Pitch Wars: My Team!

I had so many amazing pitches come through my inbox. Each time one came through my inbox I oohhhed and ahhed. The pitches were so strong. My writers had amazing concepts. Lots of pitches thrown around on Twitter were awesome. But the submissions or the first five pages weren't strong enough. The ones that caught my eye with their pitch and had intriguing five chapters scored a request of the first three chapters. This was when I worked out what really fitted me and what didn't.

I ended up with Historicals, Retellings, Speculative Fiction and a contemporary amongst my favourites. I could only have one top pick and then two alternates (you WANT to be an alternate). And mine are:

Top Pick
Dark Moon by Crystal Collier. Pitched to me as "a YA genre blend of Brothers Grimm, Heroes, and Pride & Prejudice that we’ll call Historical Fantasy" I was spellbound from the start.







I'll be working with Crystal to get her pitch and MS ready for the eagerly awaiting Pitch Wars agents.

Alternates
Grand Scheme by Meagan. This is a haunting contemporary that deals with some deep issues, regret and guilt.

The Phoenix by Tiffany Johnson. A Speculative Fiction that drew me in with a killer pitch and an awesome opening line: This just in: There's a dead boy at my window.

Both of these pitches will be pitched in an open call editor and agent contest  that will run around the same time as Pitch Wars.

I'd like to also give special mentions:

Loving Lavender Girl. This was one of my favourites. I absolutely loved it. But I didn't feel I was the right mentor for it. I read the words and was worried I had nothing to offer. So I pimped it out to Monica to have a look at and she ended up having it as her top pick.

Mad as a Hatter. Fiona and I were both fighting over this one on Twitter with some friendly rivalry. I was so happy when Fiona picked it as an alternate.

The Sovereign Place. I thought it deserved a mentor and put it in the up for grabs folder and it found a home too!

Now the Sekrit Project info will be out later this week, so stay tuned.