Pitch Madness Agent Round

It's been a long week of reading through all the amazing pitches and our wonderful readers have narrowed the slush, and your game hosts have chosen sixty, along with four pitches saved by our slush readers, pitches for the game. If you're new to Pitch Madness you can check out the detail here and our fantabulous agents here.


All the picks for Fiona and I are:

SJ1: Sacred Blood
SJ2: A Soul's Desire
SJ3: Over the Sea to Sky
SJ4: How to Date Dead Guys
SJ5: Endings in Minor
SJ6: Johnny Drake Time Traveler
SJ7: Little Miss Evil
SJ8: The Founding of Josiah Turn
SJ9: The Aztec
SJ10: Great Uncle Gutenberg
SJ11: Princess of Swans
SJ12: Lay Down Your Weary Tune
SJ13: Crow's Rest
SJ14: The Oak Lovers
SJ15: Cleverland
SJ16 Slush Zombie Save: Tiger Daughter



Comments are set to moderation so the agent's won't see their competitors' bids. Please no comments other than those from the agents. After the game later on March 28, we'll release the moderation and let you all comment on the entries.

Please note: We will email submission details for all requests by the agents. After the contest, agents will make requests to us for the pitches they loved and didn't not win.

A HUGE thank you to Team Awesom's sluch zombies (the all team's slush zombies). We love a pitch eating gals:

  Brianna Shrum


Catherine Scully



Mina Vaughn

Congratulations to those who've made it into the game! For those who haven't made it, we are hosting a Twitter Pitch Party on March 29 from 8AM to 6PM EDST on the hashtag #PitMad.

How do you twitter pitch? You can find all the details here.

After you read the pitches, go check out Benjamin Chiles at Story Multiverse's Musing about Pitch Madness. It's wonderful!

SJ16 Slush Zombie Save: TIGER DAUGHTER

Genre: YA Contemporary
Word Count: 70,000
Down in Chinatown's Animal Black Market, the kill-buyers and exotic-eaters are calling for the auction prize … but nobody knows the whereabouts of the rare panther -- nobody, that is, except Mei Chang and she isn't telling.

When Mei's mother died, 47 cats attended her funeral.

Family and friends were there too, of course, and Mother's colleagues from Chinatown's Cat Clinic. But it was mostly American shorthairs and a handful of more exotic breeds. Chartreux, Manx, Siamese. The Sphinx even made it.

The cats came in carriers, a few on leashes.

During the service, they sat and slept and slinked under chairs. The Persian groomed. The Sphinx gazed.

In the mortuary's eerie glow, the cats' pupils narrowed into tiny exclamation points. And, as Mei's eyes followed them back to the body, they went liquid, leaking salty tears.

How could Mother leave like this?

The question wasn't: What killed Dr. Jun Chang? Mei knew that her mother had ignored symptoms of a Bartonella infection ― a rare and deadly case of cat scratch fever; it was just like the doctor to put her needs aside when there was work to be done. What confused Mei was: How could Mother just lay there when she had a 4.30 back at the Clinic?

It was a surgery, no less.

Thinking about practicalities ― as her mother would ― lessened the terrible distance growing between them. So Mei mopped her cheeks and ran through the rest of the (now defunct) afternoon schedule. After the Tonkinesse's tooth extraction, they were booked solid with castrations and immunizations right up until the microchipping for that cute new client, Law Hsu. Mei would do the chipping herself. She smiled a little at the thought of it. Maybe she'd inject the boy along with his kitten but, in Law's case, the tiny tag would be registered to M―

SJ15: CLEVERLAND

Genre: YA Fiction
Word Count: 65,000

In a dark retelling of Peter Pan, Wendy Darling joins the ‘Lost Boys’, or burnouts of South Seattle High School, in the clandestine group ‘Cleverland’, pulling pranks on bullies with inspiration from banned books.

When a star dies, it collapses on itself. The outside shell is blown away, leaving nothing but the pure white core, waiting to fade to black as time goes on. Each passing day, it darkens. The purity of the core disintegrates, just like the purity of an aged heart. As time moves along, every ounce of cleanliness -every chance of a tabula rasa -slowly fades away. Something that was once intact and whole is nothing more than dead star. If the star is a supergiant, the core twists enough to become a black hole, where not even light can escape its jaws as it drinks everything in until it's surrounded by nothing.

If I was a star, which would I be? Would I be small and disappear? Or would I destroy everything with me, like the supergiants?

The only thing that would liven my wandering mind during Freshman Orientation is a copy of Nietzsche and some absinthe. Neither is present, so I make do with what's given, which isn't much.

My freshman advisor's standing in front of me in a raccoon hat, the tail drooping past his left eye, expecting me to take him seriously. A few kids giggle as he leads us through unfamiliar hallways. He sends them dirty looks. In my opinion, if you come to school with a taxidermy animal on your head, you're fair game.

"I'm sure you've seen it all on television. You've seen the jock fall in love with the nerd.

SJ14: THE OAK LOVERS

Genre: Historical Fiction
Word count: 99,000 words

In 1900, a minister's daughter becomes muse and confidant to an ailing, married painter and discovers the only way to save the man she loves is to destroy him.
 
If asked which of the Niles daughters would one day be immortalized in a hundred paintings, all eyes would have fallen upon my sister. I was easily missed at eighteen, a short brunette with a small bosom and no grace whatsoever. I knew better than to aspire to be a Gibson Girl.
 
Visitors to my childhood home would have found me sitting on the fringes of any room, head bent over a sketchbook, pencil scratching. I drew everything then, recording life rather than living it. Odd Martha. The unfortunate girl born between Beautiful Helen and Clever Ned. The only time anyone paid me any real notice was when I sang. I was a soloist in church and for the past few years had performed at all the local weddings. Good enough to be on a phonograph record, I once heard a neighbor tell my mother. She was right, it turns out, though no one actually expected me to try.
 
Though neither Mother nor I spoke of it, the memory of my fingers being pried from her petticoats at four-years-old was not easily erased, nor were the thousand days I spent waiting for my family to fetch me from my grandmother’s. I had no recollections of Father, who came home in a long, narrow box. The woman and children accompanying him were strangers. Perhaps Mother felt she had relinquished the right to choose my life’s path when she left me behind. I asked for little from her and she refused me nothing.

 

SJ13: CROW'S REST

Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Word Count: 70,000 words

Avery wants to evict the creature who has taken residence in her boyfriend's body, but preventing the corbin from fulfilling his mission will plunge the world into another Dark Age.

Mom woke me as we hit the outskirts of Crow's Rest. "Brace yourself, Avery Girl." She said this every time we visited Uncle Tam’s, and it still gave me a shiver.

July air streamed through the car window, coating my tongue with heat and iron-rich dust. Nearly there. . . As we took that last curve on the approach, tree branches arched over the road, blocking our view until there it stood.

A castle, its ruddy bricks warmed by the afternoon light. Looming over the Gold-Rush-era town at its feet, the Wilson School of Industry reformed bad boys for nearly a century before the state abandoned it to vandals and ghost hunters.

The usual mass of turkey vultures and ravens soared above, sinisterizing the turrets even more. Makes my shutter finger drool, if that’s even possible.

"The Castle's so solid," I said to my mom. “Like it grew here, with the oaks and granite."

"Is that the start of one of your poems?" Mom teased. "Material for your next show?"

"Maybe," I said, with a quirk of a smile as the Castle receded in the side mirror.

My first gallery show was last spring, pairing my pics with three-line, atmospheric poems. It got a write-up in the local paper and some flattering attention, but in spite of spending my savings on frames and mats, I sold a grand total of one photo. To a tourist who said she was buying it because the Stellar's jay was the same blue as her recliner.

SJ12: LAY DOWN YOUR WEARY TUNE

 

Genre: Adult, Literary Fiction

Word Count: 104,000

 

Jack Wyeth, a struggling journalist, accepts a gig as a ghostwriter for a reclusive folk music icon. After discovering that the musician’s mind is failing, Jack scrambles to unlock the past before it’s too late.

 

When little Sammy Sweet fished a waterlogged wool cap out of the river, Trooper Mark Calvin, of the New York State Police, said it was “definitive” proof that Eli had drowned. Case closed. Time to get on with our lives. But three days later, in the hollow behind the paper mill, Dell Wheaton snagged Eli’s bruised leather satchel from the murmuring backwash. At least half a mile upstream from Eli’s last known location, Dell’s discovery was fodder for a new round of conspiracy theories, conjectures, and what-if scenarios. To further infuriate the investigators, the bag’s limp, deformed body wore a small bullet hole just above its clasp. Members of the trolling media, busybodies, and Galesville’s newfound tourists all voiced the same question from the same village sidewalks and gas pumps and bar stools: “What the hell happened to Eli Page?”

 

Many believed his disappearance was an elaborate hoax, a ploy to sell records. Eli, after all, was known for his trickery and sleight of hand almost as much as he was known for his music. Almost. Even Hal Holland, the editor of the local paper, who once swore up and down that he saw a body plummet over High Rock Falls, backpedaled when word about the cap spread through town. Now, he tells everyone that will listen that it was just the morning light breaking on the water. Me? I’m not sure what to believe.

SJ11: PRINCESS OF SWANS

Genre: YA Fantasy
Word Count: 84,000

To bring peace to her war-torn country, disfigured, sheltered princess Feyana Belmaron must journey deep into hostile territory to find—and court—a ruthless enemy prince. If only she weren’t falling for someone else.
Tavor Castle is beautiful, for a prison. The white stone castle is small but well-kept, and its fields and woods cover almost a square mile. Even the looming, twenty-foot walls enclosing the grounds have an odd charm to them. To protect you, Father says, but I know better. It’s to hide me. The only ugly thing in Tavor Castle is its princess.

I jam my foot into Lulari’s stirrup and glare up at the walls, wishing my hate could melt them. Only a little longer, until the war ends, and I’ll be free. Father promised that much, at least.

I turn away and cluck Lulari to a walk. The warm breeze ruffles my fascinator and fills my nose with the ripe scent of horse. I smile. Outside, there may still be walls, but at least there’s no ceiling. I brush back a lock of hair—and an ashen, black-cloaked woman appears in my path.

Lulari rears.

I clutch at her mane but grasp nothing. The ground races up to slap me, and pain jars through my shoulder and back. A stablehand races toward me, her dark hair flying behind her.

“Your Highness!”

Breathing hard, I stir my arms and legs, then probe my ribs for tenderness. Nothing broken, thank Dal. I sit up and groan.

“I’m fine,” I say. “Is she all right?”

“She?”

The mysterious woman lies crumpled beneath her cloak, her face unnaturally gray. I crawl toward her, my shoulder throbbing, but the stablehand pulls me back sharply.

SJ10: GREAT UNCLE GUTENBERG

Genre: Middle Grade Historical Fiction
Word Count: 48000

Mainz 1454. Twelve-year-old Elsa hopes for a fresh start at her great-uncle Johann Gutenberg’s house. But when enemies from his past threaten to destroy his printing workshop, Elsa risks everything to protect her great-uncle’s secrets.

I looked backwards for a long time as we rode out of Frankfurt. First my father vanished as the cart rounded a corner. My younger sisters ran behind the cart for a while until they were too tired to follow. I waved until they turned back. Then I let fall the smile I had been forcingmyself to wear so they would not think I was sad. We drove through the bumpy, winding city streets until we reached the city walls. Frankfurt became a gray mist of spires which finally faded into clouds. When there was nothing left to see behind us, I turned around to face the road ahead.

 The sun climbed higher in the sky. It struggled to shine through the clouds that had been hanging over the countryside for nearly a week. The longer we were on the road, the stronger the light became, until it broke through the seams of the clouds and made sweeping shadows cross our path.

“I knew we’d have good traveling weather,” Lorenz said from his seat next to me, holding the reins of the horse loosely. “There’s nothing worse than trying to drive these carts in a rainstorm."

Rain would have hidden the tears that I was trying my best to hold back. It would do no good to cry and Lorenz would think I was an infant, not a grown girl of twelve. The saints never cried when they were martyred, my mother liked to say. If they didn’t cry while their heads were cut off or their flesh pierced with arrows, then there was no reason for me to cry.

SJ9: THE AZTEC

Genre: Adult Science Fiction
Word Count: 100,000 Words

Papan, a sacrificed Aztec priestess, is resuscitated by the terraforming engineers of planet Earth, but, as her artificial heart fails, Papan’s life in the advanced society may end before it can begin.

The calendars decreed Papan would die in six days.

More precisely, she had five days, an afternoon meal, and one sunset left to live. Pan preferred to be precise. The sacrifice represented an unpleasant, but necessary ritual. Her blood would prevent the heavens from descending upon Tenochtitlan, sating the gods before they devoured her people and world. It was a worthwhile trade, but it was a trade she could no more negotiate than demanding the sun delay rising. And so she waited.

The great temple did not need sweeping, but Pan scoured the stone for any additional cobwebs, ashes, or flecks of grass. Outside, blood dropping from the grand altars perpetually stained the temple’s one hundred steps, but any mess blaspheming the interior shrines required immediate attention.

Unfortunately, all was tidy. Pan examined the floors, the shrines, and the jade mosaics hanging upon the hallowed corridors. Washed andpolished. The game persisted. Pan rose a quarter hour earlier each morning, attempting to beat the priestesses to the chores, but the dedicated—and presumably exhausted women—hid every broom in the temple. They watered each garden, divined the horoscopes, and scrubbed every statue, but Pan spied one smudge they missed.

A single, pristine footprint desecrated the ceiling of Tlaloc’s antechamber. If she found the impudent apprentice responsible for such acrobatics, she’d drag him to the chamber by his ear, force him to clean, and stand watch as he served the appropriate penance. Her heart would not be cleaved from its chest just so an insulted Tlaloc could deny her people much needed rain.

SJ8: THE FOUNDING OF JOSIAH TURN

Genre: YA Alternate History
Word Count: 76,000

After losing every friend and relative in the unnatural Appalachian earthquake of 1888, Josiah Turn unknowingly becomes the last member of first- and second-generation Confederate War slave-mutants capable of changing everything.

My sister’s voice is better than any old rooster for waking me in the morn. I squeeze my eyes against the day as her words jumble in my sleepy head, but Dad’s tone cuts in like a skinning knife.

“Now, girl, if I want your brother to know, I’ll tell him.”

“He’ll not hear from me.”

My mind’s churning ways I can corner Sharon later. I still my body so they’ll not learn I’m awake.

“But he ought to hear it from you. Today, Daddy.” Oh my stars and stripes forever! She’s about to catch it.

“I’m not putting that on him.” He sounds weary. “Wish you didn’t know either. Your mama and I wanted you kids to have peace in your young days. We never wanted you lot to suffer our worries.”

“We’re both old enough to do some good,” Sharon says.

“You’ll help by keeping to yourself and your work. Watch the smaller ones and don’t let Josiah cross General Bryant. I’ll warn him about the cave, but he won’t hear me.”

The house goes still for a piece of time before Dad steps out. Maybe I ought to get up and see about all this, but I hear the scuttle of younger feet and know the day’s begun. So, I watch my own eyelids. I turn Dad’s words in my mind.

“Up, up! Y’all need a bite before you go out into the world,” Sharon says, cheerful as a lark. “You two go get more kindling, won’t you?”

SJ7: LITTLE MISS EVIL

Genre: MG Super-Villain Thriller
Word Count: 41,000

When your Dad’s an evil genius, life can be weird. But when he gets abducted and the kidnappers demand a super-weapon that can vaporize the entire city, weird turns to suck really fast.

 
When your Dad’s a cackling super-villain, you get some pretty weird stuff for your birthday. Like when I was six, he gave me a butterfly knife. And when I was ten, he gave me a Universal Remote Detonator. It’s one of those universal remotes you can point at any electronic device, except instead of turning it on it blows it to smithereens. And last year, he gave me a laser torch disguised as a tube of lipstick. Only I didn’t actually know that and almost melted my face off when I tried to put it on. So I really didn’t know what to expect today.
 

“Open it, Fiona!” Dad beams, stroking his pointy little goatee. He does that whenever he’s pleased with himself, and somehow that makes me even more nervous.

Hesitantly, I pull off the lid to find…a lighter?

 

I breathe a sigh of relief. No live grenade, no mutated anthrax. Just a normal, non-insane gift.

 

“Thanks Dad.” I beam. “I love it.”

 

“No, no, no. That’s not your gift. That’s just part one.” His grin is so wide it fills up his entire face.

 

“What do you mean?” I say.

 

“Oh, I could just tell you. But why tell—when I can show!” He pauses for dramatic effect, puffing up his chest before announcing, “To the weapons laboratory!”

As I watch him scamper off cackling like a hyena, I can only think “Oh, God. No good could possibly come of this.”

SJ6: JOHNNY DRAKE, TIME TRAVELER

 

Genre: Middle Grade

Word Count: 56,000

The DeLorean. The TARDIS. A furnace? Though Johnny’s time machine isn’t fancy, he tries to save his teacher from a 1983 car crash, then discovers his father’s involvement. Will Johnny risk his own existence trying?

“Johnny Drake, are you paying attention?”Miss Anderson scolded. She had a hint of a smile, as if she’d seen the likes of me before.

But I knew she hadn’t.

I sat up and looked alert. Truth was, I hadbeen paying attention—just not to what she’d been teaching. I’d been focused on the way she limped to the blackboard, on the cane she used. I’d heard the stories: she’d gotten injured when she was fifteen, only two years older than me.

What I’d been thinking about was preventing the accident that hurt her leg.

What I’d been thinking about was time travel.

Sam Rizzo, my best friend, shot a spitball at me, bringing me back to reality: English class with Miss Anderson, lunch period next with him and Amy. He made an eating motion with his hand, as if he were furiously forking food into his mouth. This was his daily routine; the faster he shoveled the hungrier he was.

“Ten minutes,” I whispered. He slumped in his seat like he would die before then.

I went back to thinking about Miss Anderson’s leg. Rumors go around a schoolyard like flu germs, getting stronger with each new kid. These rumors have been around for as long as she’d been teaching at Lincoln Middle School. Depending on who you asked, she A) was in a car crash, B) was hit by a truck and dragged fifty feet, C) broke her leg skiing, or D) was hit by a truck while skiing and dragged fifty feet.

SJ5: ENDINGS IN MINOR

Genre: NA contemporary

Word Count: 70,000

During her freshman year of college, a socially inept soprano shirks her singing studies in favor of juggling a nerdy drummer and a sexy baritone.

My presence had never caused a party to spontaneously erupt. So why I thought I’d show up on campus and everyone would be like, “Hey, Neelie’s finally here! The party can start now,” was a mystery I was not equipped to solve. No one said hi to me. No one acknowledged me. My roommate plopped one box of crap on her bed, turned around, and left. I hadn’t seen her since. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see her again.

I hoisted my backpack over one shoulder and pulled my hands inside my oversized flannel shirt, which was both too warm and too Angela Chase-in-1994 for the present day, but it was part of my look, my vibe, and I was not about to abandon my vibe on the very first day. I had principles to uphold. Besides, I think I also had pit stains on my T-shirt. Flannel was probably not the ideal fabric choice for repeatedly hauling boxes up and down three flights of stairs on an August day that felt like hot, crispy death.

As I stood on the curb outside my dorm, my new home, watching my parents’ car peel down the rood and away from Indianapolis as fast as its engine could go, scenes unfolded around me in slow motion silence. Parents hugged their kids like boa constrictors, and the kids held on just as tight. Girls greeted new roommates with shy smiles and nods of recognition, all while a porch full of fraternity brothers performed an elaborate Kama Sutra mime in the background.

SJ4: HOW TO DATE DEAD GUYS

 

Genre: New Adult, Urban Fantasy

Word Count: 92,000

After a college party ends in a fellow student's drowning, Emma turns to witchcraft and a mysterious Book of Shadows to resurrect him. But her spell backfires—Emma brings back a stranger instead.

Dead people don’t scare me. At least, not as much as live ones do.

No ghostly apparition could ever intimidate me like the gum-smacking, hair-tossing leader of Saint Katherine’s Highschool of Hussies. She would even interrupt make-out sessions with her jock boyfriend to hurl insults in my direction. 

“What are you staring at, loser? Are you jealous? Poor Emma, you’re so ugly and pathetic, no guy will ever want you!”

Now a sophomore at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, I still hear her jeering voice in my head. When someone tells you you’re worthless enough times, you start to believe it. That’s probably why I’m failing at my hopeful plans for college: to be happy, confident, and make loads of friends. Basic things that everyone else on campus can do with ease—like making small talk at keg parties—paralyze me with fear. 

But when the ghosts speak, they don’t frighten me. I only worry what will happen if my mother finds out. So I keep my mouth shut. And I stay in my room.

Except tonight my roommate wants me to go to some hot guy’s cookout instead of spending the evening rereading Anne of Green Gables on my futon.

At home. Where I’m safe.

Where nothing bad can ever happen.

Unfortunately, my roommate never takes ‘no’ for an answer.

Ever.

SJ3: OVER THE SEA TO SKYE

Genre: New Adult Historical Fiction
Word Count: 64,000

 

Defeated and wounded, Bonnie Prince Charlie is fleeing from government soldiers thirsting for his blood. Local girl Flora MacDonald is enlisted to aid his escape, but no-one could have predicted the prince’s falling in love.

The knock on the door was the first indication that something was not quite right.

In her quiet life in Benbecula, Flora knew only three types of callers. The first consisted of the islanders, most known to her by name, the friends and family who called at all times of day and night. The door was always open to them, and they knew never to knock. The second type was the tradesmen, the milkman and the baker, who would ride through the village ringing their bells. Each one was greeted by name and with a smile. The final sort terrified her, those monsters she hardly dared think about, the Hanoverian forces. They did not knock, or so she had heard, but slammed down the door and bathed the cottages in blood, searching for any trace of the missing prince.

The knock was repeated, louder this time. Automatically Flora glanced over her shoulder to the armchair by the fire for guidance, feeling a twinge of pain in her throat when she remembered that it was empty, and would remain so forever. Her mother, the rock to whom she had clung for as long as she could remember, had passed away only a few weeks ago.

 

At the sound of a third knock, the most urgent of all, Flora picked up the largest breadknife and wrapped it under her apron, feeling comforted by its reassuringly sturdy handle. She took a deep, steadying breath, straightened her back and neck until she stood at her full height, and drew back the latch to let the heavy oak creep open.

SJ2: A SOUL'S DESIRE

 

Genre: YA Fantasy
Word Count: 60,000

Everyone has a dark side. Mandy’s just moved in with her.

Mandy Matteo was going to make a wish and that bummed me out. I’d granted hundreds of wishes over the years and normally it’s all groovy. A job is a job and few of them ever fazed me. But I knew exactly what would happen with this one. This wish would turn my world inside out too. Bring the biggest of my regrets up from the depths.

I went to Kaf, my master, on his mountain top and begged, begged, begged him to let someone else from his clan of indentured servants take this one. I’d do anything. I’d take on the worst wishes (not all were flowers and butterflies) for the next week. The next month. I’d tell everyone what a great guy he was. Which, believe me, was some promo he could use.

I’d add five more years to my sentence.

Kaf looked down on me from his perch with those piercing emerald eyes. “Oh, Desiree,” he said and started to laugh. A noise that was part amused, part wicked, part psychotic and went on for so long I finally split, knowing that was the only response I’d get.

So I locked myself in my bus and rolled a joint and sat there in the sweet haze, waiting for Mandy to make that damned wish.

 

SJ1: SACRED BLOOD

Genre: YA/Supernatural
Word Count: 94,000

Upon learning her ex-boyfriend is a vicious skin-walker determined to slaughter a mysterious village, Juliette St.Claire will risk her life to protect his enemies, including the new man she has started to love.

A shadow darkened the door’s glass. From her seat on the bottom stair, Juliette St. Clair laced her fingers together and tightened them. The door knob turned and the door swung open. She exhaled in relief. For once he didn’t appear angry as he saw her.

Nathaniel Jensen smirked, his eyebrows raised, and began his usual interrogating. “Hey, Cutie, why are you sitting there? Were you waiting for me? Why’s the kitchen radio on?”

Juliette patted her history textbook beside her. Her heart rate increased as she thought about how he might react to her request. “In class today we were assigned to study groups, and we have to get together and have a report to present Thursday. A-At three today is
the only time everyone’s free. It’s a full ten percent of my grade and...and I have to go. It’s important.”

“Will there be any guys?” Nathaniel narrowed his eyes and glowered down at his girlfriend. He balled his hands into fists.

Juliette pulled her arms tighter to her sides and crossed her hands over her heart. Should I lie? No, he’d know. “Yes, a few, but some girls too.”

“Then no.”

“But I have to go! It’s ten percent! Please!” Juliette picked up her class schedule and held it up to him, already overwhelmed by guilt if Nathaniel refused. “Why are you still paying for me to go to UCLA if you’re going to stop me from doing the assignments? Please let me
go.”

Cover Reveal & Pitch Madness Finalists

 

 

BEYOND THE HIDDEN GATEWAYS THAT CONNECT THE LIBRARIES OF OUR WORLD, LIES A DARK AND DANGEROUS WORLD JUST WAITING TO BE DISCOVERED.

It's Brenda Drake's birthday and my present to her is revealing the cover for her young adult debut, LIBRARY JUMPERS, which releases from Month9BooksFebruary, 2014!         


You should give her a birthday present too by liking her on Facebook!

Anyway, isn't her cover so gorgeous!

And look for it on Goodreads soon ...

 



I want to thank the wonderful team on Pitch Madness for wading through the slush and picking some wonderful pitches for our top 15 to go into the agent round.


My co-host ....

 

Fiona McLaren.

And our support readers (aka Slush Zombies) ...


 
Brianna Shrum

 
Catherine Scully



Mina Vaughn
It was a tough decision and there were so many awesome pitches that didn't make the cut. It came down to the ones that got the most yeses and to what we felt the agents wanted. If you didn't make it in, please don't get discouraged, keep going, your dream could be right around the corner.
Our top 15 picks (titles only & in no particular order) ...

1.  Sacred Blood
2. A Soul's Desire
3. Over the Sea to Skye
4. How to Date Dead Guys
5. Endings in Minor
6. Johnny Drake, Time Traveler
7. Little Miss Evil
8. The Founding of Josiah Turn
9. The Aztec
10. Great Uncle Gutenberg
11. Princess of Swans
12. Lay Down Your Weary Tune
13. Crow's Rest
14. The Oak Lovers
15. Cleverland

 

Check out the blogs for their picks....
 

http://brenleedrake.blogspot.com
http://shelleywatters.blogspot.com
http://www.fizzygrrl.com

Ask Cora Carmack!

So the gorgeous Cora Carmack is going to be on YAtopia next month. Debut author Aria Kane is going to be grilling Cora and what it's like to write under a pen name, but and YOU get to interview her too!

 

That's right! We're taking your questions for Cora about how she lived a double life and anything you want to know about writing, publishing and Losing It.

If Cora living a double life is news to you then check this post out where Brittany Howard, agent extraordinaire, reveals she is actually Cora Carmack.

Do you have a question for Cora? You can post it in the comments then Aria and I will take them to Brittany and the interview will go live on YAtopia on April 20.

#PitMad Twitter Pitch Party!

#PitMad Twitter Pitch Party!

If you don't make it into Pitch Madness we're holding another Twitter Pitch Partyon March 29. Please know that a lot of industry agents and publishers will be attending The Bologna Book Fair and we might not get as big a turn out as we did last time. But we can try. So get your 140 word pitch ready and make sure the word count includes the hashtag #PitMad and category (YA, Adult, MG, NA, and so on). Tweet your pitch when you see an agent come on but don't do it too obsessively. The agents will read the feed.