How to craft an anthology proposal

After I published two successful young adult nonfiction anthologies – with work currently underway on a third – one of the questions I receive most often is at once the most basic and the most challenging: How do you create your anthologies?

My first anthology sale was the thing of dreams. I tweeted about an idea I had for a collection of feminist essays geared toward teens, and an editor reached out to me to talk. I got on the phone with her, as well as another editor at the publisher, and we brainstormed what such a project could look like. The next steps, though, were entirely on me and involved crafting a proposal for the book.

Proposing an anthology requires creating