Candlewick Press

I write picture book and middle grade and YA literature, and I've been doing that since about 2008.

Um, and I have published most of my work with Candlewick Press.

And I'm Kate Fletcher.

I'm an editorial director at Candlewick Press, where I have worked for 22 and a half years.

Um, and I work on all kinds of books from very young to YA and many, many books with Meg.

It's so amazing to have you both.

But when my editor and I...

I work with Candlewick Press, and Mary Lee Donovan, my editor, when we discussed it... she said, we were, we talked about how, you know, there's an age of magical thinking for kids and kids who really love fairies and elves and gnomes and magical beings tend to be of a younger age.

So I took that really long book and shortened it, but then, um, Somewhere along the way, it just wasn't working out.

And so I ended up realizing I had all of this fascinating stuff about the flower fairies, and I decided to go with that first.

And then with Judy Moody, at that point, Dick was sort of semi-retiring.

And so I started working with Mary Lee Donovan at Candlewick Press.

This goes back 25 years, so now I've been with her.

Dick ended up retiring, and so I stayed with her and with Candlewick Press for these 25 years.

So again, I'm so lucky to have an editor who's so eager and willing to look at and read and support the next work that I do.

But I do think it's important, as I mentioned, for aspiring writers to to get an agent because you really need an inroad to editors these days.