Finding Your Why with Clelia Castro-Malaspina
Dec 03, 2025
Online event
FINDING YOUR WHY: WHY THIS BOOK? As author, freelance editor and former kid lit agent Clelia Gore knows that the key to finding success with your manuscript is knowing your WHY. In this helpful seminar based on a practice she relied on as a literary agent and now as an author, Clelia leads the exercise of figuring out all the reasons why your book should exist. This exercise helps understand a book's potential place in the current marketplace, helps authors figure out and understand their target reader, helps to formulate the strongest story, as well as identifies all the commercial selling points to help you put forth your strongest pitch to an agent or an editor. Join Clelia to find out your book's WHY and learn a practical exercise that you can incorporate into your writing and pitching process.
Clelia has been a children’s publishing professional for over a decade. An author, a former literary agent and vice president of a boutique literary agency, where she successfully launched a children’s book division. She has always been dedicated to bringing diverse, meaningful and illuminating books to the next generations. Clelia has worked with award-winning, bestselling, and acclaimed fiction and nonfiction creators to develop their manuscripts to sell to publishers. Her clients received starred critical reviews, won awards such as the Sibert Honor, Schneider Family Award, Cook Prize Silver Medal, Christopher Award, Crystal Kite Award, Freeman Award and AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books. Her own first book, YOUR FREEDOM, YOUR POWER: A KID’S GUIDE TO THE FIRST AMENDMENT earned starred reviews. Kirkus called it “current, insightful and savvy,” and Booklist asserted that the book “empowers kids.” Her second book, GIRLS WITH GOALS: HOW WOMEN’S SOCCER TOOK OVER THE WORLD came out in May 2025. She is a mother of two young daughters and you can find her writing and editing at her home nestled amidst old mossy pines on Mercer Island, Washington, an island suburb of Seattle located in the middle of Lake Washington.