LIFELONG DREAM
By Denise Scott
“When Nate is found bloodied and unconscious in the locker room after the big game, suddenly the three teens are prime suspects – and a tenuous alliance may be the only way to clear their names.”
That’s just a snippet of the synopsis for Alex Travis’ new book, the young adult thriller “The Payback Girls.” The plot gets more complicated and gripping from there.
To say it’s been a productive year for Travis – who lives in Ashburn’s Courts and Ridges neighborhood – would be an understatement. Since last May, the 31-year-old school psychologist with Loudoun County Public Schools has published not one, but two novels, and she and her husband, Sean Delehanty, have also welcomed their first child – a daughter named Riley.
“It has been a total whirlwind of a year. Absolutely crazy,” Travis said.
“The Payback Girls” was published April 1 by Sourcebooks, based in the Chicago area.
Travis’ passion for writing developed at a young age. Growing up in Scarsdale, N.Y., she recalls learning about Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII. She was inspired. She started doing some research and penned a Boleyn-themed novel at age 11.
“That one has never seen the light of day – but it was the impetus for me to start writing about strong female characters,” she said.
Travis wrote what would become her first published book, the women’s romance
novel “The Only Black Girl in the Room,” during the COVID-19 pandemic while studying for her doctorate in psychology at the University of Maryland.
“I was definitely procrastinating on my dissertation and trying to write anything else,” Travis said.
She was further spurred to write when some publishing houses held contests for Black writers to submit un-agented manuscripts. Although her work wasn’t selected, it led to her forming a relationship with literary agent Dorian Maffei, based in the San Francisco area.
It is always stiff competition to get noticed. Maffei has received nearly 5,000 manuscripts submissions in the past year from hopeful writers. “I have to have … enthusiasm and passion for the work and the author,” she said.
Maffei says the first thing she is drawn to is an author’s voice, and she found Travis’ voice so natural that it leaped off the page. Maffei began submitting some of Travis’ manuscripts to publishers. And some of those publishers circled around and were hooked.
While “The Only Black Girl in the Room” was in the process of being published by Alcove Press in May 2024, the manuscript for “The Payback Girls” made its way to Annette Pollert-Morgan, an executive editor at Sourcebooks with one of their young adult imprints.
“I loved her voice and characters,” said Pollert-Morgan, who went on to edit the book.
She says Travis writes vivid dialogue and layered characters who feel incredibly authentic. “You can feel them coming to life as you’re reading,” she said. “The friendships, the relationships with the sisters, felt very crisp, so cinematic.”
Although Travis grew up attending predominantly white schools, she said “The Payback Girls” doesn’t necessarily reflect her life. But she can relate to some of the racial experiences and ways the female characters are pitted against each other.
“Just the idea of having to present yourself in a certain way, sort of being perfect all the time while being in a predominantly white environment,” she said. “Sometimes – no matter how much you try – it doesn’t necessarily work out.”
Her proud husband has watched her bring her books from kernels of an idea to published works on a bookshelf.
“I give her some space and let her focus on it, get in her zone,” Delehanty said. “I got to see her go through the whole process – querying [sending out a manuscript], getting an agent. It was the payoff to many years of hard work, and I’m really excited for her.”
Sourcebooks acquired a second young adult thriller that Travis is currently writing to be
published next year. Pollert-Morgan said she is also excited about Travis’ other ideas for
future books.
“We’re on the same page about what comes next [and] how to grow Alex’s voice and brand,” she said.
Denise Scott has been a journalist for more than 25 years, writing and editing for newspapers and magazines in the Midwest and Southeast.