Young Adult Fiction First Pages, with Emily Forney

Submissions: There will be one submission of your first 3750 words (approximately 15 pages) at the workshop start. Participants should also plan to share their pitch/short summary with their pages. Your pitch is not included in the word count and will not be critiqued.

Members: $105; Non-members: $127

We are pleased to offer a spot free of charge to a writer from a historically marginalized group. Applications for this scholarship have closed.

About Emily Forney

After earning her MFA in Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University, Emily worked in editorial roles for literary magazines, journals, and digital prints before finding her home at BookEnds. She was named a 2022 Publisher's Weekly Star Watch honoree and was previously a Publishing Fellow with the LA Review of Books. She currently directs the BookEnds Publishing Fellowship, which mentors aspiring publishing professionals from marginalized communities and provides them with hands on education, resources, and workshops for roles throughout the industry. As a writer and former editor, she actively writes about identity, Blackness, and pop culture.

Emily loves good genre fiction in the form of re-tellings, magical realism, high fantasy, and spooky. For young adult, she tends to lean more in the fantasy and speculative realm, but would also like to find Jenny Han-like cozy, sweet stories. She's also a sucker for classic YA tropes (fake dating, high school contests with rivals to lovers, etc.) She would like to see more fiction from BIPOC and stories that do not necessarily feature trauma at the forefront of these characters’ arcs (although she is open to reading anything complex and well done). She would love the next best heist novel, mythological retellings, young assassins, and heart pounding fantasy romances.