Another Writer Reaches Silver Pen: Jessica Holland!!

Say congrats to Jessica Holland of Kentucky, who hit Silver Pen by writing >15,000 words on her NaNoWriMo project! We’re so excited to share more about her below!

Feel free to tell Jessica how fab she is  on her Twitter, NaNoWriMo, or Malala Fundraiser page. She’d love to hear from you all!!

Keep reading to learn more about her and her NaNoWriMo project!

What is your favorite book and/or author, and what draws you to them?

My YA fantasy squad: Leigh Bardugo, Susan Dennard, Renee Ahdieh, and Sarah J. Maas. But my first love in fantasy is Robin Hobb. Her Assassin’s Apprentice series is practically perfect in every way. I also really love fiction written by American women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Hope Leslie (1827) by Catharine Maria Sedgwick reads like the best trashy soap opera, only it’s about Puritans (Puritans in a trashy soap opera, whaaaaaat?). Cross-dressing girls, explosions, and subversive female main characters who reject authority around every turn. It’s everything I love wrapped up in one book.

Is this your first book? If not, what was the first book you ever finished writing? Tell us a little about it.

Queen of Thieves is my first completed book (I have a half-finished middle grade somewhere in the dark recesses of my hard drive). I wrote the first draft of QoT during Camp NaNoWriMo in April and July of this year. I’m doing a 100% rewrite this month with the goal of 90,000.

What’s the working title of your NaNoWriMo17 project?

Queen of Thieves

Give us an elevator pitch of your project.

Share your favorite line/short paragraph from your book so far.

Valora threw herself sideways, grabbing the crop from Ryo’s hand. She clubbed him on the side of the head with the handle, and he crumpled to the ground, unconscious, his hand just outside the training ring.

She sat on her knees, breathing heavy. Some of her hair had escaped from her braid, and she pushed it out of her face. She had won.

She looked up when she felt their eyes on her. The group stared at her in stunned silence.

She thumped the crop on her palm. “Handle is weighted,” she said, chest heaving.

Soren clapped, slow at first. Then Kirion joined. Then Caz and Heena and Branna and the rest of them, until the cavern echoed with their applause.

Aimon jogged over to her and held out his hand to help her up.

She took it.

How did you hear about the Mighty Pens?

Sooz’s newsletter. Also probably on Instagram because I watch her stories religiously.

What inspired you to join the Mighty Pens?

I was going to do NaNoWriMo anyway, so when the call came for participants, I knew I had to join. I think the world needs more good right now, and supporting girls’ education around the world is the kind of good I needed to help with. Raising money for good causes is more important now than ever.

Congrats again, Jessica!! Keep doing up the great rewriting work!