Better Books was founded to help writers like ourselves to develop our craft with expert professionals in a supportive community. We started as a middle grade and YA critique group that met at our favorite indie bookstore, Book Passage, in Corte Madera, California. While some of us have moved country or genre, Better Books continues with a leadership team including members from the community we’ve built.
In fourteen years, Better Books has seen matches made between agents and writers, critiqued manuscripts get published, and lasting friendships made. Every year we look forward to building community between writers, authors, agents, and editors and sharing our passion for writing for children.
Darcey Rosenblatt is a primarily middle-grade farmer of stories. Her debut novel, a historical fiction about a twelve year-old boy sent to fight in the Iran-Iraq war in 1982, LOST BOYS, came out with Henry Holt in 2017. Recently retired from her career as an environmental planner, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She loves to dance and paint. Her favorite book as a kid was Wrinkle in Time. Darcey is represented by Erin Murphy of the Aevitas Literary Agency.
Shannon Ledger writes YA, MG and adult fiction with speculative elements. One of her works-in-progress won an SCBWI SF South Golden Gate Conference Award for Novel and was a finalist at the recent SCBWI SF South Agent and Editors Day. After working in management consulting and for early internet companies, she moved home to Santa Rosa where she has helped run a family business, been a strategy consultant, founded and produced TEDxSonomaCounty, and served on several nonprofit boards. She is represented by Eva Scalzo of Speilburg Literary Agency.
Alie Berka writes middle grade novels and picture books. Her picture book, Daphne Moves to Hawaii (Mutual Publishing), is about a dog that moves to Hawaii and gets homesick. She shares the same birthday as Beverly Cleary, who is her favorite author in the children’s book world and her inspiration. Alie volunteered in the public schools for over twenty years and worked in development and marketing/communications for nonprofits. She and her husband, Mike, have three grown children and a rambunctious pug. She loves theater, yoga, hiking, and all things chocolate.
Amanda Conran lives in England, but still works remotely for Book Passage in Corte Madera, California, facilitating Ink, a writing group in which middle graders write middle grade fantasy novels. The program was mentioned in James Patterson’s Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians. She’s the author of The Lost Celt, Goosebottom Books, 2016, and a freelance editor. An active SCBWI member, her work received the SCBWI SF South Golden Gate Conference Award for Novels.
Emily Avery Martin writes middle grade fiction and teaches 6th- to 8th-grade Language Arts and Creative Writing. She grew up sailing in the South Pacific with her parents and four siblings, and as an adult, crewed on several voyages in the Caribbean. Perhaps that is why four of her novels are set on the sea. Emily also writes poetry and travel memoir essays. Her short story, A Road to Connection, was published in a 2022 Chicken Soup for the Soul book. Her favorite book as a kid was Treasure Island and any mystery she could get her hands on. When not writing, teaching, or reading, you can find her swimming in the ocean, sailing, surfing, or pretending to be a mermaid.