Writers With Wrinkles

Most rejected picture book and middle grade manuscripts aren't turned down because they're bad — they're turned down because an editor has already seen five just like them. Susan Marston, the new editorial director of Albatros Books' US expansion (and former 25-year editorial director of the Junior Library Guild), joins us to lay out exactly what's landing on her acquisitions list right now — and what's already been done to death.
We talk about why Albatros — the largest publisher in the Czech Republic — is betting big on the American market, what makes a manuscript feel "irresistible" to an editor who's read literally thousands of submissions, and why she thinks the industry needs way more funny books, shorter word counts, and readers who aren't just "a boy and a girl who are best friends." Susan also gets specific about the exact gaps she's trying to fill: mysteries that go beyond the Sherlock-and-sidekick formula, horror-lite for middle grade, memoir, magical realism, and chapter books that actually try something new.
If you write for kids, this is the episode where an active acquiring editor tells you, out loud, what she wants to see land in her inbox.
In this episode:
Why Albatros Books chose now to expand into the US market
What "fun nonfiction" means as an acquisitions strategy
The gap in chapter books Susan is actively trying to fill
Why humor is one of the hardest — and most underrated — things to acquire
Her take on the "boy and girl best friends" trope in middle grade, and why it's fading
Why she'd take a great 200-page book over another 400-page epic any day
Where to send your submission (and what she's hoping lands in that inbox)
Submissions: Albatros Books is actively acquiring picture books and chapter books from North American authors. Submission guidelines are on their website — send yours to submissions@albatrosbooks.com.
Hit play, grab a pencil, and get ready to take notes — then head to writerswithwrinkles.net for the full breakdown and links mentioned in this episode.
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AI companies are shredding rare books to train their models—and now authors are the ones being told to prove they didn't use AI to write their own. Beth and Lisa unpack the double standard rocking publishing right now.
From a debut novelist's multi million dollar book deal getting pulled over AI suspicion, to writers being told to reinsert typos and kill their em dashes just to "prove" they're human, the burden of proof has landed on exactly the wrong people. Beth and Lisa dig into who gets accused (and who conveniently doesn't), why the "nudge theory" behind blue recycling bins explains what's really happening here, and why voting with your dollars might be the only leverage writers have left. Plus: the AI-sounding conference invite that had Lisa convinced she was being scammed — until it wasn't.
Here is the content Lisa references: 
1) Any AI use can never be completely “safe” but using for research, brainstorming, etc. can be acceptable. Usage for critiquing, improving prose or pacing, generating drafts is NOT. AI generated text is NOT copyrightable.
2) When using AI, stick to paid plans or walled gardens. Read the terms of use carefully re: training, storage of your prompts, input text, etc.
3) Avoid inputting your manuscript. Use prompts instead.
4) Cross-check all output for accuracy (false answers, hallucinations, poor nuance).
5) Keep all evidence of your process whether original or AI-involved. 
 Okay.  Now hit play, then tell us: has AI made you paranoid about your own writing voice?
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Your opening pages have about 30 seconds to keep a literary agent reading — and most manuscripts lose that fight before the first paragraph ends.
Developmental editor Joel Brigham returns to unpack exactly what makes an agent stop reading (and what makes them keep going): the four ingredients — tension, suspense, mystery, and unfairness — that hook a reader in the first few pages. He breaks down why agents almost universally reject prologues, the two-highlighter trick for catching your own info-dumps before an agent does, and where your inciting incident actually needs to land depending on your genre — it's earlier than most writers think.
If you've ever gotten a same-day rejection and wondered why, or you're prepping pages for a conference critique or your next query batch, this is the fix-it guide for those first ten pages.
Hit play — then check the chapter markers below to jump straight to the section you need.
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Note: If you downloaded this episode before 8/3 and experienced audio issues, please delete the download and hit re-download to grab the clean audio file!

Wendelin Van Draanen spent 10 years collecting rejections before anyone said yes to her Sammy Keyes mystery series — she just kept writing the next one anyway. Now, 40 books and 30 years later, she's still with the same editor who finally did.
If you've ever wondered whether to keep pitching a project nobody wants yet, or whether staying loyal to one editor for decades is a mistake in an industry that rewards jumping ship — this conversation is the counter-argument. Wendelin also gets candid about the moment Rob Reiner called to option Flipped, what it actually takes to hand your book to Hollywood without losing your mind, and the book-festival disaster that had two authors comparing notes on the exact same nightmare bookstore.
Ghosted, Wendelin's new romantasy, is up for pre-order now ahead of its October 6th release.
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You could finish four books this year and only ever get to publish one of them.
That's the traditional publishing timeline in a nutshell — and it's why more authors are quietly going hybrid: keeping one foot in a trad deal and self-publishing everything else on their own schedule, without waiting on anyone's calendar.
In this episode, Beth and Lisa break down what a hybrid author actually is (not to be confused with a hybrid publisher — totally different thing), why it's suddenly everywhere in publishing conversations, and the different ways real authors are structuring it: splitting genres between trad and self-pub, keeping e-book/audio rights on a trad print deal, reissuing backlist titles that reverted back to them. They also get into the real tradeoffs — creative control and faster cash flow vs. running two jobs at once (author and small business owner) — plus a few authors doing it well right now, like Rebecca Thorne.
Also in this episode: a shoutout to listener and author Kate McCarrell Moore's new release, Walter and Benny: Good Guys, Nature Spies, and a preview of next episode's guest, bestselling author Wendelin Van Draanen.
Hit play, and if you're new here, follow the show — new episodes every week. Find more at writerswithwrinkles.net.
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