Introduction

In today's Books with Hooks segment, Bianca, Carly and CeCe discuss the importance of specifying between awards for published and unpublished manuscripts; the difficulty with trying to sell a book whose main character’s race and culture differs from the author’s lived experience; the need for a main character’s interiority to accurately reflect their age; including specifics in your plot paragraph; being explicit with your stakes; including information that shows the relationship dynamics between your protagonist and others; and the need to start your story in the right place.

After which, Bianca interviews writer and essayist, Maura Cheeks. They discuss Maura's debut novel, Acts of Forgiveness; intentionality with the novel's timeline; Maura's journey to publication; the reasons for the delay in publishing Acts of Forgiveness; the extent to which Maura's submission pitch aligns with the published book; the research process; writing a dual timeline as a debut novel; and incorporating news stories and speeches as exposition.

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