Poor Witch Query Letter

Dear Publisher/ Agent,

Poor Witch is the first in a series of 5-to-10 books introducing Mildred, an orphaned witch who is lonely and loveable, who wants to belong, but has lost her family and is shunned by the local townspeople who fear her.

The plot of Poor Witch focuses on Mildred’s need for a new broomstick to ride. Stuck in the town full of humans who hate her and without transportation to get back home, she stumbles across a pair of siblings who, for reasons that will be revealed later in the series, are unafraid of Mildred and willing to help her acquire a broom and enchant it. To show her gratitude, Mildred promises to train the boy (Bobby, age 8) in the art of witchcraft, and arranges a trainer (Wisdom) for the girl (Betsy, age 11) to learn to be a warrior, while they wait for the month-long lunar broom enchantment spell to complete.

The goals of the trio are interrupted by a dragon who appears, for reasons that will be revealed later in the series, in the children's elementary school. Mildred must overcome her fear of being rejected by the townspeople (and her fear of dragons, obviously, who are very large, scary, and breathe fire, for cauldron's sake) and, along with Wisdom, come to the aid to her two new friends who have a penchant for rushing into danger they can't handle.

Over the course of the book, readers will also meet dragon king Arkyn, High Druid Simeon, his apprentice Analie, Druid Healer Kaleb, the Oracle, Queen of the Fairies Tan'rothia, and the children's mother, Molly, all of whom will be key characters later in the series.

The tone of the series is generally whimsical, but it has darker moments. It doesn't gloss over difficult topics like fear, predators, injury, death, killing animals for survival, and human procreation (with explanations and detail levels that are age appropriate for the market.)

My target market ranges from middle school to young adult, and by that I mean that the complexity, content maturity and tone will age along with my readers over the 5-to-10 year period that I anticipate launching this series of books.

The themes addressed in this series include teamwork, friendship and acceptance; loyalty, duty and doing the right thing; and coming of age. The genres are urban fantasy and children's/young adult literature.

I am confident in my ability to market to this demographic due to my current occupation as owner of a music school in Columbus, Ohio. I personally teach and interact with children and teens every day, and Columbus is known as a test market for new products and services due to both its geographic location (within an 10-hour drive of nearly half the US population and therefore a distribution superpower) and its demographic makeup (which is roughly equivalent to the average demographic makeup of the US as a whole.) Also, as a business owner, I enjoy some local celebrity in two Columbus suburbs (I often joke that it's expensive having one's name in lights), and I have enough marketing experience to know that selling my books after publication will require my hard work and diligence. And finally, I have a grassroots following between the student base at my music school (we have taught over 9,000 students) and the memberships of two churches where I have served in leadership roles as worship and music leaders, including as the director of youth praise bands, since 2001.

I have a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware, which is a top-ten-ranked school in that field. I spent a decade working in manufacturing plants before leaving Corporate America in favor of the uncertainty of small business ownership. My job is incredibly rewarding. I love teaching young people, and I take pride in employing thirty-five Central Ohio workers. Michelle Tuesday Music School has been in operation since we opened in the Columbus suburb of Gahanna, Ohio in 2010.

Reading and writing have been hobbies of mine since early childhood. I recall reading in bed with a flashlight well past bedtime and checking out the maximum number of books the library would allow at once (10 books) each week in the summer. I still have some of the (terrible) poetry and (less terrible) short stories I wrote as a young person stored among other treasured keepsakes. In 2007, I joined a peer review site called writing.com where I've submitted many of my shorter works for feedback from other writers and offered my own detailed comments to their submissions. I created and launched the October Novel Prep Challenge on writing.com in 2008, which is an annual month-long competitive activity featuring daily plotting, character development and setting development assignments designed to create a road map for authors' NaNoWriMo projects. We had 60 participants in 2022, 33 of whom successfully completed all of the assignments, which can be viewed at this link:

https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/2279644-2022-Prep-Calendar

Thank you for considering Poor Witch for publication/ representation. Please let me know if you would like a copy of my manuscript. I would love to work with you.

Literarily,
Michelle Johns (pen/ stage name Michelle Tuesday)
Author/ Owner of Michelle Tuesday Music School