland and toward the Suwannee River. We hoped (and also feared) that we might see an alligator along the way. To our disappointment (and relief), we didn’t. Nor did we see any manatees in the area either, but it’s still a place I will never forget.

After visiting Disney World, we then spent a week at the beach near Tampa where we splashed in the waves, built sand creations, and developed sunburns. I had been to the beach at Galveston, Texas as a small child, but visiting the beach in Florida was the first time I actually remember seeing the ocean and realizing just how small we are in comparison to this great big world. It, too, is a memory that has stuck with me.

On the way home, our RV broke down at one point, and I remember spending the day in a church parking lot somewhere in the South, exploring the small, adjacent cemetery while my dad worked on the vehicle. It was hot and humid and we’d had our fill of sightseeing, but it was just one of those hiccups people sometimes deal with while on a road trip—especially when driving an old RV. We eventually made it back home to Oklahoma, eager to get our photos processed and relive those two magical weeks. I’m fairly certain my parents and my younger brother would also say it was one of their favorite vacations as well.

Janna:

I have been on so many road trips, they all blur together into one rear-end-numbing, out-the-window-staring, are-we-there-yet-hearing lump. I have family on all four edges of the US, and I logged many summer hours in the back of my mom’s old blue station wagon visiting them. More still in my own car as an adult with my kids “are we there-ing” in the backseat. 

I’ve driven through snow in Flagstaff, Arizona to play in the Pacific Ocean on Christmas Day. Driven through entire towns that smell like feedlots. (“The smell of money,” according to my cattle-ranching father.) I’ve seen Mt. Rushmore, Old Faithful, the Taos Pueblos, the White House, and the World’s Biggest Windchime. (Why not?) 

Johnny Cash could have been singing about me with “I’ve Been Everywhere.” Or I could be singing it. (On second thought, no. No one wants to hear that. Especially on a long car ride.)

But KJ and Becka’s road trip to Key West reminded me of one road trip in particular. It was a summer tradition for my brother and I to travel to North Dakota to visit my grandparents. Most years, my dad would drive us halfway and we’d meet my grandparents, finishing the two-day trip with them. But on this trip, my older brother had just graduated, had a driver’s license and a car, and we were teenagers with freedom.

I was mainly concerned about getting lost—trust my older brother to navigate? No thank you—and whether his hand-me-down car would make the trip. He was mainly concerned with talking to truck drivers on the radio.

We drove up US Route 54 through Dalhart, Texas and Liberal, Kansas, making our way on two-lane roads up through the center of the country. We stayed overnight at a hotel in the aforementioned town that smelled of feedlot. He drove, dodging every state’s main summer crop—the orange barrel––and I picked out cassettes to play when we couldn’t find a station.

Dodge City. Salina. Sioux Falls. It isn’t the most scenic drive. Certainly not vacation destinations. But we were on our own, and the freedom from parental oversight had us getting along for the first time in our history.

Maybe it’s shared memories, or just being inside your own four-wheeled bubble, but there’s something special about the bond you form on a road trip.

Thanks for sharing, Casie and Janna!

Casie’s Bio

Casie Bazay is a former middle school teacher who now works as a freelance writer, editor, and author. In her spare time, she enjoys exploring the great outdoors, spending time at the barn with her horses and goats, reading, and watching movies. Casie lives on a hay farm in Oklahoma with her husband and two children but loves traveling to new and exciting destinations whenever she can.

Twitter: @casiebazay

Instagram: @Casie_Bazay

Facebook: @casiebazayyaauthor

Website: casiebazay.com

Janna’s Bio

Janna Bonikowski joined the Knight Agency in 2016 with several years of experience as both an independent editor and a freelance editor for Lyrical Press/Kensington. She holds a bachelor’s degree focused on business and economics, but her passion for books made a career in publishing inevitable.

Janna’s clients have appeared on the New York Times, USA Today, and Indie bestseller lists. She is actively building her list, focusing on finding authors with unique viewpoints and fresh, engaging stories to tell.

Agency Website: https://knightagency.net

Twitter: @Jannabonikowski

Giveaway Details

Casie has generously offered a hardback of Not This Summer and Janna has offered a query critique for a giveaway. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower of my blog (via the follower gadget, email, or bloglovin’ on the right sidebar) and leave a comment by June 19th. If you do not want to be included in the critique giveaway, please let me know in the comments. If your e-mail is not on your Google Profile, you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest. Please be sure I have your email address.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog and/or follow me on Twitter, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry for each. You must be 13 years old or older to enter. The book giveaway is U.S. and the query critique giveaway is international.

Upcoming Interviews and Giveaways

Monday, June 7th I have an agent spotlight interview with Katherine Wessbecher and a query critique giveaway

Monday, June 14th I have an interview with debut author Joanne Rossmassler Fritz and a giveaway of her MG contemporary Everywhere Blue

Wednesday, June 16th I’m participating in the Dad-o-mite Giveaway Hop

Monday, June 21st I have an interview with debut author Mike Thayer and a giveaway of his MG fantasy The Double Life of Danny Day

Monday, June 28th I have an interview with Sacha Wunsch, founder of As You Wish Literary, with a 5 first pages plus query critique or 10 first pages critique giveaway

Hope to see you on Monday!