#KidLitPhil Auction item 13 from Emma Walton Hamilton

KidLit for the Philippines is an online talent auction to benefit Mercy Corps and UNICEF relief efforts for Typhoon Haiyan (aka Yolanda). Agents, editors, authors, and illustrators have donated various services and items to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, with donations being made directly to Mercy Corps and UNICEF.

Auction #13: Query Critique

Description: A line-by-line edit and polish of your query or cover letter to agents or editors for a picture book, chapter book or novel.

Estimated Value: $150

Minimum Bid: $50

Auction Ends: 12/3/2013 at 10:00 PM EST

Bio: EMMA WALTON HAMILTON is a best-selling children’s book author, editor and arts educator. With her mother, actress/author Julie Andrews, Emma has co-authored over twenty children’s books, eight of which have been on the NY Times Bestseller list, including THE VERY FAIRY PRINCESS series (#1 Bestseller), JULIE ANDREWS' COLLECTION OF POEMS, SONGS AND LULLABIES, the DUMPY THE DUMP TRUCK series, SIMEON'S GIFT, THE GREAT AMERICAN MOUSICAL, and THANKS TO YOU - WISDOM FROM MOTHER AND CHILD.

Emma’s own book, RAISING BOOKWORMS: Getting Kids Reading for Pleasure and Empowerment, premiered as a #1 best-seller on Amazon.com in the literacy category and won a Parent’s Choice Gold Medal.

Emma is a faculty member of Stony Brook Southampton’s MFA in Creative Writing and Literature, where she also serves as Director of the Children’s Literature Fellows program, and Executive Director of the Young Artists and Writers Project (YAWP), an inter-disciplinary writing program for middle and high school students. A former actress and theatre director, Emma was a co-founder of Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, and served as co-Artistic Director and Director of Education and Programming for Young Audiences there for 17 years.

Emma also works as a freelance children’s book editor, and hosts Just Write for Kids! (www.justwriteforkids.com), an online home-study course in writing for children, as well as the Children’s Book Hub (www.childrensbookhub.com) - a center of resources and support for aspiring children’s book authors. She also provides voicing and narration for audiobooks, and is an accomplished public speaker, regularly addressing arts and literary conferences, schools, universities and other groups about the value of, and synergy between, the arts and literacy.

Often referred to as the "Query Whisperer," she has critiqued hundreds of queries for events such as WriteonCon and Julie Hedlund’s 12X12 Picture Book Challenge, as well as for students and editing clients.

Donor Emma Walton Hamilton’s website: www.emmawaltonhamilton.com

Auction Instructions:

* Bid by posting a comment with your bid amount in U.S. dollars; no anonymous bidding.

* Do not bid unless you intend to pay that amount to Mercy Corps or UNICEF.

* To automatically receive updates on the latest bids, check the “Notify Me” box when you submit your comment.

* Highest bid before the end of the auction wins.

* A note about last-minute bidding: If you are used to online auctions that end at an exact, given second, please know that the KidLitPhil auctions don’t work quite that way. Each auction ends when I post the “Auction closed” comment. I do that when my computer turns to 10pm EST, but because I have multiple auctions to close at that time (also because I am human) it will not be precisely at 10pm EST. At any rate, the winning bid is the high bid before the Auction Closed comment, even if the time on your computer reads slightly after 10:00. Thanks for understanding!

* Winning bidder must donate the winning bid amount to a designated charity organization and provide a copy of the receipt within three days of notification.

    * For physical items, unless otherwise noted, donor pays standard shipping within the U.S.;               winning bidder pays for express shipping or for shipping outside the U.S.