Student receives book deal

Whitney Taylor was granted a publishing contract for her young adult novel

Most college students spend four years at a university in hopes of landing a dream job after graduation. Liberty University junior Whitney Taylor has made her dream a reality at the young age of 20 by scoring a publishing deal for her debut young adult novel, Definitions of Indefinable Things.

“The novel follows the lives of three teens in a small town whose lives intersect in ways they never expected,” Taylor said. “Teaching them there is no one-size fits-all definitions of depression, friendship and love.”

The novel is written from the perspective of 17 year-old Reggie who suffers from clinical depression. Her life is turned upside down when she crosses paths with Snake, the apathetic yet intriguing “bad boy” who also suffers from clinical depression.

“Writing this book was very personal, because I struggled with depression through high school, so I felt I was able to accurately write about it,” Taylor said. “Also, when I came across the dismal yet comedic Twitter account @Time4Depression, I knew I did not want to write a book about depression that was dark. I wanted to write a book that used that same humor I found on Twitter to bring light to depression in a fresh and quirky way.”

Taylor has been writing for fun since she was in high school and she wrote Definitions of Indefinable Things in only one month during the summer of 2014 after breaking her leg.

“I was up in my room bored to death so I decided to write this book all day, every day,” Taylor said.

Taylor’s defining moment in this process came when she discovered a contest on Twitter called “Pitch Wars” where authors tweet a synopsis of their book in hopes of mentors selecting them to help revise their novels. Taylor was one out of thousands who entered, and was chosen by Erica Chapman, one out of 75 mentors, who helped Taylor revise her book.

She then submitted it through another contest on Twitter called #PitMad, where Taylor received a request from literary agent Maria Vicente who read Definitions and knew she wanted to represent Taylor after only a couple of days.

After receiving rejections from various publishers, editor Margaret Raymo at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) read Definitions of Indefinable Things in one day and the next morning, offered to publish Definitions.

“I laughed out loud throughout, and I cried,” the email from Raymo to Taylor said. “(It’s) All the Bright Places meets The Fault in Our Stars meets Juno. Such a fantastic voice.”

Taylor said the past few months have been a whirlwind.

“I feel like the Lord has really blessed my journey,” Taylor said. “I put a lot of hard work into this because it was something I loved, I never knew it was actually going to go somewhere.”

HMH publishing has purchased World Rights Definitions of Indefinable Things, in hopes of selling the novel in various countries worldwide.

Taylor has more young adult novels she is currently working on and hopes to have more books published in the future.

In addition to becoming an author, Taylor is majoring in psychology with a focus in counseling and human development with plans to receive her master’s degree. She hopes to be a counselor for teens struggling with mental illness.

For more information on Taylor, her website is www.whitneytaylorbooks.com.

Humphreys is a feature reporter.