HOLD THE PRESSES AND STOP DOOMSCROLLING!

I have an announcement, and it's GOOD news

If you’re a writer with ambitions of traditional book publishing, then you know about Publisher’s Weekly. It’s a trade magazine and newsletter; pretty much what Variety is to show biz.

In case you’re not familiar with it, trust me on this: for a debut author, having a book deal announced in PW’s “Rights Reports” section more or less equates to a college player being picked in the early rounds of the NFL draft.

Except I’m way past my college years. Way, way past. Which makes this even more delicious. I am pinching myself even as I type.

Because yesterday my two-book deal with Disney Hyperion was listed in Publisher’s Weekly “Children’s Bookshelf” Rights Reports:

author photo by Tami Rene Photography

Rachel Stark at Disney-Hyperion has acquired Jan M.Flynn's Griffinspeaker and Griffinrider, the first two books in the author's debut middle grade fantasy series. Pitched as Impossible Creatures meetsThe Giver, the series follows 12-year-old Rain, a girl from the lowest tier of her strictly ranked society, who forms a forbidden bond with a wild griffin that allows her to change her destiny. But her rise to a higher class threatens the realm's oppressive social order—and those at the top will stop at nothing see her fail. Publication for book one is slated for May 2026, with book two to follow a year later; Helen Adams at Zimmermann Literary Agency did the deal for world rights.

Yes, that’s a headshot of me up there, grinning like I caught the brass ring because, well, I did.

This is not just one dream coming true; it’s a whole parade of them. A dream agent who found a dream editor with a dream publisher, all of whom believed in my book so much that, unless a piano falls on my head, in the spring of 2026 I’ll be holding a hard copy of it in my happy clutches.

While it feels like bippity-boppity-boo magic, this parade has been a very long time coming. It’s had to slog through some swamps and weed-strewn lots to get here at all.

Which is true for most authors, at least authors of fiction. Mostly we beaver away at our keyboards, telling ourselves stories, listening to the voices in our heads from characters who tend to show up with agendas of their own while we wrangle the whole unwieldy manuscript into something we hope other people want to read.

Then we have to summon the courage to send our fledgling stories out into the world, and that’s a whole tilting-at-windmills quest in itself, with fearsome challenges like pitches and query letters and perils like rejections, imposter syndrome, the whole tortured-writer thing.

You’ve seen that movie. My version of it is a story for another time. Right now I’m fizzing with excitement and hitting the “save” key while celebrate getting to this stage of the journey.

So I’m sharing my good news with you — because while so much about this time in history, this winter of discontent and chaos, feels so dark, there are still points of light. Maybe the darkness even makes them shine brighter.

And maybe my happy little light, my dream coming true, will encourage you to keep working towards your personal vision of what could be.

I firmly believe we come into this world with gifts we’re meant to share. I’m lucky to find a way to share mine, and I hope you will too. After all, nobody else can offer exactly what you have to offer but you.

It doesn’t matter if you bloom early or late. Just keep growing toward the light.