I’m delighted to announce that Upstart Crow Literary will be hosting an #askagent session next Tuesday, Aug 7th from 1:00-2:00 pm EST. In preparation for that, here’s some helpful information about the session. Who’s participating? Danielle Chiotti, Susan Hawk, Alex Penfold, and Michael Stearns. For more information about each of us, please click the ABOUT link for our bios. What do you represent? Children's books of all kinds—young adult, middle grade, and picture books, as well as select cookbooks, adult fiction, and nonfiction. Again, more details and specifics in the About link. Are all four of you open to submissions right now? Danielle Chiotti and Susan Hawk are open. If you’d like to submit a query to one of us, please click the SUBMISSION link and check our feeds this week, as we'll be tweeting our current wishlists! Alex and Michael are currently closed.When you say #AskUpstart, what kind of questions do you mean? Any and all questions are welcome! Here are some examples:

• Can I send you a book that’s incomplete?
• Are you interested in books about [fill in the blank: Fantasy? History? Cheese? A fantastical history of cheese?]
• How do I know that my manuscript is ready for submission?
• Everyone says I need to find a writers group, but I’m not sure. What are the benefits?
• Do advances come in one lump sum, or are they split up?
• Do you like pie?
• What’s your favorite kind of pie?
• Can I send you pie?

As you can see, anything pertaining to writing, querying, working with an agent, or publishing is welcome. As is anything about PIE. Because we love pie! (And for the curious, the answers to those last three: yes; sour cherry; and tempting, but no thank you!). Any more advice? A couple pro-tips:

• Be sure not to tweet your question until 1 pm on the nose, as we won’t be checking before that time.
• Don’t hit send on your tweet until you’ve added the hashtag #AskUpstart. We’ll be searching for tweets with that tag, and may not see others.
• You don’t need to tweet your question to an agent. If you include the hashtag, we’ll all see it, and one or more of us will reply.

That’s all, folks! We hope to see you next Tuesday, but even if you can't make it, we’re planning more #askUpstart sessions for the fall. For updates, please follow the hashtag #AskUpstart on Twitter.