Author Hannah R. Goodman
Psychotherapist by day and writer by night, Hannah R. Goodman prefers tea over coffee, cats over dogs, and staying in over going out (especially if that means watching reality dating shows!). Her accomplishments include earning extra letters after her name—MFA, MEd, CGS, LMHC. Additionally, she’s been published by several online publications, including MindBodyGreen, OC87 Recovery Diaries, and Zencare.co, The Mighty, and Scary Mommy. In 2018, Black Rose Writing published her contemporary YA novel, Till It Stops Beating, which was praised by reviewers for its realistic and hilarious depiction of first love, first loss, and first mental breakdown. Literary Titan’s review praised Till It Stops Beating for “tackling a difficult issue like anxiety and making a story that was funny and sweet without making light of the issue.”Her publishing history goes back almost 20 years when she published My Sister’s Wedding, which won first place in the 2004 Writer’s Digest Self Published Books Awards Children’s/Teen Division. The Wild Rose Press will publish her New Adult romance novel, I Love That Girl, on January 1, 2025. One Goodreads review says I Love That Girl is “simultaneously joyous, sexy, and uncertain” and is “the perfect book for any season of life.”
This is Author Hannah R. Goodman’s writing and publication journey in her own words…
As a plucky, imaginative 8-year-old, I told my 4th-grade teacher, Mrs. Walsh, that my future ambition was to be an author like Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary. Mrs. Walsh, although very surly and liked to knock down my over-confidence with remarks like “You are the second best reader in the class, not the first,” awarded me with a badge at the end of the year: “Ambition Is To Be An Author.” Not the Best Writer. No, my “award” was for my ambition.
For many of my 20 years as a published author, I was driven by ambition, which unfortunately turned into desperation.
While my ambition was to be The Next Judy Blume and dominate the world of YA contemporary literature through my Maddie Series books, my desperation was that I believed, in the most frantic and determined way, that if I followed the letter of the law of those more experienced and successful than I, then I would win the golden ticket (a.k.a. a book contract with one of the Big 5).
The very first example is that, after a few years of rejections, I decided to self-publish. This decision came from the advice of “A Person In The Know,” who said that she’d seen people use it as a platform to gain attention from agents.
She was right. This book won a significant award, and agents started to contact me. I signed with one of them only a year after self-publishing. The next piece of advice came from other author friends I made through self-publishing. They said to go to as many writing conferences as possible, so I did. While this didn’t land me a book contract, it helped me to make friends with more published authors. When four years of conferences and working with an agent didn’t move me any closer to a book deal, an author friend told me to get an MFA, focus on craft, and revisit the publishing part later.
Maybe this would be it! When I started the MFA program in 2009, one of my instructors told me to fire the agent because it was now 4 years, and no book deal. According to her, this was not a good sign (she was right). So, I fired the agent, finished the MFA (and grew a hell of a lot as a writer!), followed the advice of another teacher in the program, and upon graduation, submitted to new agents, landing one not even a year after graduation. I also wound up in a feature article on Publishers Weekly! My ambition was starting to pay off—maybe. During my time with the second agent, I revised and rewrote three different manuscripts based on every piece of advice she gave me. As we set out to submit, I thought I was very close.
I wasn’t. Four years later, I was nowhere near a book deal, and my spirit was crushed. I had spent from 2003 to 2014 in a desperate chase for the ultimate prize, and I failed to win it.
So, the agent and I parted ways, and I gave up.
For two years, I focused on writing for the love of it. I didn’t attend one workshop or conference. I resisted the overwhelming urge to submit to agents and editors because that urge was fueled by desperation (and my ambition caused me nothing but grief by this point), and I was sick of desperation.
So, tossing aside both ambition and desperation, in 2016, I began to submit personal essays that I was really proud of. I carefully researched the market and targeted only those publications that fit my niche.
And it worked. I began to get published and GET PAID (BONUS!).
That’s when it all became clear: I needed to be deliberate rather than desperate, look inward rather than outward, and listen to my inner voice rather than just the voices of those around me.
In 2017, I learned that an author friend had a book coming out with a small press called Black Rose Writing. Desperation gone and ambition still high, I decided to query them. At this point, another rejection wouldn’t hurt me, couldn’t hurt me. Yet, I still wanted my work to have a home.
When they sent me the congratulations-we-want-you email, I was thrilled but not delusional. As I inked out my name on the contract, I no longer believed in the delusions of grandeur I once had: that I would be the next Judy Blume.
Overall, it was a great experience. However, after two years, they parted ways with me. I wasn’t hurt or offended. I was ready to go, too. I hadn’t found the perfect fit for my genre, which at the time was YA romance.
Last year, as my father was dying and the world was trying to recover from the pandemic, I decided to blow the dust off another manuscript that one of my agents failed to sell. My father was a big cheerleader for my writing, so I wanted to do something that he would be proud of. My ambition was still strong!
This book was written as a challenge—could I write a steamy romance? Could I write characters who were not teens? The answer is YES!
I Love That Girl is a New Adult romance featuring 4 main characters and a revolving POV. It’s HEAVY on the STEAMY romance! I submitted to a few small publishers, and when The Wild Rose Press sent me a congratulations-we-want-you email, I was elated (and again, not delusional)! I Love That Girl is available for pre-order and will be released worldwide on January 1, 2025.
Ambition still drives me, but desperation is in the rear-view mirror. My advice to other writers is: do not allow the desperation to make a dream come true drive your writing or your publishing journey. Lead with your passion and ambition, and you will arrive exactly where you need to be.
And in the words of one of the wise mother-figure characters in I Love That Girl:
“I’m a firm believer in doing what scares you…especially when the fear is all inside your head.”
Hannah R. Goodman’s works that are available for purchase…
I Love That Girl (pre-order ebook)
I Love That Girl (Paperback)
Till It Stops Beating (ebook)
Till It Stops Beating (Paperback)
The Maddie Chronicles (ebook)
The Maddie Chronicles (Paperback)
