Even Laurie Halse Anderson Needs Persistence

You know Laurie Halse Anderson, author of highly-acclaimed YA novel, Speak, as well as other equally moving and successful books? Apparently her historical novel, Fever 1793, didn't have an easy road to publication even with all of her authorial success. On her Tumblr, Anderson says:

"The research and writing took seven years. Thirteen publishers rejected it…I lost track of the number of revisions. 14? 112? Whatever, it took a long time and needed a lot of work. This book was my apprentice piece."

I think Anderson is an amazing writer, so it's shocking to see that she would have had to work so hard and face so much rejection with Fever 1793. Fortunately, she kept at it:

"It has sold more than one million copies in the United States, won all kinds of shiny awards, is a standard part of elementary and middle school curriculum, and has been translated into Catalan, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, and Spanish."

Lesson learned? Persistence pays off, and even amazing, super successful writers face challenges. Keep going, writers!