Because Big Kids are Kids too

Because Big Kids are Kids too

Dec 17, 2022

It's almost been a year since we first opened Owl's Nest to submissions. That was a leap into uncertainty! Opening our doors to welcome authors to submit to publishing with us made us wonder if anyone would be interested—or would we hear the sound of crickets? Would anyone out there catch our vision? Understand what we were trying to do? Desire to create alongside us? Would excellent writers be willing to take a risk on us, a small and independent start-up in a big sea of big publishing?

Would anyone even submit anything that met our standards of excellence?

Thankfully, we did not open our doors to crickets, and from the first couple weeks of being open to submissions, we had excellent queries lying in our inbox.

There was one that leapt out at us ahead of the others, though, and that manuscript became the first book we signed from an outside author for Owl's Nest Publishers.

Muses from the Moon by W. Scott is special, and I want to talk to you a little bit about why.

We started this publishing house with a vision of meeting the needs of real adolescent readers, and that means adolescents of all ages. Sometimes, when people talk to us about Owl's Nest, Katie and I wonder if we've overemphasized the younger side of our target audience—the Middle Grade (8-12) and Upper Middle Grade (12-14) aged readers we long to reach. Because people frequently talk about how excited they are that we have opened up a publishing house for Middle Grade books. But the thing is, we don't want to overemphasize the Middle Grade side of our business at the expense of the Teen side. And that's where books like Muses from the Moon come in.

Because Muses from the Moon is decidedly for teens, not middle grade readers. And it may not be an easy collection for some people to read. It deals with heavy material and heavy themes. It is an honest examination of depression, hopelessness, and even despair. But it leads the reader through all of that to hope. It is, in short, what many teenagers feel and struggle with in the tender years before adulthood; when I read it, I remembered my own teen years. I saw myself.

It is also poetry! And that was unexpected, for our first signing. Although I appreciate poetry, I am not much of a poetry reader. I never studied it formally and don't feel like I fully appreciate it the way I could. But when I read W. Scott's manuscript, I didn't need a formal education in poetry to know how great it was.

We didn't anticipate our first signed manuscript outside of anything I was writing or Katie was writing to be something written to the oldest end of our audience—the very top range, the very "teen-est" of teens. It would have been easier, honestly (and maybe more lucrative!) to sign a light and whimsical Middle Grade story. But we felt in our souls that Muses from the Moon was the right book for us.

We aim to serve all adolescents, the youngest ones and the oldest ones, too. And W. Scott's soulful and searching poetry lays bare so many things that teenagers feel, and think, and fear, and hope, and long for. It is, in many ways, like a mirror to the soul. On the cusp of adulthood, teenagers often find themselves in places of despair, wondering where they belong in this world, whether God loves them, in need of so many assurances.

I don't know how people will respond to Muses from the Moon as an Owl's Nest book, but I know that there will be teenagers out there who will find much to relate to within the pages: home, hope, empathy, and assurance of God's love. Because big kids are kids too, we knew Muses from the Moon and W. Scott needed to be part of the Owl's Nest family.

Muses from the Moon releases January 15. You can preorder your copy at Owl's Nest today!

Until Nest Time,

~ Karin

P. S. Our intern, Erika, is saying farewell today after seven wonderful months! She has worked sacrificially behind the scenes reading submissions, full requests, and doing all sorts of odds and ends around "the Nest." We are sincerely going to miss her and wish her all the best!

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