Writers' News - Don't give up

Don't give up

If your manuscript has bounced back with a ‘thank you but no thank you’ 59 times and you feel like giving up, Leeds writer Gillian Rogerson urges you not to.

It was only on her 60th attempt that classroom assistant and mother of two Gillian, struck lucky with Gullane Children’s Books (an imprint of Pinwheel Children’s Books). They loved her work and took on two books for the four to seven years age range: Happy Birthday Santa was published in October with The Teddy Bear Scare due out in February.

Gillian has always written but says she only started to take it seriously six years ago, when she subscribed to WN. Over the years she has taken a Home Study correspondence course on Writing for Children and won the the Writing for Children competition in April 2003.

Following her success with Gullane, Gillian decided to secure an agent ‘to develop my writing career further and help with things like contracts and film rights,’ she says, adding, ‘I would like to become a full-time writer, perhaps moving more towards series for young readers aged six to eight.’

She found her agent, Eve White, in the pages of the Children’s Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook and with her help has already sold a third book to Gullane, The Smallest Hero, out in August. Eve is also ‘in talks’ about a television series, which Gillian says is ‘very exciting’.

Gillian is still sending off manuscripts to other publishers and reports, ‘If you show some signs of success, they seem to take you more seriously’.

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