Portland, OR, August 12, 2011—RainTown is excited to have acquired two young adult manuscripts, an as-yet-to-be-named title by 19-year-old Danielle Myers, and Wax, by novelist Phil Duncan. Both are first-time novelists.
In Wax, Yancey Muncy is awkward, geeky, and—dead. Brought back to life by a secret serum and released into his unsuspecting town, Yancey is now determined to do all the things he had always wanted but felt too timid to do. Unfortunately, the inventors of the serum have other ideas for Yancey. A little mayhem, maybe a little rampaging, ensues. In the end, all we have to say is “watch out Frankenstein, there’s a new reanimated guy on the block, and our guy is a lot younger than yours and can talk—in full sentences.”
Phil Duncan is a writer of marketing content and copy, but meanders into the worlds of film, web content and fiction/non-fiction when not paying the bills. He currently lives in Portland, OR, with his law-student wife. In addition to putting words on paper and on screens of various sizes, Phil also enjoys studying media, culture, and religion, getting outside, traveling, and eating street food.
In our untitled acquisition, technology and feudalism come together in Danielle Myers’s offering of speculative fiction. There is a Robin Hood for every age. In a future London, a small band of teenagers try to find a way to survive their rebellion against a despotic government. But it’s the secrets they keep from each other that may be their ultimate enemy. At only 19 years old, Danielle Myers has created a title driven by finely honed characters set in a world a slight step away from the average dystopia.
Danielle Myers lives in Seattle, Washington, where she is working on her English degree from Seattle Pacific University. She has spent most of her life near Portland, Oregon, and is in love with the Pacific Northwest. She’s been writing or dreaming about writing since she could first pick up a pen. The science fiction streak started when she finished A Wrinkle in Time at age twelve, and she hasn’t been able to rid herself of it since. Her inspirations come from her two younger siblings, and her heroes Madeleine L’Engle, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis.
Established in 2010 by Cory Freeman, RainTown Press is Portland, Oregon’s, first and only independent press dedicated to publishing literature for middle grade and young adults. Portland serves as the perfect backdrop for a press dedicated to young readers—the diversity of culture, literature, and landscape here encourages us to be strong, autonomous, and even outright rebellious. There is a spirit of independent thinking and innovation paired with perseverance and tenacity among the people of the Northwest. Through the drudgery and gray skies, we not only survive, we thrive. We view the wet days we endure as being custom-made for reading a good book—or in our case, making one. To that end, we say close the umbrella and “Let. It. Drizzle.”