The agents of Upstart Crow Literary are hosting an #AskUpstart session next Tuesday, April 9th from 1:00-2:00 pm EST. This is an opportunity to ask us any publishing or book related questions – we’re here to help! In preparation for that, here’s some 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, picture books, as well as graphic novels, and non-fiction for children and teens. In addition we also rep 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: Sports? Science Fiction? Mysteries? Etc]
• 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?
• What recently published book did you love?
• What are you currently reading?
• What’s the best April Fool’s Day joke you’ve ever made?

As you can see, anything pertaining to writing, querying, working with an agent, or publishing is welcome. (And for the curious, answers to those last three: Lovely War by Julie Berry, about to start Mister Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, and my best is yet to come!).Any more advice?

• Be sure not to tweet your question until 1 pm EST 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.
• Please don't tweet your question to a particular 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 Wednesday, but even if you can’t make it, we’re planning more #askUpstart sessions for later this year. For updates, please follow the hashtag #AskUpstart on Twitter.