Event Recording
Members Only
April 1, 2024
Professional reviews are critical for middle grade books to help get your work noticed by teachers, librarians, and booksellers. Major review outlets and prominent bloggers can play a significant role in the process of getting your books into the hands of your readers. What makes a book synopsis stand out to potential reviewers? How do review outlets choose what to cover and how to assign a book to a particular reviewer?
Join us for a conversation with Kirkus Reviews young readers’ editor Mahnaz Dar and author and editor Jennifer Baker as they discuss what the MG reviews process is like behind the scenes and what authors should know about getting coverage of their work.
Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor at Kirkus Reviews. Prior to that, she worked as a reviews editor at Library Journal and School Library Journal. When she’s not nose deep in kid lit, she writes freelance articles on TV, movies, and pop culture.
Jennifer Baker, moderator, is an author/editor, the creator & host of the Minorities in Publishing podcast, and on faculty at Bay Path University’s MFA program in creative nonfiction. In 2017, she received a NYSCA/NYFA grant and Queens Council on the Arts grant in Nonfiction. She is the editor of the short story anthology Everyday People: The Color of Life (2018) and the author of Forgive Me Not (2023) a finalist for the 2023 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, an NYPL 2023 Best Book for Teens and 2023 Best of the Best by the BCALA. Her website is: jennifernbaker.com.
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