Marie Miranda Cruz

BIO
I spent my early life living between the Philippines and the United States. Now I live in Los Angeles with my family, where I work in a genetics laboratory by day and write books for children and teens when I can. I own a ridiculous collection of notebooks (every project needs one right?) I also love to knit. You should see my yarn stash. 😉

PUBLISHING BACKGROUND
I began writing novels in 2007. EVERLASTING NORA was the first novel I had written. I spent a couple of years revising with my critique group and began querying in 2009. I queried for a year with no success. I revised again and jumped back into the query pool. While I waited, I decided to write another book, this time a young adult novel. This one drafted pretty quickly. I spent a year revising and began querying my YA manuscript as well as my middle grade (not giving up!) The next two years in the query trenches was filled with rejections, disappointments, and more revising. Then, in 2012, Paula Munier read my YA manuscript and offered representation. We went through a couple of rounds of revision and went on submission. There were a lot of nibbles but no bites (darn!) After a year, I told my agent about my middle grade novel. She read it and loved it. Once again, I went on submission. Both my books have Filipino protagonists with my middle grade set in the Philippines and my young adult novel set in San Francisco (I love that city!) I received a lot of interest and requests to read but AGAIN–lots of nibbles, no bites. My agent though, NEVER LOST FAITH. She kept pitching my books, while I wrote my third novel. Then in the summer of 2015, my editor requested to read my middle grade novel and a year later, my dream came true.

EXPERIENCE
This is my first time mentoring another writer! My experience consists of working with my critique partners for over ten years. One of them has four published books! What I bring to the table is a strong eye for story structure and plot. If you need this, I’m your girl!