Alice in Writerland: A Writer's Adventures In The Ugly World Of Publishing

If you could have anything you wanted, would you sell your soul for it?

ALICE IN WRITERLAND is an unflinchingly honest memoir that reveals the dark underbelly of publishing and provides a shocking inside view of a world where pompous literary agents, sleazy managers and high-priced creative writing workshops have created an industry that is less interested in pursuing talent and more concerned with ripping off hopeful writers.

If following your dreams meant giving up everything you held dear, would you still do it?

Elisa Hategan started out as a debt-ridden poet who knew absolutely nothing about the publishing industry. On a whim, she applied for and won a scholarship to a prestigious creative writing program. Within a year she had transformed from complete newbie to professional writer, winning multiple art grants and being accepted to the most prestigious MFA program in the country. Better yet, she had the perfect agent and a manuscript that caught the attention of a Big Six publisher.

And then, somewhere along the way, it all went terribly wrong.

Written in the irreverent style of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Elisa Hategan’s Alice in Writerland: A Writer’s Adventures in the Ugly World of Publishing is the heartbreaking and ultimately triumphant story of one woman’s attempt to make it as an author, all the while trying to figure out what that really means in the 21st century.

"I found this to be an absorbing, accomplished, and brutally honest account about what I fear is becoming an all-too-familiar scenario for talented writers....I have recommended Elisa's book to several writer-friends and students. I would also recommend that anyone who works in traditional publishing read this book. As a publishing professional, you might not agree with every insight, but you will come away enlightened about what's happening on the other side of that curtain that separates agent from author, editor from author. And you will walk away with great respect for Elisa's gifts as a writer and her sheer ballsiness to tell it like it is." - former Penguin editor