I'm an author who comes from a family of detectives, including a grandfather who filled my childhood with true crime stories I learned not to repeat at daycare. My novel, CHASE HARLEM, won the grand prize for the Monroe-Walton Center for the Arts New Writers Contest 2021 as well as the 2023 Killer Nashville Claymore Award for Best Unpublished Investigator Novel. I've had had stories and poetry published in Sojourn Literary Magazine, Dewpoint Literary Magazine, The Moonlit Road, and Southern Quill. I've also sold stories to the podcast, Chilling Tales for Dark Nights. I'm represented by Rachel Beck of Liza Dawson Associates.
What does it mean to be "On Submission"?
Published 14 days ago • 2 min read
What does it mean to be "On Submission"?
April 30, 2026
Hello Reader,
This is the question I've been getting a lot lately, both from my self-published writing besties and from friends who are wondering why I'm suddenly checking my email 72 times a day. In traditional publishing, being on submission is just one more step you have to take to get your book picked up by a publisher.
For most traditionally published authors, you write the book, get an agent, go on submission with that agent, then you (hopefully) get a book deal. This process usually takes years, and it comes with a lot of rejection.
I have an excellent agent, and a year ago, we submitted a book together that we have not found a home for. It's been long enough that most people would say this book "died on submission," which is heartbreaking for any author.
Recently, I sent my agent a different book--a Southern Gothic Book. We are now in the process of submitting that book, and I am cautiously optimistic. Here is the pitch for my new book:
Recently sober and on the verge of homelessness, Emma, a talented painter and recent art school graduate, is offered a sponsorship from the art world’s most famous critic, Jackson Wodehouse. The catch? She has to spend the summer building her portfolio in his strange family manor in Natchez, Mississippi. Since 1858, the enigmatic southern mansion Wodehouse, with its octagonal architectural style, has been collecting spirits—and not all of them within the eight walls play nice.
On the plus side, Jackson is surprisingly handsome, and spending time alone with him is certainly appealing. Even if it means dealing with disembodied voices and ghostly figures at the foot of her bed. But when Emma finds the hidden journal of Jackson’s dead sister, Briony—once a marvelously talented artist herself—she’s pulled headlong into the mystery surrounding the girl’s death. Why was she kept housebound like an invalid, when the diary reveals Briony was perfectly healthy? What was the deal with their erratic, possibly toxic mother? The more Emma learns, the more she feels the house’s poisonous secrets pulling at her too, from within the very walls she’s become perhaps too cozy inside.
I'm an author who comes from a family of detectives, including a grandfather who filled my childhood with true crime stories I learned not to repeat at daycare. My novel, CHASE HARLEM, won the grand prize for the Monroe-Walton Center for the Arts New Writers Contest 2021 as well as the 2023 Killer Nashville Claymore Award for Best Unpublished Investigator Novel. I've had had stories and poetry published in Sojourn Literary Magazine, Dewpoint Literary Magazine, The Moonlit Road, and Southern Quill. I've also sold stories to the podcast, Chilling Tales for Dark Nights. I'm represented by Rachel Beck of Liza Dawson Associates.
