I said in my last events update that I would tell you next time what a live pitch is, as I had mentioned that I was able to have a successful live pitch with an editor from a literary agency in Denver. It requires a little bit of an explanation. You see, when you finish writing a book, the next thing you do is look for an agent to represent your book with publishers. This has always been done with a query, which is basically a letter to an agent introducing your book, giving a synopsis, and a little about yourself. They usually ask for the first 3 chapters, or 50 pages, or 10, etc. What you’re hoping is that you will wow them with your query and they will ask to see your complete manuscript. This is the most discouraging part of being a writer because it just seems impossible to sway an agent. I can tell you that I sent over a hundred queries for The Secret of Surviving In The Sea with never a positive response. I finally went with a hybrid publisher. Now I will have to explain what that means in the next update.

Anyway . . .

A live pitch is when you get to sit with an agent or editor face to face and tell them about your book, hoping to sway them in person. It is so personal and such a better way to do it. You just don’t get the opportunity to do that except at a writer’s conference. You sign up for the 10 minutes that you will get, to convince that person that they want to represent your book. Or at least look at it. So when I said I had a successful live pitch I meant that the editor, Angie Hodapp and I, really hit it off at the conference and she asked me, not for my complete manuscript, but for a query. So now it is a solicited query. Much better than an unsolicited query. Unfortunately this still didn’t work out for me, and my solicited query for my book, Adayla, Adayla, Soft and Wild, was rejected. Bummer. So back to the queries. And decisions to make, whether I want to go the Hybrid Publisher route.

The League of Utah Writers
The Quill, April 2025

Reflections of a League President
Interview with former League of Utah Writers President Louise Hurd
by League Historian Richard Shaw

Louise Hurd began her writing career in her twenties during the 1970s. Having grown up in Ogden, she found the Blue Quill Chapter of the League of Utah Writers and began attending meetings. “I was young and had just started writing so I wanted input from other writers,” she said in a recent interview with the current League President Rachael Bush. “All the members were older than me and they helped me a lot.” Because of the affiliation between Blue Quill and the League, she soon joined the state organization as well. She began attending Roundups (the name the main conference had until it was renamed Quills) and loved them.

Her first experience in publishing took place in 1976 when an article of hers appeared in Teen Magazine. “At the time I was writing mostly for a young adult audience and also children’s stories and poetry. Many of those works appeared in the Children’s Friend (a publication of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.) Soon members talked her into becoming the President of the Blue Quill chapter, and she did that for some time. Then she was approached about becoming President of the League for 1986-87. The year before she had won more awards than anyone else, some in published categories and some in unpublished categories. At the time she was producing short stories and poetry.

“It was daunting," Louise recalls. "I was one of the youngest people in the League and there was so much to do. What we mostly did that year was work on the Roundup for the next year. It was a lot of work. I was in charge of finding speakers for the conference, and the one I remember the best was Robert Newton Peck.” But the height of being President for her was the fact that she got to read off all the awards at the banquet. Still, it had been a challenge. “I like being alone so all that I had to do to get the conference organized and deal with people was definitely out of my comfort zone.”

Louise started keeping a journal when she was in the fifth grade and still does that to this day. She presently uses a journal app to do it. The company that runs the app will take what she puts in and then they turn it into a hard bound book. She is also in the process of taking her old journals pre-app and entering them. The process of doing that is presently up to 1978.

Louise left the League a number of years ago because her husband became ill and she took care of him for ten years. He passed away just before COVID hit. So, for the last five years she has been working on her projects. “When they told us we had to stay home for COVID, I wasn’t unhappy, I was actually thrilled.” But now she has rejoined both the Blue Quill chapter and the League. She also has a new book called The Secret of Surviving in the Sea coming out from a publisher in New Jersey. She had been working with them and they sent her author copies, but it was around the holidays and she was getting a lot in the mail, so she didn’t open the box at first. Her sons were at her house when she opened it one night and she got so delighted she could hardly believe it. “I ran to a room where my two sons were and started waving a copy around because I was so excited. My son said I was like a little kid on Christmas morning, jumping up and down.”

Now that she is a member again she hopes to be able to contribute to the League. The difference between her first writing experience years ago and writing now is that when she was in her twenties and thirties that was the extent of her life experience. Now that she is about to turn seventy-five there is so much more to understand about how life works. “I am now kind a newbie again, but if anyone looks at me and thinks ‘What does she know?’ well, I can look at them and think ‘What do you know?’ I have a whole different attitude. It’s like I’m a different person. I am confident in myself and who I am.”

Voyage Utah Magazine
Rising Stars: Meet Louise Hurd of North Ogden, Utah

Newman Springs Publishing
A video interview with my publisher

Sassy Reviews
Interview with author Louise Hurd

and I quit writing for a few years, it was not just the fact of raising children and having a home and husband. As we all know, life has its ups and downs and it is not always the season for pursuing our hearts desires. But as I lived those years without writing, my life was certainly not a desert, but a vivid landscape with more and more life experiences being added to my storehouse. After my husband died I slowly became aware that this is the perfect time of my life to brush off my old dreams and start writing again.

My first novel, The Secret of Surviving in the Sea., formed fully in my mind for probably a year. It took me three months to write it, approximately another year working with an editor, then almost a year to get it published and available to the public. I don’t know if I ever thought this day would finally come, but here it is and I am thrilled!

and experienced many things, like growing up (a feat in itself), falling in love, raising five children, traveling the world with my husband and subsequently caring for him through ten years of declining physical health, losing him unexpectedly, and surviving the surrealism of losing my house in a fire.

I sold my first short story to Teen Magazine when I was 26 years old. I wrote seriously while raising three, then four, then five babies. I sold many short stories and poems but I always wanted to be a novelist. I also won numerous awards, mostly from The League of Utah Writers, of which I also served one year as president. Circumstances of life took me away from my writing for several years, but I’m back! And my first published book is now available online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, paperback and ebook—what an exciting ride this has been.