The Melting of Maggie Bean - Development and Publication

Development and Publication

University when she began the novel. One of her elective classes was Reading and Writing Children's Literature, for which the final assignment was to write the first thirty pages of a young adult novel. Using her own childhood for inspiration, Rayburn came up with the image of a girl in a store trying to decide which candy she should buy.

After she completed the assignment Rayburn continued to work on the novel for her own enjoyment and eventually finished a first draft, which became her MFA thesis. Having not considered it before, Rayburn was struck by a sudden thought during a meeting with her MFA adviser and asked whether she should seek publication. She sent out several query letters to agents, without expecting a result, and received her first reply two days later.

Rayburn signed with the Writers House agency and began to revise the novel with the help of her agent, Rebecca Sherman. Until this time, the character of Maggie Bean had been called Lucy Moon, but Rayburn had to change it because someone else was already using the name in their novel. Once this and other changes had been made, the novel was sent out to editors; it was accepted by Simon & Schuster and published as one of the six launch titles for their new Aladdin MIX imprint.