My Letter From Julia Quinn
A Lesson in how to be a classy, generous literary citizen
Wednesday, 19 February 2025
“Believe in Yourself” says Julia Quinn of Bridgerton Fame and a Story About Her First Sale
Author Julia Quinn was and is a generous and classy literary citizen. This is a story about how her graciousness impacted my career.
The publishing ecosystem is essentially about all the moving parts involved in taking a book from idea to a salable product. The marketing of that product is another topic, but I wanted to share something that can sometimes go overlooked.
Because they typically have entry fees, writing contests are overlooked as a source of feedback for a book (article, poem, etc.) Good contests with reasonable “starving artist” entry fees and reputable judges can offer some great advice and valuable input at different stages of a book’s development. As long as one does the research into the contest sponsors and judges before entering, they can be helpful. Much like quality researching agents before submitting to them.
I mention this because I have in the past entered portions of my previous novels into writing contests and gotten useful ideas in return very much like some of the responses I’ve received from agent queries. The reason for bringing this up is that years ago I entered a few chapters into a contest called “The Emily” and one of the judges was Julia Quinn who is the author and one of the producers of the Bridgerton Regency romance books and the popular Netflix movie series. It was her first experience judging a writing contest. As a child of the “manners matter” generation and someone who respects the small world that publishing is, I sent Julia a thank you letter after the contest, and she sent me a personal letter in return!
In her letter, Julia explained that she read each entry twice:
“The first time I read as if I were reading a book. This gave me a feel for the writing, a sense of how much I enjoyed reading it. This provided most of the basis for the “overall impression” section on the scoresheet (Quinn).”
Then she describes what she learned from the judging:
“It was a lot of work, but I found the entire judging experience to be very helpful. In the weeks that followed, I found myself noticing things in my own writing I’d never seen before. I had learned to be a discerning reader (Quinn).”
She commends me on my belief that I would someday be a published author:
“I wish you the best of luck. From your letter, it sounds as if you have a lot of self-confidence and truly believe that you will one day be published. Believe me, that is the one weapon you must have in your arsenal to make it (Quinn).”
Finally, she shares her journey to publishing:
“When my agent was sending out my first book, Splendid, and I got rejections, my attitude was, ‘Well, I can’t believe that editor even has a job. She obviously doesn’t know what she is doing.’ As it happens, I was rejected by some of the top editors in the field, so they obviously do have an idea of what they are doing, but what I am getting at is--that attitude saved my sanity. In the end, Splendid went to auction, and I got the highest advance Avon has ever given a first time author (or so they tell me). So the moral of the story is-believe in yourself (Quinn).”
I did and I do and so should you.
Thank you, Julia Quinn, for setting such a great example of how to be a classy, generous literary citizen.
Be well, write well!
~Joy
Works Cited
Quinn, Julia. Letter to Joy E. Held. 24 May 1995.
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JOY E. HELD is an author, educator, editor, entrepreneur, and literary citizen responsible for this site and its contents. She is the author of
Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity (Headline Books, Inc., 2020)
Writer Wellness Workbook: A Guided Workbook and Journal to Accompany Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity (Headline Books, Inc., 2023)
The Mermaid Riot (Fire and Ice YA, 2024) Young Adult Historical Fantasy
She writes spicy historical fiction under a pen name.
She is the winner of multiple writing and book awards:
West Virginia Writers, Inc. Annual Writing Contest, Honorable Mention, Novel, 1998.
New York Book Festival, Honorable Mention, Writer Wellness, 2020.
Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Finalist, Writer Wellness, 2021.
Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America, Member of the Year, 2020.
Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America, First Book Award, 2020.
She is an adjunct faculty member in the Southern New Hampshire University Online MFA Creative Writing.
She is a proud graduate of Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA with an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction.
She is a member of The Authors Guild and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
Joy is the founder and CEO of My WRITEDAY Subscription Box for writers and readers.
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I loved the Julia Quinn letter. Thank you for sharing it!
I loved learning more about Julia Quinn. Thank you for sharing this, Joy!