Michigan author Katie Mattie is now represented by Robert Thixton of Pinder Lane & Garon-Brooke Associates. Thixton thinks he’ll have no trouble selling her YA fantasy novel.
What makes the signing more newsworthy is that Mattie will turn 18 next February; she’s a senior at Ypsilanti High School. “As an agent, I wouldn’t have signed her on as a client if I didn’t think I could sell her work,” Thixton said. “It’s very rare for a person who’s 17 to produce such a literate manuscript.”
Her novel, MAJIC and the Oracle at Delphi, is “the first in a projected four-volume series. It follows the adventures of five modern-day girls who receive powers from ancient Greek gods to defeat the Titans.” According to Ann Arbor.com, she got the idea in 2007, soon after reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. “If my friend and I had a superpower, what would it be?” Mattie asked herself.
She wrote mostly on weekends, about 2,500 words per week, during her sophomore year, and then finished the book in a three-week burst after school ended in June 2008. She’s polishing the book now, and Thixton expects to submit it in January.