Novel Kickoff Day 2
We’re keeping the momentum going with three awesome guests today!
The Writing Life
Certified book coach, editor, and podcaster Christy Yaros breaks down the complexity of writing a novel - project management style!
Craft Talk
Author, certified book coach, and podcaster Margaret McNellis does a deep dive into POV and talks about how to choose a good fit for your novel.
Genre Focus
Author and certified book coach Mia Manansala talks about writing cozy mysteries and how she developed a character that could sustain a series. (Added note: Today is the book birthday for Murder and Mamon, the fourth book in Mia’s award-winning Tita Rosie series. Show her some love on social media!)
Ways you can thank our guests for their generosity:
follow and thank them on social media (don’t forget to tag them and you can use #novelkickoff to refer to this event)
buy their books or request your library buy them
leave a positive review for their books, podcasts, YouTube channels, etc.
Christy Yaros
Christy Yaros is a certified book coach and story editor, working with serious middle grade and young adult writers who want to create stories that engage, encourage, and empower young people. She happily spends her days talking craft and coaxing stories out of her clients. Previous iterations of Christy have done pretty much all the things in the educational publishing world, from proofreader to managing editor to author. Christy holds an MFA in Writing for Children from Simmons University. Christy is also a Co-Assistant Regional Advisors for SCBWI New England and cohost of the Coaching KidLit Podcast.
Connect with Christy through her website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter (X), and LinkedIn.
Christy created a free project management workbook for Novel Kickoff participants!
Margaret McNellis
Margaret writes historical fiction and historical fantasy, and coaches the same genres (as well as fantasy, alternate historical fiction, and retellings). She holds a BA in art history, an MA in English & creative writing, and an MFA in fiction. Margaret has published two novels: The Red Fletch and Outlawed, books 1 and 2 of her series Heroes of Sherwood. She's working on book 3 of that series. Her book Daughter of the Seven Hills, a four-person POV story set in the mid 100s CE, comes out in May 2024.
Connect with Margaret through her website and Instagram.
Margaret hosts The Magickal Bard podcast.
To learn more about working with Margaret, you can visit her book coaching page.
Mia Manansala
Mia P. Manansala is the author of the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series. The first book, Arsenic and Adobo, garnered starred reviews from Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Shelf Awareness, and has won multiple awards. The New York Times stated, “Manansala peppers the narrative with enough red herrings to keep readers from guessing the killer, but the strength of the novel is how family, food and love intertwine in meaningful and complex ways,” which are common themes in her writing.
A lover of all things geeky, Mia spends her days procrasti-baking, playing JRPGs and dating sims, reading cozy mysteries and diverse romance, and cuddling her dogs Gumiho and Max Power.
Connect with Mia through her website, Instagram, Facebook, and Ko-Fi page.