LIVE PITCH: Literary Agent Emily S. Keyes

LIVE PITCH: Literary Agent Emily S. Keyes

Conference 2018, Live 2018 140 Comments

THE SPEAKER IS HAVING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. We are working with her to resolve the issue. She will have a full time slot when she goes live — but please bear with as we work with her.

This post will go live 45 minutes before the session begins. Please comment with your query submissions below, before the video starts. This is your best chance to be seen by Emily S. Keyes as she reads through the pitches live!

Who she is: Literary Agent at Fuse Literary

What she likes: Emily is a particular lover of all types of young adult and middle grade books. She wants to represent the kind of stories that will resonate with kids for the rest of their lives. She loves strong voices and unique characters, not knock-offs or trend chasers. Some of her favorite authors include Deb Caletti, Laurie Halse Anderson, Gary D. Schmidt, and Megan Whalen Turner. She thinks books are best when they make you laugh but have a lot of heart.

Rules for this session: 

Type of pitch: Query blurb

Max length (if applicable): 250-300 words

Genres/Age categories: YA, MG, SFF, WF

Pitch Submission: The video entry for this session will go live 45 minutes before the session begins. Please leave your pitches in the comments during that window.

Emily S. Keyes is an Agent at Fuse Literary. Previously she was an agent at the L. Perkins Agency for 2 years. Before entering the world of agenting, she worked in the contracts department of Simon & Schuster, Inc and graduated from New York University’s Center for Publishing.

 

 

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  • Aden
    · Reply

    HEIRS OF SILENCE, a 92,000-word YA dark fantasy filled with creatures from Slavic mythology, Russian fairy tales, and Yiddish folklore, where RED QUEEN meets SHADOW AND BONE.

    Revolutions and deposed royalty mean nothing to Toma, a seventeen-year-old orphan who is more concerned with hunting, farming, and sewing her adoptive family’s severed limbs back onto their decaying bodies. Raised by benevolent undead known as upyry, Toma’s simple existence is threatened when she finds an unconscious youth, Mikhail, in the wreckage of a hot air balloon. After reviving Mikhail, she learns he is a dethroned tsar fleeing from the revolutionary leader, Zoran, and offers Mikhail a place to hide.

    To provide Zoran with proof that Mikhail was devoured by upyry, Zoran’s henchmen kidnap Toma’s undead sister. Teaming up with Mikhail to rescue her sister, Toma leaves the safety of her home for a war-torn land rife with monsters and ruthless soldiers alike. As Toma witnesses the bloody consequences of a civil war fought between magic-endowed tsarists and the superstitious lower class, it becomes increasingly difficult for her to tell which side is good and which side is evil. Horrified by the tsarists’ brutality, Toma must decide if saving her sister by restoring Mikhail to his throne is worth the destruction it may cause.

  • Sarah Brubaker
    · Reply

    When seventeen-year-old Taylor’s brother contracts a fatal neurological virus, he’s locked in a quarantine zone and denied proper medical treatment. She smuggles black market meds to him in her bra—until she catches Kalion’s Syndrome herself.

    Taylor already has epilepsy, so when the Syndrome starts corroding her nervous system, one of her seizures mutates the virus to make her generate electricity. The doctors who denied her twin brother treatment decide she’s worth their attention and imprison her in a lab. After dozens of failed tests, they tell her she’ll never be able to control her electrogenesis. Without force fields or sedatives, she’ll fry anything she touches.

    But Taylor won’t spend her life trapped in a lab.

    When the criminals who provided the illegal medication offer her a chance at escape, Taylor breaks out even though she risks hurting the very person she needs to save. She’ll need all of her scientific knowledge and delinquent skills to adapt to a life with her new symptoms, but ultimately Taylor must decide who she can save: her brother or herself.

    SYNDROME is a young adult science fiction novel complete at 80,000 words that will appeal to fans of Scott Westerfeld’s ZEROES and Marissa Meyers’ RENEGADES. It is a standalone with series potential and was selected for Author Mentor Match, a contest hosted by published and agented young adult and middle grade authors. I have a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and work in a public library with young adults in the metro-Atlanta area.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.

    Sarah Brubaker

  • Heather
    · Reply

    THE BLADELESS SWORD, a YA Fantasy novel, is complete at 80,000 words with series potential.

    The Plains was once a quiet medieval village where nothing ever happened. Then one day, sixteen-year-old Rian Abanhart, the chosen protector of The Bladeless Sword, and his family showed up and everything changed.

    In a world where beautiful demons, called the Kyldranan, are taking over, the last thing anyone wants is for Rian to bring the Kyldranan’s attention, but that’s exactly what he does when a beautiful woman magically appears, and he accidentally gives away his location. Fleeing their home, the village seeks The City of Refuge, Adalia, because it is the one place where the magic is strong enough to resist the world of darkness. However, once in the city, Rian quickly learns they refuse to take in any refugees who aren’t followers of their god.

    Alana is the daughter of the fallen king of the nation of Leviathan, who has sold his people over to the Kyldranan. After Alana is given against her will to the most terrible of them all, their leader, Thanos, she flees her city and heads to Adalia, a city that has already decided she isn’t one of them and therefore, not worth protecting. In Adalia, as Rian learns how to protect the hilt, he vows to protect the refugees they refuse, people like Alana, no matter the cost, even going against the Adalians and right into hands of the enemy to save them and the ones he loves. Even more unsettling, Rian begins to realize two things, one he doesn’t agree with the religion of the lost God of Light, and two, he quite possibly is the lost God of Light.

  • Daniel
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Thank you for participating in this event.

    Please consider A SMOLDERING FIRE, a completed 34,000 word middle grade fantasy about twelve-year-old Jon Bidwell, who discovers the teachers and other staff members in his school are dragons in human form.

    When Jon and his friend Anna are caught eavesdropping on a staff meeting, the school custodian assures them that there’s nothing to fear from the school staff, even though they are dragons. But, he warns them, there are other dragons who live in Inner Earth, and they are intent on conquering the world. Jon realizes that even though his dad, who also knows the truth about the dragons, insists he not enter the tunnels of Earth, he needs to find a way to do just that.

    Perhaps even more important, Jon finds out he has a twin sister no one bothered to tell him about. She was separated from him at birth, and his dad believes she might be a captive of the dragons in Inner Earth. All previous attempts to find her have failed. Jon is not going to let failure happen again. Armed with only their own wits, Jon and Anna learn to rely on each other as they go an adventure to save the world and find Jon’s sister.

    I have the joy of teaching fifth grade students, am a member of SCBWI, and I might have a dragon living in my basement.

  • R. Lille
    · Reply

    Dear Emily,

    I read on your manuscript wish list (MSWL) that you were seeking a story about a woman running an empire, and I thought you might be interested in A THOUSAND SKIES OF BLUE, my 90,000-word YA gender-flipped retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

    To end the war that claimed his brother’s life, Mutton Bolt – a failed Cleric with a deadly allergy to blue moss – must find the underground rebellion working to overthrow the reclusive Empress of Aberglyn.

    For over a century, the Empress has failed to find a way to vanquish Noorland’s Ghost Warriors. The danger of total defeat, and destruction of the entire continent, creeps closer with each loss. 

    So when a chance arrives to become the Empress’ Scribe, Mutt seizes the opportunity to infiltrate her fortress, and attract the resistance. But his nefarious plans go up in smoke when he discovers the dangerous truth about the Empress, and the curse that’s imprisoned her for decades. 

    As the Empress begins to shed some of her secrets, attraction replaces his hatred. Then the Empire’s army suffers a catastrophic loss at their doorstep, and the resistance offers Mutt an agonizing choice. To save the Empire, Mutt will have to break more than the Empress’ curse. He may have to break her, and his own heart.

    A THOUSAND SKIES OF BLUE will appeal to readers craving the lush worlds and antagonistic romance in Renee Ahdieh’s THE WRATH AND THE DAWN and CJ Redwine’s THE SHADOW QUEEN.

    My feature writing has been published in The Boston Globe and The Washington Examiner. I am an active member of SCBWI and the Singapore Writers Group. Before repatriating to Louisiana last year, I managed the social media and press operations for the U.S. Embassy in Singapore.

    Thank you in advance for your consideration.
    R. Lille Moore 

  • Cassy
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Seventeen-year-old Rayne Robbins can’t keep a secret. As the FBI’s most valuable weapon, she’s been taken from her family and locked away for the past seven years, forced to use her ability to see secrets to reveal the terrible things criminals hide. But her government prison is safe. Familiar. And this alone keeps her from trying to escape.

    Until the day she is forced to.

    When Rayne is kidnapped from her sanctuary and on the run from the country’s most notorious hacker, her only hope is a boy named Sam, whose strangely colored eyes reveal nothing but the truth of his words. She decides to trust him, agreeing to use her ability to track down his missing father in exchange for his help to reunite her with the FBI. But when she discovers Sam’s unexpected ties to her ability, Rayne finds herself hiding a secret of her own, and she must make a choice: surrender to a lifetime of secure captivity, or take an innocent life to finally gain her freedom.

    THE SECRETS OF RAYNE is a young adult urban fantasy with series potential, and is THE DARKEST MINDS meets LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD. It is complete at 110,000 words and will appeal to fans of the DELIRIUM series by Lauren Oliver and THE YOUNG ELITES by Marie Lu.

    Thank you so much for your time!

  • Karyne
    · Reply

    Thanks for the opportunity for feedback!

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Seventeen-year-old Brynn anticipates being cryogenically frozen for her future spouse—after all, now that a ninety percent genetic compatibility link is required for marriage, four out of five teens are frozen until a link is found. But after witnessing the terrifying freezing of her claustrophobic best friend, she is desperate to avoid the same fate.

    Instead of being frozen, the Linking System (the government’s match-making program) accidentally links Brynn with Matthew: the first boy ever frozen, the son of the man who created the Linking System, and the secret poster boy for the Romantics, the rebel group fighting against the government. When he’s thawed for her, they commit to exposing the two-hundred-year-old mystery behind the system’s creation—the mystery Matthew’s father kept secret by cryogenically silencing his own son.

    When Matthew assists in a massive thawing orchestrated by the Romantics, he’s arrested for treason. With war looming between the Romantics and the government, Brynn must uncover the proof that reveals the flaws in the Linking System before the boy she’s grown to love is hanged and she’s frozen. But secrets that stay hidden for two hundred years aren’t easy to find.

    LINKS AND LIES is a young adult novel complete at 96,000 words and suited for fans of Lauren Oliver’s DELIRIUM and Beth Revis’ ACROSS THE UNIVERSE.

    I am a member of the SCBWI and a contributing author for PUTTING THE SCIENCE IN FICTION, which is scheduled to be published by Writer’s Digest in Fall 2018. I’m also a labor and delivery nurse, photographer, wife, and mom of 3.5 kids. I would be happy to send you a full or partial manuscript at your convenience. Thank you for your time and consideration.

    Sincerely,
    Karyne Norton

  • Caitlin
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    When 12-year-old Mae’s Nana disappears right in front of her, she knows she’ll never be the same. Her mom thinks she’s “passed on” but deep down Mae knows the truth, even if it’s a little hazy: the faerie stories her Nana used to tell her are true and she ended up in the immortal realm of Beyond.

    Even though her mother doesn’t believe her, Mae sets out in search of a doorway to the realm. Only, it isn’t as easy as she hoped, considering the annoying neighbor boy Jack decided to help her. When the two are surprised one day in the garden by Fin, the pixie from Nana’s stories, Mae knows Beyond is real and that she’s going to have to trust them both with her secret struggle: something her doctors called “adjustment disorder.”

    However, when they reach Beyond, the unlikely trio of an anxious girl, popular boy, and obnoxious pixie are tricked into a bargain with the Dark Fae Queen, sending them on a quest to retrieve three specific items from across the realm. If Mae helps the Queen, she’ll release Nana and let them all return home where life can be normal again. But if they don’t succeed, they’ll be trapped in faerie forever. As Mae ventures deeper into the realm meeting new creatures and the Ancient Guardians, she realizes there is more to the stories she grew up hearing. Through her journey, Beyond begins to speak to Mae in a way she wasn’t expecting: teaching her she’s exactly who she’s supposed to be and that friends show up at the most unsuspecting times.

    BEYOND (complete at 61,000 words) is an upper middle grade fantasy set in the alternate world of Fae. It will appeal to readers who enjoyed 13 Treasures, Foxheart, and The Spiderwick Chronicles.

  • Shanice
    · Reply

    This WIP is still in the third round of revisions. This is the revised query according the the above revisions if ya’ll wan’t to edit this one instead of the original!

    In a society where being black can get you killed or taken, Liv is given the choice to survive by systematically killing her own people, or be killed herself, but is survival important when her loved ones are dying?

    Black seventeen–year–old Liv Tate lives in Pinnacle, what’s left after the second American Civil War. In a totalitarian country the Patricians, the rich, administer a vaccine to the Plebians, the poor, through food genetically modified to inhibit emotions. Evaluations are conducted annually from puberty until seventeen years old to ensure compliance. Those who are immune are taken.

    As a Plebian, Liv knows she’s immune, so her only goal is to ensure she and her mother survive.
    Liv has made it to her final evaluation without detection, but, this time, she is taken prisoner to be a government test subject. When she arrives, her absentee father gives her an ultimatum: becomes a Taker, and systematically kill her own people, or die.

    Liv agrees, but when she refuses to an arranged marriage, her mother dies. She realizes she can’t hold on to her morals and survive as a Taker. She decides to flee the country after aiding and abetting in the release of an innocent fugitive. But, when her own people and the government, both, want her dead, will she succeed?

    SINS OF THE FATHER is a young adult sci-fi novel. Currently 55,000 words, it is the first in a series. It would appeal to fans of Sandcastle Empire.
    I am currently a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, getting a Masters in Liberal Studies with a focus in Creative Writing. I hope to analyze the hypocrisy people exhibit when reading fiction juxtaposed against how they treat their neighbors. I also work at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte as an Administrative Graduate Assistant for Leadership in Housing and Residence Life. When I complete my degree, I hope to continue on to a PhD in American Studies.

    • Shanice
      · Reply

      I realize the word count is low, but that’s because in my current round of revisions, I decided to scrap some scenes that weren’t working. I’m currently working on new scenes and chapters that will bring it up.

  • Michelle
    · Reply

    Dear Emily S Keyes,

    THE WINGED BASTARD is a 80k YA fantasy with a dual POV. In a world where old treasures hold the last of the world’s magic, a runaway thief and a rogue marine combine forces with a gang of female pirates to keep the power of reviving the dead from the authorities’ grasp.

    When shy Cay from the isolated west steals an old pirate treasure to escape her abusive foster father and buy her parents out of slavery, she didn’t expect half the marine fleet to set out in pursuit. When shadows start to stir, bodiless voices begin to whisper of power, and dead things come crawling out of the ground, Cay realizes more than her parents’ freedom is at stake if she allows the treasure to fall into marine hands. Because whoever holds the artifact, wields its power—at the cost of one’s sanity.

    The Admiral’s ocean-addicted son, Fever, never imagined he’d need to hunt down a thief to earn his place on the waters and bring his beloved mother back to life, but the rumors of a gateway into death is enough for him to put aside his lifelong doubts about magic. The closer he gets to his target, the clearer it becomes that the powers of revival are not only all too real—the treasure seems to have plans of its own: plans involving a badass crew of female pirates, his mother’s soul stuck in a place worse than death and Fever being banned from the seas forever.

    Not only are the authorities’ true goals discovered as the hunt brings Cay and Fever together, but also the fact the thief and marine can make the others’ dream come true. The problem? They can’t both get what they want. Not without risk filling the world with those better left in their graves.

  • T. James
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes:

    A mad scientist’s niece must stop her uncle from experimenting on the alien creature who helps her deal with the death of her dad.

    Twelve-year-old Kate seeks refuge in the woods saving trapped animals. She’s been stuck in small-town Minnesota with her mad scientist uncle ever since her dad’s unexpected death. She can’t relate to the gun-toting locals or the pesky boy who follows her around—not that she needs friends—and she definitely can’t relate to Uncle. He’s too busy punching holes in the universe to notice when she’s around.

    Then a hulking, color-changing creature comes through one of those holes into the woods. It cares for Kate almost as much as Dad did, and she grows to love it in return. But even the woods aren’t big enough to hide a giant. When a local farmer mistakes the creature for a dangerous bear, he aims to put it down. And if Uncle catches it, he’ll dissect it—all in the name of science. To protect the creature Kate must send it back through Uncle’s rift. Except then she’ll lose her friend forever.

    And Kate isn’t ready to let go.

    GRAVITY AND MONSTERS is an upper middle grade, science fiction novel, complete at 52,000 words.

  • Dayna Dunbar
    · Reply

    Emily,

    Thank you so much for taking a look! I’m an award-winning author published by Ballantine. My agent has left the industry and I’m seeking new representation for my first foray into a new genre.

    LEGACY OF ADYA, a YA sci-fi adventure with alternate history, tells the secret story of why the world did not end in 2012 as predicted by the Mayan calendar. When the apocalyptic date came and went, the world concluded the prophecy was a myth. But it was not. Disaster was averted by an extraordinary course of events that took place simultaneously on two different planets—Earth and Adya, an awakened civilization far more advanced than our own.

    Told in dual POVs, the story opens on Adya where sixteen-year-old Mobius doesn’t fit in. He was born an Anomaly, less evolved than everyone else and without access to the Wisdom—the field of collective intelligence in the universe. After a failed bid for Adya’s space program, he struggles to find his value and place in his world. But then he finds proof that a rogue commander from Adya’s toxic, violent past planted a time capsule in a Mayan pyramid in 720 AD. When he discovers the capsule is about to implode and create a black hole, devouring the Earth, he steals a spaceship to save the precious blue planet and prove his worth.

    On Earth, nineteen-year-old Diego is a paramilitary ranger in the lawless jungles of Guatemala. He’s on the take with a local drug cartel, hoping to wipe away his “poor kid from the barrio” status. While guiding Jillian, an eighteen-year-old American, around the endangered habitat, the narcos kidnap them both, holding her for ransom deep in the rainforest.

    When Mobius lands in their midst, the gang flees and Diego and Jillian agree to help him navigate this strange, turbulent world and find the time capsule. Joined by a Mayan shaman, they embark on a geo-quest, racing through exotic Mayan ruins in search of clues that build to a shocking revelation. And Mobius realizes he will have to learn to access the Wisdom if there is any hope of preventing the Armageddon.

    Thanks again,

    Dayna

  • Karen
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes:

    The Red Pyramid meets I Survived … in Kingdom of the Serpent a middle grade historical fantasy, complete at 79,000 words.

    Twelve-year-old Princess Ankhes hates how her older sisters steal everyone’s attention and shove her and her brother Tut into the background. So when the spirit of Maat-ka-ra, her many-times-great-grandmother, offers to teach her magic, Ankhes seizes the chance. After Ankhes masters journeying into the Netherworld and gains the gift of prophecy, the entire court takes notice, and she quickly becomes her father’s favorite.

    But journeys into the spirit realm also have dangers. A god known as the Hidden One once protected Egypt from all supernatural creatures that would do it harm, but Ankhes’s father banished him. As a result, the Serpent of Chaos, a giant snake intent on devouring all creation, slithers free from his Netherworld prison and prepares to strike.

    Without the Hidden One to stop him, the Serpent grows stronger. His demons break into the living world, killing royal family members one by one. Even the dead aren’t safe, and Maat-ka-ra falls. Determined to honor her lost mentor, Ankhes secretly seeks the Hidden One and discovers he can be restored. The only way to do this and save her rapidly dwindling family is by destroying the Serpent’s source of power—and that source may be her father.

    I have been a devotee of ancient Egypt for over 30 years and am a board member of the American Research Center in Egypt (Chicago Chapter). My publications include the Egyptian-themed stories “The Book of Thuti” and “Imperishable Stars” in Leading Edge, and “Cleopatra’s Needle,” a Speculative Literature Foundation’s Fountain Award nominee, in Paradox. I have an M.A. in Writing and am a member of SCBWI and the Online Writing Workshop for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.

    Thank you for this opportunity.

  • Renee
    · Reply

    Exploring the issues of female powerlessness and abuse of power, THE AGENCY (65,000 words) is a young adult science fiction novel where The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Bachelor to ‘Take Back the Night’.

    Being young and female makes sixteen-year-old Cherry a rarity in a population-controlled world with an overwhelming preference for male offspring. Unexpectedly selected by The Agency, which has become the go-to choice for uber-wealthy, elite bachelors looking to secure a trophy wife, Cherry has to decide if marrying a stranger is a price she’s willing to pay to escape poverty.

    Cherry signs The Agency’s contract, convinced she can find a loophole before receiving a proposal she’d be forced to accept. But she quickly discovers there is no way out. Trapped in a competitive and divided Academy, she is forced to fend off an all-powerful predatory Director, ultimately finding strength in unity. Ensuring no one is left alone, Cherry leads the girls in a coordinated campaign to thwart the Director’s tactics but her revolt has repercussions.

    Breaking protocol by marrying off a girl of just sixteen, Cherry is graduated early to face a batch of bachelors far worse than she could ever have imagined. However, a defeated Cherry with no control over her destiny, manages to attain empowerment in the most unlikely of places.

  • Jasmine
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Hex Allen and the Clanksmiths is Nick and Tesla meets The Hobbit – a 46,000 word MG fantasy STEM adventure where the characters use science and engineering to fight goblins, ogres, and dragons.

    In a world where everyone can do magic, twelve-year-old Hex Allen is a misfit because of her inability to cast even the simplest of spells.  Her penchant for imagining creative workarounds won’t help her finish school or find a job. Her only hope is the Wishing Wyrm, a legendary dragon who grants a single wish every century. When she runs away to find the Wyrm, Hex meets rivals for the wish — the Clanksmiths, a group of three kids who also can’t do magic. They won’t tell Hex their wish, but they’re not interested in being healed like her. They claim they don’t need magic — instead, they’ve learned to build clank, creations that use the mysterious arts of science and engineering.

    After Hex saves the Clanksmith’s lives from a fairy fiasco, they decide to travel together. Even though Hex knows that their truce is a temporary one, she can’t help but befriend and learn from the Clanksmiths. With their engineering know-how and her MacGyver-esque creative flare, they use clank to trick ogres with LED’s, escape from goblin using electromagnets, and knock out an unfortunate lion with a potato cannon. As they fight their way closer to the Wyrm, Hex must decide if risking her friendship with the Clanksmiths is worth the wish she isn’t sure she even wants anymore.

    Pages from Hex’s design notebook illustrate the varied mechanical and electric projects so that readers can learn along with her.

    I am a mechanical engineer with a BS and MS from MIT, and a member of SCBWI. My day job is building game arenas for robots.
    Thank you for doing this pitch session!

    Sincerely,
    Jasmine Florentine

  • Hannah
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    There isn’t anything twelve-year-old Hope wouldn’t do to capture the perfect photograph to win an online contest. And as the daughter of field archeologists, she has a lot opportunities. The Taj Mahal in India? Anyone could take that shot. Elephants in Thailand? Been there, seen that.

    So when she stumbles upon an ancient Incan ruin deep in the Peruvian Amazon, Hope breaks her parents’ only rule: never ever touch the artifacts. But uncorking the millennia-old jar will do more than get Hope grounded. Suddenly, people from the local village start disappearing one-by-one. With the help of a new friend–a Peruvian boy who can communicate with dangerous nature spirits–Hope tries to solve the mystery, but her search for answers only leaves her with more questions. How was a two-thousand-year-old Greek artifact found in a crumbling Incan ruin? Why is the jar covered with depictions of snarling, malevolent creatures? And what, exactly, did she release from the jar? When Hope’s Dad vanishes too, she realizes she must recapture the ancient Peruvian creature she freed before it’s too late.

    Bad news is: Pandora’s Box doesn’t want to be closed again.

    My middle grade adventure, HOPE TAYLOR AND THE PANDORA CURSE, is complete at 50,000 words.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.

  • Jeanne E. Fredriksen
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,
    This Tiny Perfect World meets Out of the Darkness and Ashes of Roses in FIRE CURTAIN, my young adult historical that is based on the December 30, 1903, Iroquois Theatre fire. Using a real-life event that happened in my hometown, the story illustrates the importance of family, humanism, resourcefulness, and loyalty.

    Seventeen-year-old Laura Castle loves two things more than anything in life: her family – especially her eleven-year-old sister, Nory – and the theater. She dreams of becoming a stage actress, and when the Castles move from Milwaukee to Chicago, she is thrilled that she will be able to take acting lessons. Once settled in, she and her family struggle to find their place in the social circles of the straight-laced movers and shakers of the city, where new money isn’t easily welcomed and doesn’t yet open doors. Lonely, Laura wishes she had Nory’s knack of making friends and endures get-togethers with girls her age from desirable families for the sake of her family’s betterment. Becoming someone the girls will accept is the toughest role she thinks she’ll ever undertake because she knows they call her “the prairie dog” in whispers between each other.

    Over Christmas vacation, Laura tackles the most important role of her life during a theatrical matinee of famed comedian Eddie Foy’s Mr. Blue Beard at the brand-new Iroquois Theatre. When fire breaks out 15 minutes after curtain, Laura throws caution aside, assumes the part of the heroine to keep from panicking, and risks her life to save Nory and the girls into whose social circle she has not yet been welcomed.

    One of Chicago’s stories of loss and strength is the Iroquois Theatre fire when 602 people – including women with their children on holiday from school – tragically met their deaths, 571 of them within the first 15 minutes of the fire. The heartbreaking irony is that the theatre’s owners touted the Iroquois as “absolutely fireproof.” Over 250 more theatre-goers were injured.

    I am a member of SCBWI and the North Carolina Writers’ Network. My reviews of adult, young adult, and middle grade literature have regularly appeared in India Currents magazine, and I am a Books for Youth reviewer for Booklist magazine (ALA). Previously, I have worked behind the scenes in professional theaters in the Chicago area, taught high school English and Technical Theater, and have been a middle school paraeducator specializing in Reading, Language Arts, and Technology.

    Thank you for your consideration,
    Jeanne E. Fredriksen

  • Abby
    · Reply

    Dear Emily,

    THE PROPHECY THIEF is a middle grade fantasy-adventure complete at 48K words with series potential. It is perfect for fans of The Map to Everywhere’s whimsy, the characters from The Iron Trials, and The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates’ humor.

    Twice Perkins lives in Cooktopia, where fish swim in the skies, dragons prefer drinking tea over breathing fire, and every twelve-year-old receives a prophecy. And Twice’s family always gets the best. The only thing worse than inheriting the paparazzi cannibals, who churn out sappy articles about his mild cerebral palsy, would be getting a pathetic prophecy. That would turn his famous family’s limelight sour.

    When Twice cranks the handle, the Giant Fortune Cookie prints his destiny, and he learns there can be something worse than having a pathetic prophecy: having no prophecy at all. Stuck onstage with a blank piece of paper, Twice does what he’s best at—he gives a media-loving smile and tells the world’s Biggest Baddest Lie. He’s going to save the city!

    Determined to earn a front-page article without his family’s help, Twice sneaks on board a flying ship with three other prophecy bound kids. He has three chances to steal one of their prophecies—and fulfill it—before his lie is outed and the headline turns from Perkins, a Prophecy Paragon to Perkins, a Prophecy Pretender. At least, until his catastrophic actions snowball, unleashing mortal danger upon Cooktopia, where his help might be needed after all.

    My YA debut released last year and was hailed by Kirkus as “richly imagined…a propulsive, sharply crafted tale about a planetary war.” I’m currently under contract for the rest of the series. I’m drawn to characters with physical limitations due to my own disability. I’ve also spoken about writing, disability, and art at local conferences/workshops and a high school. I live in Colorado with my husband, two fluffy pups, and perpetually paint-stained hands.

    Thanks for your time!

  • Rachel
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    It’s called an oath, but it’s more like a curse. When you feel another’s pain, when your life is tied to another’s, you don’t have a choice. If they die, you die.

    Eighteen-year-old Corinne Montgomery faces constant migraines, nausea, and imminent death—all thanks to a cyst in her brain. She isn’t expecting any miracles when she and her mom move in with family friends in Vermont to seek a fifth ‘second opinion.’ But hey, at least Vermont in autumn creates a scenic backdrop for her photographs.

    One photograph in particular has Corinne noticing shared scars between family friend Kim and her boyfriend. When the photograph is stolen and she goes looking for it, she meets Liam. He admits both he and Kim’s boyfriend are Guardians—beings sworn to protect the world from chaotic monsters trying to destroy it. The more she learns about Guardians, the more hopeless she becomes. Maybe dying isn’t so bad after all if the world is falling apart anyways.

    Then Corinne discovers her connection with Liam. Every scar she’s ever had, he shares. When she bleeds, he bleeds. So when she dies, will Liam die too? Racing against her worsening symptoms, Corinne struggles to find a way for Liam to survive her death.

    DELIVERANCE is a 115,000 word YA contemporary fantasy with series potential that’s told in multiple points of view. Deliverance shows how even at your physically weakest, you can still be strong, and saving people doesn’t always mean fighting. As a pharmacist, my passion for medicine as well as personal experiences with a brain cyst allow me to provide a sincerity and truth to Corinne’s struggles.

    Thank you for your consideration.

    Sincerely,
    Rachel Bowen

  • Kristy
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,
    Sixteen-year-old Lucy Andrews fears the color red, compulsively draws graffiti in bathroom stalls, and avoids even numbers because they’re too perfect. Yet somehow she’s able to manage her OCD—until her artistic best friend Janice, her beloved art teacher, and two other art-driven classmates commit suicide, all within a few weeks.
    On the verge of breaking down, Lucy is committed to a mental hospital for her obsessive-compulsive behaviors. At first, she’s willing to accept help, but soon she realizes something isn’t quite right. The art room has no artwork, four of her classmates have also been committed, and a woman is stalking her.
    She’s offered an experimental drug with the promise of being discharged early. Though the drug helps her OCD, it takes away everything that makes her Lucy. When she fights back, threatening to expose the hospital’s sinister secrets, the head doctor threatens to never let her go. Lucy is left with the choice of doing as she’s told in hopes of regaining her freedom, or risking her future by revealing the truth—the medication causes people to commit suicide—before they unmake everything she is.
    LUCY COUNTING STARS, a YA contemporary novel, is complete at 91,000 words. Comp titles include EVERY LAST WORD by Tamara Stone and a YA version of GIRL, INTERRUPTED by Susanna Kaysen. It was selected as a manuscript for the 2017 Pitch Wars Contest and placed second in the 2018 Serendipity Literary Agency YA Discovery Contest.
    I work full time as a middle school librarian. I also worked as a middle school counselor for ten years and suffer from generalized anxiety disorder. Therefore LUCY COUNTING STARS is part experience and part research.
    Thank you for taking the time, and I look forward to hearing from you.
    Sincerely,
    Kristy F. Gillespie

  • neicolec
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Since you like the nerdy stuff and also seem interested in unusual books, I’m querying you with my novel DECODING EMMA. It can be comped as WESTWORLD meets WE WERE LIARS and is a novel relevant in the #MeToo era. Chosen for PitchWars 2017, DECODING EMMA is 75,000 word YA contemporary with speculative elements and series potential.

    Prototype cyborg Delta has one hundred days to pass as human, or she’ll be dismantled. To accomplish her mission, she’s been given an AI built on the memories of a dead teen named Emma. The Emma AI is more than a program, though; it’s Delta’s guide, her confidante, and the equivalent of her soul.

    But the Emma AI is broken and having an existential crisis. Instead of helping Delta learn to act human, the AI begins sabotaging their mission. On top of that, Delta discovers her creators are keeping secrets from her: she’s not the only teen cyborg they’ve made. She has a competitor and only the winning cyborg will be allowed to survive.

    Threatened from the inside and the outside, Delta explores the dead girl’s past, trying to help the Emma AI accept its fate so it will work with her. But the more she unravels the mystery of Emma, the more she uncovers her own dark and twisted relationship to the girl—knowledge that makes Delta question whether she even has the right to exist

    I’m an active member of PNWA. When I’m not writing about the troubles of imaginary characters, I spend time with my family of six and I work, doing digital marketing, building websites, and writing boring—but effective—non-fiction.

    Thanks for your consideration,

    Neicole M. Crepeau

  • Shelly Steig
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    I understand you are looking for middle grade filled with humor and heart, and peopled with unique characters. With that in mind, I’m pleased to offer FAUX REAL for your consideration. This contemporary caper is complete at 42,000 words.

    Twelve-year-old Tru Diaz craves popularity enough to chase fashion trends and wear pleather cowboy boots in blistering Las Vegas heat. But it’s tough to fit in when your parents moonlight as Elvis and Marilyn Monroe impersonators. Things go downhill fast when her crush shows up at her family’s struggling pawn shop. Tru attempts to impress him by taking out Elvis’s mortuary toe-tag, but when she’s not looking someone swipes it off the counter. The tag’s owner, who looks and talks like a mobster, is coming to redeem it in six days.

    To keep her family from bankruptcy, Tru must track down the big-ticket pawn—even if it means crashing casinos and facing her fear of Elvi (in the plural) at the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll World Convention. She’s shocked by who stole the tag and why. However, to do the right thing means she might be forever banished to the loser lunchroom table.FAUX REAL is OCEANS 11—at ElvisCon. It explores how in a world filled with fakes, not being true to yourself is the greatest deception of all.

    My experience as a journalist includes publishing more than 350 articles in national and regional magazines, and five novelty science books for children. A 2017 Pitchwars alum, I’m also a member of SCBWI where I oversee communications and edit KiteTales newsletter for the Rocky Mountain Region.

  • Claire
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Lucy Carranza isn’t Lucy’s real name. She’s hiding from a terrorist organization called the Legion, along with her mother, who used to work for the CIA. Meanwhile, her older brother is training to join the fight against the Legion at a spy school called the Abraham Institute.

    Except Lucy doesn’t know any of this.

    For her protection, she’s raised to believe they’re a normal family in Manhattan, and her brother simply goes to another prestigious (read: pretentious) preparatory school. But when she finds out she’s supposed to go to Abraham, too, she shuts her mother out before she can explain their family’s secrets. Lucy’s only concern is to stay in the city, go to a school without prepsters, and be with her best friend and forever crush, Nick. Until the Legion finds them, and her mother disappears.

    Lucy learns their lives have been a lie, and until her mother is found and the Legion is stopped, she cannot return to New York or Nick. Begrudgingly, she goes to Abraham to learn how to protect herself; but there’s no guarantee the Legion won’t keep looking for her. She must find a way to protect her real identity in a school for espionage–on top of making new friends, learning Krav Maga, and surviving a merciless French teacher–while the CIA does its job to return her mother to safety. Except they don’t, and Lucy discovers that she isn’t the only student with a family member missing at the hands of the Legion.

    Convinced a greater conspiracy is at hand, Lucy and her new spy friends embark on a mission of their own to save her mom and expose the truth behind the Legion’s ties to Abraham.

    Thank you for your consideration.

    Sincerely,
    Claire

  • Lisa
    · Reply

    YA CONT

    Sixteen-year-old Tess Malleck is convinced she’s responsible for her parents’ estranged marriage and is desperate to get them back together. She retreats to Silver Head, a river town where her family used to spend summer vacations with her grandparents, believing her parents will follow her there. They don’t. When she finds out a local shop owner is threatening to knock down the castle where her parents were engaged seventeen years ago, it’s too much for Tess to lose in one summer.

    Tess is ready to protect the castle at all costs. Using a hidden painting, obituaries, and river folklore that may or may not be true, Tess unravels a link between the shop owner’s son, Ryan, a boy she’s grown unexpectedly close to, and the family that abandoned the castle years ago. Tess realizes finding out more about the castle’s history might be the key to saving it. But while trespassing, she and Ryan are caught by the castle’s vengeful caretaker. Forced to choose between preserving the past and embracing the present, Tess strikes a deal with the caretaker, foolishly believing if she can save the romantic relic, her world will stop falling apart.

  • Vanitha Sankaran
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Thank you for this opportunity.

    WHAT DREAMS MAY COME TRUE is an 85,000-word YA contemporary fantasy that will appeal to readers of Maggie Stiefvater’s richly mythological THE SCORPIO RACES and THE RAVEN CYCLE and Laini Taylor’s lyrical DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE series. I am querying as an #ownvoices author fascinated with the intersection of world mythologies and am querying you because of your #MSWL interest in friendship breakups, which is key to this story.

    Forget fitting in with her rural Colorado town, orphaned sixteen-year-old Rasmi would rather be singing to the stars and hearing them sing back, conversing about the myths and legends that show up in her dreams, and about how those dreams sometimes come true. It’s exhilarating—at least until the nightmare that kills her best friend’s mom.

    Rasmi doesn’t know if she’s the one creating the dreams or if they’re premonitions but when a raging dream tornado devastates her hometown, she can’t stay quiet anymore. With the help of her best friend, who doesn’t know the whole truth, and mysterious advice from the stars, Rasmi discovers she comes from Ama, a world of people who create dreams in people’s minds and feed off the dreamer’s emotions. When the tyrant king of Ama uses the power of dreams to rebuild his world at the expense of Earth, Rasmi must learn how to use myths and memories collected with knowledge only she has to root out the king’s vulnerabilities and save both worlds.

    My debut novel of historical fiction, WATERMARK: A NOVEL OF THE MIDDLE AGES, was published by HarperCollins/Avon A. I have published a number of short stories and essays, was a founding co-editor of the literary journal flashquake, and hold an MFA in Creative Writing. I have also served multiple times as the Historical Novel Society of North America’s Conference Chair, and am a member of the Author’s Guild, SCBWI and RWA.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.

    Vanitha Sankaran

  • Katie
    · Reply

    Dear Emily S. Keyes,

    I am seeking representation for my YA fantasy TOUCHED WITH LIGHT (94k words), which blends survival with an exploration of identity and friendship that I think you’ll enjoy.

    When hell and home are indistinguishable, only the most desperate creature survives.

    In a world where deceits are traded like common currency, heiress Whitney is desperate to ally with the High Princess, the only person who could free her from the mother that nearly extinguished Whitney’s light magic. But when Whitney’s mother learns of her plans, she is exiled from the country and shipped off to a foreign land called Sefate.

    A monster masquerading as a god, Sefate’s heretical tyrant doesn’t believe in smothering magic – he plans to eliminate its users entirely. Desperate to conceal her power and blend in with the land’s mortals, she realizes she isn’t the only deviant around and forms a rocky relationship with Roy, a not-quite-human amnesiac.

    Sefate’s arcane secrets are slowly revealed as the pair navigate forbidden lands and uncover a statue of the island’s long-lost leader, which tugs at Whitney’s magic. The island’s native inhabitants, magic-users repressed by the tyrant, learn of Whitney’s power and recruit her and Roy for the grim war threatening to devour Sefate. The line between “human” and “not” is blurred when the fighting begins, and Whitney must decide between saving herself and using her light magic to prevent genetic cleansing.

    TOUCHED WITH LIGHT mixes the self-discovery, magic, and female independence of Leigh Bardugo’s SHADOW AND BONE and Kristin Cashore’s GRACELING, and will appeal to fans of FOREST OF A THOUSAND LANTERNS by Julie C. Dao.

    I graduated from the University of Oregon with a bachelor’s degree in English in June 2017, and am a full time writer and BookTuber.

    Thank you for your consideration.

  • Alex Borns-Weil
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes:

    In your search for books with humor and heart, please consider WISTERIA (complete at 53,000 words), a middle grade fantasy told from alternating perspectives. It would appeal to readers who enjoyed the fairy world of Small Persons with Wings, and the personal journey of The Tiger Rising.

    Ten-year-old Sophie is more inclined to fight than fantasize, but when she discovers a fairy realm hidden among the fronds of a neglected wisteria vine, she thinks she’s found the perfect escape from grief. She dreams of finding a fairy family to adopt her—anything to avoid feeling the loss of her mama. But the boy in the first floor apartment crushes her efforts to woo the fairies by crushing the bowers she builds for them and snatching their wings.

    Quimsey, nephew of the fairy queen, feels the weight of the Wisterian realm on his shoulders. With the queen drowning her worries in wisteria wine, no one else will take action against the wing-snatching, vine-wrecking boy. If Quimsey can’t drive him away, Wisteria will remain on permanent lockdown and the fairies will starve. When all his efforts end in disaster, the only option left is to defy the fairy code and join forces with Sophie.

    When the wing-snatcher’s father ends up being a greater threat to the vine than his son, Sophie convinces Quimsey that the only way to stop the destruction is to turn the boy into an ally. But to do that, she must find a way to empathize with this wretched boy—and face her own grief in the process.

    I am a member of SCBWI, the International Literacy Association, and the Writers’ Loft in Sherborn, Massachusetts. In addition to writing and tending my own wisteria vine, I teach reading and writing as a literacy specialist for grades 3-8 in Brookline, Massachusetts. Thank you for your consideration.

    Yours truly,

    Alexandra Borns-Weil

  • Rebecca
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes:

    When Willow Nevarez, age 16, accidentally falls through a magical portal with her best friend Aella, she’s more concerned with keeping Aella alive than she is returning home. That’s just how it is when your best friend is Fate’s Champion. But Willow’s arrival in a world that was never hers could have deadly consequences in MIRRORS FOR THE LOST, a 72,000 word YA fantasy blending the concept of The Rest of Us Just Live Here with the adventure of The Girl at Midnight.

    Upon their arrival, Willow quickly discovers staying safe in this new realm is no easy task. Nephuran – the conqueror son of the first magic-gifted human – has spent centuries in a sealed tomb as the last relic of Verdantia’s violent, brutal past. Desperate to cheat the fate that promises his permanent end at Aella’s hands, Nephuran is manipulating everyone in his grasp. Unfortunately for him, the natural order is clear: no one from Verdantia can alter fate.

    Willow’s arrival, and the blank slate of her destiny, could change everything should it be discovered. As the girls gather allies and search desperately for a way to destroy Nephuran for good, an unexpected magical intervention becomes Willow’s ticket out of the role of moral support and into the front lines. With the true power to forge her own destiny just under the surface, nothing will stop her from fighting the darkness eager to swallow them all. Little does anyone know, that may be exactly what Nephuran is hoping for.

    This is the first of a planned duology, though it stands on its own as a complete adventure, and is ready for your consideration.

    Thank you for your time,
    Rebecca Cadiz

  • Michelle
    · Reply

    Dear Emily S Keyes,
    PLANET ROVER is a high-paced, 70k YA space opera. Underdog Lia proves gender can’t be branded by crossdressing as a space soldier to pay for her sis’s lung transplantation, only to discover her new employers might be responsible for the delay in delivery.

    When Lia’s mum bails with the family’s hospital savings, Lia must turn to the dangerous occupation of planet-exploring to keep her sister on life support. The job won’t only take her far from Earth and her dying sister—it also promises a life in jail if the all-man crew discovers they’ve got a woman onboard.

    Crossdressing in space and struggling to avoid her young, handsome and far too observant general turns out to be the least of her worries. Lia uncovers some nasty secrets about the space soldiers, secrets that don’t just affect her sister’s transplantation, but everyone in desperate need of new organs. The deeper Lia digs, the clearer it becomes that she’ll jeopardize more than exposure to save the only family she has left—she’ll risk the lives of newfound friends in the process. Including the life of the general she certainly didn’t plan to fall for.

  • Emily Paxman
    · Reply

    Seventeen-year-old Lizzie Logan is proud to inform you that she is the freakin’ best BFF any girl could ask for. That party at Vivian Grange’s house last Friday? Lizzie hired the caterer and picked out the tablecloths. That five-foot-nothing girl informing you that Vivian Grange has 100% dumped your ass? Pure Lizzie.

    And that girl hiding in the bathroom, jabbing a needle full of insulin into her leg during lunch hour? Also Lizzie. Always Lizzie.

    Playing back-up to the school’s Queen Bee suits Lizzie fine. Whether she’s helping Viv survive a wardrobe meltdown or journaling every carb she’s eaten for her doctor, Lizzie thrives on making order out of chaos. Until chaos shows up in the form of Adam Klein. Adam is smart, considerate, geek-chic cute… and the next target of Viv’s affection.

    After years of hiding in Viv’s shadow, Lizzie’s got her work cut out for her if she wants Adam to notice her instead. The girls swear they won’t let Adam ruin their friendship. But with tensions high at home over health insurance, plus Viv’s so-not-over-it ex-boyfriend trying to force this triangle to become a love quadrilateral, there might be more chaos in store than even the best of very best friends can survive.

    Complete at 72,000 words, SWEET PEE features a Type 1 Diabetic heroine in a plot that’s ARCHIE comics meets the work of Jenny Han. SWEET PEE was featured in the agent showcase of Pitch Wars 2017.

    I am a recent graduate of Chatham University’s Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing program, where I specialized in writing for children and youth. \

    Thank you for your consideration,

    Emily

  • Christina
    · Reply

    I thought you would be a wonderful match for my YA SciFi novel, THE RUNNERS. Told in dual, third-person POVs and with its diverse, ensemble cast, it’s THE WALKING DEAD meets MAZE RUNNER, perfect for fans of franchises like WORLD WAR Z and THE LAST OF US.

    400 years after the first Pandemic season destroyed civilization, the only safe place from the infected is behind walls. Only a few brave souls risk going beyond them to trade for their city’s survival: the Runners.

    Seventeen-year-old Rook Haxley can’t imagine leaving the safety of her village’s massive steel walls. Not since she watched as her parents were exiled outside them with the other infected villagers six years ago, leaving her to care for her four siblings. But when her older brother, the village’s lead Runner and their family’s breadwinner, is injured and a blood infection threatens his life, Rook volunteers to take his place.

    Even if it means confronting the cannibalistic shells of her parents outside the walls.

    Hundreds of miles across the wastelands of the Wandering, in the neighboring stone-walled city of Bardeen, resources and food are plentiful. They have the medicine Rook needs to save her brother’s life. But when disaster strikes Bardeen and their fields of crops are destroyed, all of the walled cities in the Territory face starvation. Suddenly, more than just her brother’s life is at stake.

    Rook’s team of Runners must work together with Bardeen’s, led by the charismatic ladies’ man, Beau Galloway. To save their cities, they’ll risk the longest journey yet to the city of Lux, which no one has heard from in over a decade. Within Lux’s enormous domed walls technology has survived: technology that could save them all.

    If they can survive the tens of thousands of infected in their path to get there.

    THE RUNNERS, a debut with series potential, is complete at 87,000 words and finished after receiving my MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University in Bath, England.

  • CarolynTara
    · Reply

    Thank you for your advice, Emily! So excited.
    ———

    THE DEVIL’S WALL is an 80,000-word retelling of the Anastasia legend, narrated by a hot-tempered communist girl who unwittingly saves the princess’s life. It is a YA alternate history set right after the Russian Revolution, and will appeal to readers of Elizabeth Wein’s Code Name Verity.

    Sixteen-year-old Evgenia is poor and pissed off about it. Her father’s dead, her brother’s been crippled, and her mother is breaking her back to save their farm. When communists come to their village preaching revolution, Evgenia’s one of the first to join the Party. But the Tsarists won’t give up power easily. That means war.

    While civil war rages, Evgenia drives her horse-drawn wagon from one Siberian town to another, delivering messages for the Party and trying to earn a few kopecks to support her family. But in 1918 Russia, there’s not much money to be made. So when Anna, a beaten, half-crazed bourgeois girl asks to buy a ride, Evgenia agrees to smuggle her out of communist territory.

    Only it turns out Anna knows a secret that could destroy the communist cause. A fearsome Red Army commander is after her, and once he sees the girls together, he tries to kill them both. Evgenia has no choice but to flee with Anna, and the girls start relying on each other to survive. Hunted by those she considered her heroes, and seeking safety with her enemies, Evgenia will ultimately have to decide whether the life of one innocent girl is worth more than the revolution she so passionately believes in.

  • APM
    · Reply

    Greetings Emily!

    ixteen-year-old Ryn is a wingless one, a fairy without wings or magic. Those like her are barely citizens, without the same rights as other fairies. She is assigned as a servant at a school, where she picks up after the stuck-up heirs of fairy nobility and hauls iron that sickens winged fairies when they touch it. Only the handsome Damiel Rakir is kind to her, but Ryn knows better than to grow close to a true fairy, and a member of a disgraced noble family at that.

    Ryn is able to peer through the portals that criss-cross the fairy realm into a strange, iron-laced world, a place full of wingless just like her where no one serves. But the royal family finds her when she accidentally crosses over into the wingless-filled city. The world she’s seen is secret, and the power to cross over forbidden under penalty of death to all but a select few. A wingless like Ryn doesn’t qualify. No one outside the royal family’s inner circle can know the truth—wingless aren’t born, but taken, stolen as infants from their families on the other side of the portal to do the dirty work of the realm the fairies can’t.

    Ryn turns to Damiel, the only one willing to help, and he reveals a plot long in the making to weaken the Fae’s rule. If Ryn hones her power over portals and helps Damiel’s family rebel against the Fae, she could win new rights for wingless like her—and maybe even find a way to stop more children from being taken.

    Wingless ones have two choices–serve the realm or die. But Ryn has seen a better world, and she has no intention of doing either.

    Wingless is a YA reverse portal fantasy complete at 80k words, and is a stand-alone with series potential.

  • agfreeman
    · Reply

    THE ELECTRIC DETECTIVE (73,000 words) is a YA Sci-Fi/Mystery set in a bright but dangerous solarpunk future. Picture Not Your Sidekick — LGBT, multicultural, rich worldbuilding — but with super-detectives instead of superheroes, and a dash of Westworld. 

    Sixteen-year-old Hana Moss is a true Martian colonial: hot-headed and full of gumption — but she might be in over her head. She’s going to school 30,000 miles from home, and her roommate, Hols Keller, is a cyborg. Keller is an aspiring detective, who sometimes invites criminals into their dorm, and gets thrown out the window by a cybernetically enhanced old biddy. That would be bad enough, but Keller believes the murderous granny wasn’t working alone.

    Moss doesn’t know what’s worse: the possibility that an insidious villain really is poisoning the solar-powered heart of Victoria City, or the fear that Keller is going even crazier. Moss just wants to keep her scholarship, but thanks to Keller, she ends up chasing a rogue android around a luxury space station and tracking kidnappers through the flooded, dog-infested ruins of Old London. A crime spree this massive could only be orchestrated by a master cyber-criminal, someone who could hack anything. Even a cyborg like Keller.

  • Laura
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Evren has a secret: she can navigate the sea without need of a compass.

    Despite being able to chart a course for any destination, seventeen-year-old Evren is jobless and lives in a dingy boat near an impoverished island far away from the rich capital of Tarkais. The mainland is off-limits to her due to cursed invisible pirates – the Naja – who roam the beaches, looking to kill her. When Captain Sa’av arrives in desperate need of a sea-navigator, Evren sees her chance to leave Tarkais and the murderous Naja behind. Sa’av needs someone to guide him to the sinister Sea Queen’s lair to obtain a cure for an illness spreading through the capital, a lair that is impossible to find. Except for Evren.

    But the moment they start the journey, the Sea Queen begins threatening her over the wind, and Evren realizes she may be in over her head. Along with the threat of sea serpents and water nymphs, she’ll have to fend off growing feelings for the handsome and eccentric Captain. She cannot go falling in love when she plans to leave Tarkais behind. If she fails on this trip, she won’t be able to escape the Naja. Worse still, she’ll be the reason why Captain Sa’av couldn’t obtain an antidote to an epidemic spreading across Tarkais.

    Evren faces a tough decision. She can answer the call of a secret magical past and stay to help the man she’s come to love, or she can leave Tarkais and the murderous Naja behind forever, securing her future.

  • Helena
    · Reply

    Winter’s Cradle is a YA Parananormal novel of approximately 85,000 words

    In an alternative future dominated by ice and snow, encroaching glaciers force fifteen-year-old Ayra and her isolated community to embark on a journey to find a new home.

    Ayra’s ghostly-pale skin, white hair, and light-coloured eyes, inherited from her deceased mother, have always set her apart. Unable to discover much about her mother’s life prior to her emergence from the supposedly uninhabitable Lostlands, she instead focuses on fitting in. So when latent, clairvoyant powers begin to emerge, Ayra is horrified. Not only do the visions petrify her, but she has no idea how to control them. Then one of them reveals that like her mother before her, a gang-boss from the equator belt is pursuing her.

    Having encountered and fought off slavers, the villagers are then ambushed by the equator-belt gang. Ayra evades capture, but becomes separated, leaving her with only one option—to go in search of her mother’s people, where she hopes to find the answers to who and what she really is.

    As the secrets of her heritage are revealed, she is faced with a grandmother who believes she destined to follow in her own Samanka footsteps and become a walker between the worlds. But Ayra, reluctant to give up her freedom, is not so sure. After what she was shown during a soul journey, she is convinced her path lies in a fate that will take more than her freedom. So when the equator men attack again, she confronts them, determined to put an end to the needless deaths, but fate hasn’t quite finished with her yet.

  • Barbara
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes:

    This story highlights family, friendship, humor, and when you least expect it, being able to do things you never thought possible. Mayhem in Mapleton is crafted for middle-grade readers and runs almost 26,000 words. In addition, there is an exciting sequel in the works but from a different point of view.

    Sammy, Jenna, and Emmett love to go exploring. Actually, it’s one of their all-time favorite activities. Who wouldn’t enjoy investigating trees, bugs, and animal poop! While the town is in a frenzy getting ready for the high school homecoming game and parade – which are huge deals in Mapleton – the trio stumbles onto something dastardly being planned at the local Lake Neumann. From secret meetings to stakeouts, the trio fashion their own counterplot to stop the bad guys from destroying the lake… and Mapleton along with it.

    Through this story, the reader will be introduced to a cast of characters including Jenna. She is one of those kids who is terrific at absolutely everything – schoolwork, sports, music – just everything. With her dark skin, bright fashionable clothes, and outstanding abilities, Jenna brings a calmness and sense of reason to the trio.

    Emmett is the ‘character’ of the group. He is exceptionally funny and does impressions of people along with mimicking various sound effects – at both appropriate and inappropriate times. He travels in a wheelchair, but with few exceptions, can participate in their adventures and activities.

    Sammy always means well, but his enthusiasm and school spirit have been known to cause visits to the principal’s office. His dad is a town hero having been the superstar quarterback in high school and then years later, taking over as coach. His mom, however, died three years ago. She taught middle school science and was responsible for instilling in Sammy, his love of the environment, animals, and adventure.

    Thanks so much for your time and consideration.

    Sincerely,
    Barbara Miller

  • Lisa
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    THE SOUPERKID CHRONICLES: WORD SOUP is a humorous 54,000-word MG novel with a Holes-meets-Origami Yoda vibe and a geeky protagonist reminiscent of The Losers Club.

    Everyone dreams of superpowers. Just not this kind.
    Defending state Word Bee champion Loïc Highstreet has a secret. He can make alphabet soup “talk.” But when the CanDo Soup Company phases out the soup he needs to train for competitions, Loïc has to spill his story to get it back in production.
    Now he’s Souperkid, the company’s popular new mascot. Loïc’s unexpected celebrity upsets the sixth-grade hierarchy, and alphas Brian, Rob, and Perry (a.k.a. BuRP) are determined to bring him down. They deploy the ultimate weapon: Rob’s devastating cartoons on Perry’s drone-like paper planes.
    When Loïc manages to survive their campaign of ridicule and recruit enough teammates for the upcoming Word Bee season, BuRP joins forces with Loïc’s underhanded rivals at another school. They implicate him in a scandal that costs him everything: his place on the Word Bee team, his state title, and his position as Souperkid.
    Little do any of them know, Loïc will be the only one who knows what to do when one of the bullies suffers a dangerous allergic reaction. Wielding his Epi-Pen, the ex-pseudo-superhero morphs into a real-deal sixth-grade hero with the grace to save his tormentor and the power to change how the bullies see him—and themselves.

    On the surface, Word Soup spoofs superhero tropes. Beneath the humor, our hero struggles against the powerful forces of celebrity, marketing, and image-making that can make it hard to accept yourself as you are and be recognized for your true talents, strength, and decency.

    After a first career teaching language and literature, I now write full time for children. I am an active member of SCBWI and have published in Highlights High Five.

    Thank you for your time.

    Sincerely,

    Lisa Bansen-Harp
    [email protected]

  • John
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Thank you for taking part in WriteOnCon!

    In DAWN OF THE GODS, an MG fantasy adventure at 66,000 words, ten-year-old Odysseus yearns to escape his boring life and become a hero. Learning lessons about family, loyalty, and true heroism, Odysseus finds his choices will reset the balance of power among both men and gods.

    Working his father’s fields on a remote island where the “civilized” Akhaians and the rural perioikoi always seem at odds with each other, he’s elated when news arrives that Iason is assembling a crew to find the Golden Fleece. When his father answers the call, Odysseus joins him on the dangerous journey across Greece, confronting enemies both human and divine. But the bonds between them become dangerously frayed when they meet the legendary Theseus, who wants Odysseus to be his apprentice. Odysseus must choose between the father he loves but fears, and the charismatic man who promises to teach him everything he wants to learn, but whose mysterious motives grow increasingly sinister. 


    Set in a Bronze Age world soon to be plunged into global war, DAWN OF THE GODS has the history of Song of Achilles, and the boys’ adventure of the Young James Bond and Ranger’s Apprentice books. With series potential, it tells the origin stories behind the well-known mortals and gods, which is very different from the more contemporary Percy Jackson books. My work has previously been published in KGB Bar & Lit, Morpheus Tales, Crime Factory, Forge Journal and Mobius. Under a pseudonym, I have also published a crime novel and many short stories. I hope DAWN OF THE GODS interests you, and I look forward to hearing from you.

    Yours,
    John Radosta

  • Nicole
    · Reply

    Dear agent

    Teen bounty hunters Annora and Hellion are scratching a living in the forsaken streets of The Borderlands, still bruising from the bounty that got away.
    Annora’s maimed hand is a constant reminder that Gabian Zola—renowned outlaw, killer, and feared Northman— is leaving a string of female victims in his wake because she failed to stop him. Unwilling to return home until they right their wrongs, the girls bloody their hands night and day to prove they’re a force to be reckoned with.
    When they learn that Gabian has come out of hiding to compete in an upcoming blood tournament with a prize that could let them carve out a life of their own choosing, Annora and Hellion decide to risk their chances of survival and pursue him once again. Recruiting a runaway girl with her own cryptic bounty notice, they set out across the savage desert to finally claim their prize.
    During their journey, tempers fray, water skins run dry, and Hellion finds herself drawn to Carina, despite her dangerous secrets. The girls join a dozen mercenaries and outlaws to joust, race, and duel, all the while plotting to capture their target. But when Gabian begins to methodically pick the competitors off one by one, it’s clear that Annora and Hellion are more the hunted than the hunters.
    Surrounded by enemies, with secrets unravelling, the friends must fight to survive a world driven wild with bloodlust.

    CHASING BLOOD & SCOUNDRELS is complete at 93,000 words, and is a young adult fantasy novel told in multiple points of view. It is standalone with series potential.
    THE VALIANT meets Mackenzi Lee’s #BygoneBadassBroads, CHASING BLOOD & SCOUNDRELS features a f/f relationship and may appeal to fans of Susan Dennard and Ryan Graudin.
    This manuscript was selected as a 2016 Pitch Wars novel.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.
    Sincerely,
    Nicole Alana Brake

  • Tiffini
    · Reply

    THE CHOICE is Young Adult fantasy and is 65,811 words..

    Growing up as the heir of the kingdom is not an easy task- especially when you are seventeen and your over-protective father forbids you to leave the palace grounds. All Angelei wants to do is to be the best princess she can be for the country of Seton, but the only thing she knows about her land and life outside the walls of the palace, that exists after a war that almost destroyed the world, is what she has been taught by her tyrant of a father.

    When her father declares that The Choice, the event where she must choose a husband from suitors he has picked out for her, she feels overwhelmed and trapped. The day before it officially starts, Angelei discovers a new hidden passageway that leads to a small poverty-stricken town. There she meets a boy, Emery, who shows her how corrupt her Father’s teachings have been, struggles to find the real truth of what happened to Seton and why her father has lied about the past. She can either go against her father’s wishes and continue to search for the true answers and run the risk of the wrath and furry of her father or continue without a second thought and be married off to a noble, allowing others to dictate what she knows. There are secret codes, covered up deaths, and a plot for her choices to be taken away forever.

  • Sandi van
    · Reply

    Dear Emily,

    Born in Vietnam War during the war and adopted by American soldiers, sixteen-year-old Anna knows little about her birth parents, and her adoptive mom left without an explanation shortly after they arrived in the United States. She and Dad are a two-man crew, ready to take on the world as soon as he returns from his final deployment. But when Anna finds an old trunk with letters to her father, she must decide whether to remain loyal to the one constant in her life, or finally learn the truth about her blurry past.

    Anna doesn’t realize that the trunk once belonged to her grandma Francesca. During the Great Depression sixty years earlier, it accompanied then fifteen-year-old Francesca on a journey to reunite with her father who had been forced to leave their small town to search for work. But when she arrives, she learns her father is living with a new family, and there is an undercurrent of illegal activity that pious Francesca cannot reconcile. She must learn to accept the choices of those around her or end up alone.

    LEAVE IF YOU MUST, a 67,000 word YA historical told in alternating POV and inspired in part by my grandmother’s memoirs, explores what it means to be a family and how tragedy can tear us apart or bring us closer together.
    I am a member of Pennwriters and serve as membership coordinator for Buffalo-Niagara Children’s Writers and Illustrators (BNCWI). My YA verse novel, SECOND IN COMMAND, will be published by Rosen in January 2019.

    Thank you for your consideration

  • Katie Mastin
    · Reply

    Hi Ms. Keyes,
    Thank you so much for taking the time to comment on all these queries. It is much appreciated!!

    Complete at 68,000 words, THE PAINLESS PLACE is a dual-POV, middle grade novel about the power of sacrifice, the importance of family, and the idea that a world without pain might be a surprisingly painful place. The novel will appeal to readers reaching for a historical fantasy who like the adventure of Maiya Williams’ Golden Hour History Detective series and the balance between light and dark in Gregory Maguire’s Egg and Spoon.

    Thirteen-year-old Joan Lang is furious when her father tells her they are moving to Istanbul to search for the lost treasure of Constantinople—the Ruby Dagger. With little league baseball tryouts less than a month away and her mother’s death still fresh in her memory, he could not have chosen a crueler time. Just when Joan thinks her life cannot get any worse, her father suddenly vanishes from his new office at the Topkapi Palace museum. Much to her dismay, Joan discovers that that he is still hot on The Ruby Dagger’s trail…in the year 1485!

    Unfortunately, Joan’s father is not the only one looking for the dagger. The blade’s original owner, the deathless Shah Zoltan, has followed the professor back in time. With the help of a fez-wearing history wonk named Mert, an Albanian soldier-in-training with a secret vendetta, and a poem that contains the clue to unlock the knife’s power, Joan embarks on a whirlwind journey to recover the dagger and rescue her father from Shah Zoltan. As they travel from the crooked streets of Constantinople to the mountains of Northern Albania, the rescuers are caught up in the Albanian rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. As they struggle to navigate the armed revolt, evade Shah Zoltan, and find Joan’s father, Joan discovers that the Ruby Dagger and its power to take away pain may be the key to all three. But the knife’s power comes at a price, and she must decide how far she is willing to go to master the blade.

    I am a graduate of the University of Virginia’s English department and a member of SCWBI. My most recent short story was published in the anthology, A Cup of Culture and a Pinch of Crisis, and my first picture book, The Adventurers, will be published by TalesMag Press in the autumn of 2018. I am currently working on my second MG novel, Case Files of an Invisible Lunatic.

    Thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.

    Sincerely,
    Katie Mastin

  • SusanAntony
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    High school senior Ace McAlister is the family peacekeeper. She struggles to keep their secrets, while taking care of her autistic brother and “hanging out” with Cameron, the son of a close family friend, even though he’s possessive and, frankly, a little creepy. Despite all this, while they’re on a vacation in Cherokee, North Carolina with her and Cameron’s family, Ace’s mom falls off the wagon. Fed up, Ace rebels and sneaks off to the Cherokee Indian Reservation. There she meets John Spears, an eighteen-year-old tribe member with family issues that rival her own.

    John is smart, really hot, and bound for Duke University in the fall. But all that doesn’t change the fact that his mother deserted the family or that he lives with a bossy grandmother determined to keep him on the Rez. Though hanging on to his dream isn’t easy, John is determined to follow through with his plans to go to law school. He’s intent on flying solo, too. That is until he nearly rams his truck into a car carrying a blue-eyed girl named Ace. And with a name like Ace, how can a guy go wrong?

    Ace and John soon discover they have more in common than messed-up mothers and bigoted family members. They both love horses and the wilderness, and John gets along well with Ace’s brother. But when Cameron finds out about them, he kidnaps Ace, stages Ace’s and his own disappearance, leaving clues behind that implement John. It’s then Ace and John must fight to save their lives—and their love.

    I attended WriteOnCon Convention and enjoyed your presentation. I especially liked how hard and long you worked to sell your client’s manuscripts. I hope you will enjoy CHEROKEE SUMMER, a dual POV YA Romance complete at 84000 words. It recently took first place in the New Adult/Young Adult division of the MORWA Romance Writer’s Gateway to the Best 2017. Along with online research of the Indigenous people, I have visited the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina several times, the last time staying on the reservation to attend a Powwow. My autistic character is loosely based on my own fifteen-year-old son, so I’m personally aware of the challenges autistic people and their families face in our neurotypical world. I also hired a First Nations sensitivity reader from “Writing in the Margins” who specializes in Indigenous culture to read my novel and edited my work according to her suggestions.

    Thank you for your consideration.

  • Brenda Marie
    · Reply

    Thank you for this pitching opportunity. I appreciate your time and attention.

    Dear Ms. Keyes,
    Months ago, a solar electromagnetic pulse fried the U.S. grid and motorized transport. Most adults in eighteen-year-old Keno Simms’s family were stranded away from home, and, without their mother’s supervision, his younger sister got pregnant then died in a tragic accident. Keno blames himself and is crushed with grief. Now his missing family has returned to pile on with judgment and accusations.

    Bleak reality forced Keno to grow up fast and drove him to marry Alma, who shares a similar grief. When she becomes pregnant as well, he’s both elated and terrified. Still he persists in holding out hope for his family’s survival. Keno must find a way to keep Alma healthy despite scarce water, dwindling supplies, and the crop-killing Texas heat. With no medical care, people he loves die prematurely. Hungry, thirsty outsiders continually haunt the neighborhood, trying to take what little they have and leave Keno’s family to starve.

    If Keno can repair his grandmother’s dead solar electric panels, he and his family could preserve the food they grow in their formerly-urban subdivision. With Alma’s help, he must work through the pressure and grief that plague him so that he can save the crops and fix the solar, and can make a safe home for Alma and their child. But gully-washing storms and desperate home invaders could thwart Keno’s plans.

    At 121,000 words, IF THE LIGHT SHOULD COME is a New Adult Speculative novel, an environmental dystopia, similar to Mindy McGinnis’s NOT A DROP TO DRINK.

    Thank you for your consideration.

    Wishing you well,
    Brenda Marie Smith

  • Carey Blankenship
    · Reply

    STONEHAVEN is a contemporary fantasy MG complete at 45,000 words that will appeal to those looking for the heart and mystery of the Greenglass House by Kate Milford, the creepy world-building and an all-female cast of Netflix’s Stranger Things, and the concept of the characters from Steven Universe.

    Em thinks of her mother’s gemstones as a burden. None of the locals in their small southern town of Gavenston ever visit the store her mom owns, except for during the Andrew Wright festival. For one weekend only, treasure hunters flock from all over the world for a chance to find Wright’s hidden treasure. Only then do her mother’s sparkling rocks bring in money, but it’s never enough to pull Em and her mother out of debt. Em’s best friend Gail isn’t faring much better, as she watches her family grow farther and farther apart after the disappearance of her brother three years ago. For a town full of legends and, supposedly, a treasure, there isn’t much left for them to believe in.

    Then one of the gemstones starts to move and seems to have a mind of its own, especially when it leads them to the first key to Andrew Wright’s treasure. Suddenly, they find themselves face to face in a web of dangerous puzzles designed by the gemstones. And when they receive threatening notes from an angry treasure hunter, Em and Gail realize that solving the puzzle means risking everything, including their lives. But if they succeed, Em and her mom can keep the gemstone store, and Gail might finally be able to find her brother. Now that they believe in the treasure, it’s time to believe in themselves.

  • Kathy Panzella
    · Reply

    Ms. Keyes,

    CANTAR THE MAGIC GUITAR is first in the MELODY’S MUSICAL ADVENTURES early chapter book series. The word count is around 5300 words. Melody plays with friends and comes home for dinner but goes on after secret school adventures with a magical musical instrument, eventually finding an orchestra.

    Eight year old Melody finds an old guitar, but doesn’t know that it is magical. Melody meets the neighborhood kids at a clubhouse and it’s boys vs. girls. She loses a bike race, cries after a boy throws her guitar on the ground, but happily discovers the mystery of the strings. Cantar, Spanish for song, was created by a Spanish magician and brought over to America on the Mayflower. As she strums, Cantar takes Melody to another world. They land on a tall sailing ship in a stormy sea then find a puppy onboard. Melody brings him home and her parents let her keep him and have guitar lessons. The last pages show chords so readers can learn the guitar. The next characters in the series are Giocare, the Italian violin (giocare is Italian for play) and Doux, the French flute (doux is French for sweet).

    MELODY’S MUSICAL ADVENTURES would fit into the Scholastic Branches series of illustrated chapter books and it is similar to the Zoey and Sassafras series. A comparable TV show would be THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS and LITTLE AMADEUS.

    In addition to the Melody series, I’m writing my WWII aviation script, CLIPPER, into a novel. I’ve also written a non-fiction ebook, BIKINI HIP REPLACEMENT. I love flying and married a pilot.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.

    Kathy Panzella, [email protected]

  • Kimberly
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Seventeen-year-old Riley Conrad needs only two things: a hot cup of well-roasted coffee and her trusty Bic pen. Since her dad left (a day she’s happily lost all memory of) Riley spends her after-school hours in a small, Czech-owned cafe, where she disappears in the pages of her notebook–until her heartbroken sister slips back into her life.

    Jo’s return to their Michigan home brings painful flashes of lost memories, but Riley’s quickly forgetting what it was like to live without her, and determines to get her to stay. With Jo’s lying husband trying to win her back, though, she’s in for a fight. And it doesn’t help when Riley reveals she knew about the other woman long before Jo did. So when she meets Hall, a college boy with a past as complex as his case file is thick, she wants to tell Jo everything. But when she comes home, Jo’s gone. And it’s her fault.

    Riley’s burgeoning memories might explain why she did what she did, but if she tells Jo the whole truth about that day, how could she ever forgive her? On the other hand, retreating to the safety of her notebook feels suddenly impossible. Sure, no one can touch her there, but is that really what she wants?

    WHAT WE WERE MISSING is a contemporary young adult novel complete at 62,000 words. I currently live in Budapest with my husband and three sons. I have degrees in English literature and school counseling, and enjoy finding creative ways to combine the two.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.

  • Delara
    · Reply

    Dear Emily,

    Eighteen-year-old Ren isn’t much of a rule breaker. He prefers to be home in his workshop on the surface, tuning up house bots with his AI friend, Stray. Instead, he’s on Cascade—the station orbiting his planet—his twin sister’s life threatened by rebels, and a gun in his hand. No, if there’s a more horrible day, Ren can’t think of it.

    But this space mechanic’s day is about to get worse. On the edge of his star system lies Seorsum Station, and in twenty-one hours its people will die when its energy source runs dry. The only way to save them is with a drastic plan by rebels to steal Cascade’s power core. Ren has the skills to make this happen. Roped in against his will, he’s paired with Josah, a bruiser who wants to throw him out an airlock, Together they must pull off the dangerous heist, escape crooked cops, all so he can rescue his sister… and then the station starts falling apart.

    As the clock runs down, in order to fix both stations, Ren must chase down and repair the chain reaction of destruction triggered by the rebels’ actions. But when the brutal truth of why they recruited him is revealed, he’ll have to decide the lengths and light years he’ll travel for his family.

    FURY OF STARS is a 93k YA science fiction with gay protagonist and series potential. It will that appeal to readers of Gemina and Nyxia.

  • Michael
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Thank you for this opportunity! Here’s my pitch:

    Fourteen-year-old boxer Goldis is shocked when he receives a rare opportunity to compete against a world champion. The catch? The champion is the monarchal ruler of a faraway kingdom known as Grandhilla, where children are raised as fighters.

    To avoid returning to a life on the streets, Goldis accepts the offer. He then learns that he is one of twelve recruited candidates, all of whom must battle against each other in a tournament for a shot at the title. On top of that, he attracts the interest of a strangely esteemed group of cultists, who award him a magical artifact and insist that he represent them in the tournament. But Goldis is not the tallest fighter, or the bulkiest, or the most renowned—why bet on him?

    The tournament is his chance to prove himself. It’s a chance to be more than the lonely, punch-drunk kid at the end of the block. He enters the ring without looking back. But in the kingdom of Grandhilla, where scoundrels wear crowns and good men go hungry, he will have to decide what he is willing to do in order to win.

    GOLDIS V. THE GRANDIOSE GAME is a young adult fantasy complete at 74,000 words. It will appeal to fans of Marie Lu’s Warcross and the 1976 film Rocky.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.

    Sincerely,
    Michael J. Richmond

  • Casie
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    When 18-year-old Sara Sterling’s long-time boyfriend gives her the boot one week shy of graduation, she’s just sorry she wasn’t the one to break it off first. Problem is, she doesn’t know who the hell she is outside the confines of a relationship. After a failed rebound fling, city girl Sara opts for the last thing anyone expects—she accepts her Uncle Dean’s invitation to work at his Colorado guest ranch for the summer.

    Through endless hours of grooming horses and mucking stalls, she finds unexpected solace in the barn. Just as she’s settling in, however, she makes another hasty decision—bidding on an injured, slaughter-bound horse at a local auction. There’s something familiar in Treble’s soft, brown eyes; he’s as lost as she is. Sara hopes to give him a second chance at the ranch, but to her horror, Dean insists the horse is worthless and vows to sell him at the next monthly auction.

    Sara’s repressed anger resurfaces; it appears no amount of progress will change Treble’s fate. But the parallel between saving an unwanted horse and finding her identity is not lost on her. If she’s learned anything this summer, it’s that she’s capable of more than she ever believed. She must put aside blame and take the reins of her life for good. After all, there’s not just one life, but two depending on it.

    Complete at 65,000 words, SEEKING SARA STERLING is a heartwarming, coming-of-age story which will appeal to fans of classic YA, such as that of Sarah Dessen, but also to those who love flawed female characters, like the ones featured in novels by Courtney Summers.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.

    Casie Bazay

  • Elizabeth Scherman
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    I am seeking representation for my middle-grade novel, The Island of Flying Children, complete at 40,000 words with series potential. I love stories that give voice to minority characters who fight to make their world a better place, and as a child growing up with a disability, I searched for stories about people like me. The Island of Flying Children may appeal to readers who enjoy the unusual bodies and call to courage of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and the magical worlds and family loyalty found in the books of Neil Gaiman.

    Never let go.
    Ten-year-old Figgy learns the meaning of these words when his little sister Osprey is born with a defect: She floats in the air. When he takes her for walks – floats, really – she must be tied to a cord, like a balloon. If he were to let go, she could disappear into the sky, never to return.
    Never let go. Even if it means that he must stow away on the ship headed to the Academy for Elevated Children, where Osprey and other children will learn to soar in the air. Even if it means joining forces with the Groundlings – Academy rejects who are forbidden to fly. Even if it means pirating a flying ship, traveling the world to find the floating island of the sinister Flying Child kidnapper Professor Slickworm, and pulling the entire island across the sea and back home to the mainland.
    And even if it means letting go at last – trusting Osprey and the other flyers to make their way across the sky. For other flying children are waiting – children that Slickworm is keeping hungry and caged, children who need to be told that they have the power to escape, before it is too late.
    But even though he longer holds her by a cord, Figgy knows that he is responsible for rescuing the fearless Osprey from the dangers that she all-too-willingly enters – or none of them will make it safely home.
    My most recent publication is “Mixed Assortment” in the anthology Tim Burton: Essays on the Films, published by McFarland and edited by Johnson Cheu. I am a former award-winning journalist and playwright with seven of my stage works receiving full production, including two under a National Endowment for the Humanities grant.

    Thank you for taking the time to consider The Island of Flying Children as a title for Fuse.

    Kindest regards,
    Elizabeth Leigh Scherman
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    253.389.6813

  • BBBurke
    · Reply

    Four months ago, seventeen-year-old Malena killed her best friend. She doesn’t remember the party, much less the accident—too much alcohol and a severe concussion—but that’s what Josh told her when she woke up in the hospital. He was first on the scene and slid her friend’s body into the driver’s seat to save Malena from jail time. Under the weight of that secret and her guilt, Malena limps through her senior year with a simple strategy: keep her head down, don’t burden her mom any more than she already has, escape high school and this crappy little town forever.

    Fog Line is a Young Adult mystery set on the Mendocino Coast in Northern California and has the small-town character and rising tension of books like BURN FOR BURN by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian and THE GIRL I USED TO BE by April Henry. It’s complete at 90k words and would be my debut novel.

    The new girl at school, Zoe, makes it hard. Somehow she knows everyone’s secrets, including Malena’s. But she says it wasn’t Malena’s fault, wasn’t an accident. Any hope of redemption is enough for Malena to buy in, and when the police report backs up the claim, Malena must find out why Josh lied and who else at the party was involved.

    With Zoe’s oddly certain guidance, Malena uncovers pot dealing, police bribes, and secret relationships. But as she gets closer to the truth, more ‘accidents’ start killing the suspects, and Malena wonders if vengeance is coming for her or if she should be the one dishing it out.

    • BBBurke
      · Reply

      formatting mixed up the paragraphs in posting. Should be this:

      Fog Line is a Young Adult mystery set on the Mendocino Coast in Northern California and has the small-town character and rising tension of books like BURN FOR BURN by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian and THE GIRL I USED TO BE by April Henry. It’s complete at 90k words and would be my debut novel.

      Four months ago, seventeen-year-old Malena killed her best friend. She doesn’t remember the party, much less the accident—too much alcohol and a severe concussion—but that’s what Josh told her when she woke up in the hospital. He was first on the scene and slid her friend’s body into the driver’s seat to save Malena from jail time. Under the weight of that secret and her guilt, Malena limps through her senior year with a simple strategy: keep her head down, don’t burden her mom any more than she already has, escape high school and this crappy little town forever.

      The new girl at school, Zoe, makes it hard. Somehow she knows everyone’s secrets, including Malena’s. But she says it wasn’t Malena’s fault, wasn’t an accident. Any hope of redemption is enough for Malena to buy in, and when the police report backs up the claim, Malena must find out why Josh lied and who else at the party was involved.

      With Zoe’s oddly certain guidance, Malena uncovers pot dealing, police bribes, and secret relationships. But as she gets closer to the truth, more ‘accidents’ start killing the suspects, and Malena wonders if vengeance is coming for her or if she should be the one dishing it out.

  • Juliet
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes:

    MYSTERY UNDER AN ENCHANTED SKY is a YA contemporary mystery with shades of Caleb Roehrig’s LAST SEEN LEAVING, John Green’s TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN, and VERONICA MARS. Complete at 76,000 words, it is an #ownvoices story.

    In the fall, eighteen-year-old Echo Copeland is headed to Caltech to study astronomy with people who don’t associate “Milky Way” with a vending machine. However, first she must survive a job at Wild Wild West Self Storage. She expects the worst part of her summer to involve a poly-blend uniform decorated with lassos. Then she opens a supposedly empty storage unit and finds a dead body.

    The corpse in question belongs to the grandmother of Caitlyn Ornado, the ex that Echo’s never been able to forget. Echo’s willing to do almost anything to win back Santa Fe’s closeted Rodeo Queen, including investigate a murder. As the two interview suspects and learn about the victim’s explosive—and missing—autobiography, Echo is sucked back into Caitlyn’s orbit even as she wonders whether Caitlyn truly wants answers. All paths lead to the powerful Ornado family and its role in New Mexico politics. When suspicion shifts to Echo, putting her future at Caltech and her freedom on the line, she realizes that the only thing more important than getting the girl is unearthing the truth. But will anyone believe her when she does?

    Thank you for your consideration.

    Sincerely,

    Juliet White

  • Chrystal
    · Reply

    Dear Emily,

    On a planet where the purity of blood determines social standing, seventeen-year-old Bastian, with his less than perfect DNA hasn’t had it easy, leaving him bitter and angry at his station in life. And he’s ready to burn his world to cinders and soot.

    When Bastian sees an opportunity to trick one of the upper crust snobs, he takes the chance for revenge. But when getting even leaves him at the wrong end of a blade in the seedy side of town, he escapes with the knowledge that he’s not the only person to be attacked and that people in the city are disappearing every night. It’s not until Bastian’s sister vanishes, though, that he decides to risk his own mediocre blood being spilled to find out what’s happening. He follows a trail of little green pills, hidden experiments, and strange inhuman whispers only to discover that disappearances in the dead of night aren’t the only thing he has to worry about. Not when sentient-seeming creatures, made of ink and shadows, start slithering in the supposedly uninhabitable land outside the city right when the disappearances start. Now he has to decide: find his missing sister or stop the monsters from getting into the city.

    Gattaca meets Red Queen with a Victorian atmosphere, THE AIR ON ASHURN is a young adult sci-fi with multiple points of view in third person. A stand-alone with series potential, it is complete at 70,000 words. I have previously worked for Curiosity Quills Press as an editor. Thank you for your time.

    Sincerely,

    Chrystal Schleyer

  • Stacey
    · Reply

    Lilah has just one thing left worth fighting for: her mentally ill little sister. But with an army of dead soldiers a hundred-thousand strong just outside her city’s walls, hope is difficult to come by. Until she meets Sam, a teenage boy who sings and smiles and encourages her to remember the good, not just the bad. Even Carla is calmer around the strange boy.

    But Sam has a secret. He’s not just another citizen of the Shattered City. He’s the son of the Necromancer—the evil sorcerer who controls the dead army. And one day, the evil magic running through his own veins will take over his body. Before that happens, he has a mission to complete. And Lilah just may be the key.

    When Lilah learns who Sam is, she becomes a spy for the resistance army, heading into the Dead Lands to meet him with one intention: use their connection to learn how to kill him before he joins his evil father. Too bad she’s already falling in love with him.

    Between lies and attraction, both Sam and Lilah have difficult tasks ahead of them—and only one will succeed.

    A HEART OF THE DEEPEST BLACK is a dual point of view YA fantasy novel complete at 62,000 words. It is An Ember In The Ashes meets This Savage Song, inspired by the story of Sampson And Delilah.

    I am a published author, Pitch Wars mentor and blogger with Middle Grade Minded. My debut was a YA contemporary novel titled NAKED which released from Entangled Teen in 2015 and Pushing The Boundaries released in 201. Thanks so much for your time.

  • Cathy
    · Reply

    Gilmore Girls meets Anna Dressed in Blood in my 64,000 word YA ghost story, HAUNT ME.

    CALLIE (15) was the interesting, odd girl at her NYC prep school. She wasn’t invited anywhere but she was happy. Her mother ALICE was her best friend and, like all best friends, Callie was sure they told each other everything.

    Until Alice was murdered, Callie didn’t believe in ghosts. She’d never seen one. Now, despite the smell – sickening, and the death rattle – heart-breaking, Callie would rather be haunted than lose her mother forever.

    Building a new life with your wild-haired grandmother, the one your mother said was dead, isn’t easy. No one wants to hear about a miserable lost-soul hanging around the kitchen trying to kill you. Not your grandmother, and for certain not the popular boy from school, even if he does want to kiss you. Who knew flirty boys were almost as scary as hauntings.

    Alternately threatened and comforted by Alice’s ghost and a high school social life she is unprepared to handle, Callie reads her mother’s diaries, unravels her “scandalous” past and realizes she has a choice: take up her mother’s work – putting the lonely evil dead to rest – or find a life among the living and let her mother go. It’s hard to see how she can do both.

    I am a member of SCBWI. My short-story, The Survey, won the 2017 Halloween contest judged by Rin Chupeco for the YA Review Network. I live in my grandmother’s quirky old house. I never saw a ghost in here, but my mother did and that story was the beginning of this one.
    Sincerely,

  • David Brown
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Twelve-year-old tour guide Casper Mendoza can turn a nothing story into a ten-dollar tip faster than you can reach for your wallet. If you happened to be on one of his Tombstone ghost tours, he’d tell you he was saving for the most important thing in the world: a truck-driving museum dedicated to the memory of his father. But it’s going to take a whole lot more than tips to afford that dream. Luckily for Casper there’s another way, but it involves two nearly impossible tasks: overcoming his fear of the highway, and helping country musician Lester Washburn reunite with his son in Tennessee. Only it turns out Lester has been dead for thirty years, and worse, the rules of the afterlife have their foot on the gas pedal, giving them two weeks and not a second more.

    From the moment their eyes met, and Casper ran home screaming, Lester knew the kid was sadly his one-way ticket out of this world, because like it or not, without Casper around he’d still be as invisible as the day he died. Lester promises Casper a whole lot of cash to complete his unfinished business, and with an offer too good to refuse, Casper can’t say no.

    Facing his fear of the highway head on, Casper and Lester embark on an epic road trip by train, bus, steamship, and diesel truck to the Grand Ole Opry. It isn’t long before the police suspect that Casper has been kidnapped. Now on the run from the law, and low on cash, Casper has to beat the clock to get Lester to his son if he ever hopes to receive the payday he’s promised. If he fails, Lester will never move on from this world to the next, and Casper’s dream will remain just another nothing story he’s trying to sell.

    GHOST OF THE GRAND OLE OPRY (60K/Middle Grade) combines the sweetness of Natalie Lloyd’s The Key to Extraordinary with the offbeat humor in Jack Gantos’s Norvelt series. At its heart, it’s about a boy overcoming the death of his father and a ghost learning what it means to be a dad. Casper’s journey is a country song brought to life, complete with heartache, gambling, and all the Shirley Temples you can drink.

  • Ashlyn
    · Reply

    Dear Emily S. Keyes,

    ALL IS DARK is a 93,000 words YA fantasy novel with series potential that features a bisexual main character. It may appeal to fans of Sarah Raughley’s FATE OF FLAMES.

    Lacking the magical abilities every person in the world has, seventeen-year-old Saekina hides from the grotesque monsters that hunt her by living a life of paranoid solitude in the sprawling city. Growing close to others will only put them in peril, and her heart can’t take losing anyone else. Her only reliable defense against them is an energy unlike any known magic: not flames, illusions, or healing, but malleable blue tendrils that emerge from her skin. When the monsters slaughter their way through a room full of people to get to her, Saekina is blamed for the murders and finds herself on the wanted posters.

    Once again looking for a place to stay, Saekina crosses paths with four others hunted by the same monsters and wielding the same power, her empty life opens up. And then there’s Idani, a mischievous thief who doesn’t have to stick around since none of this is her problem, and Saekina just might be falling for her. Together, Saekina and her friends search libraries, temples, and crumbling ancient ruins to learn why these creatures are so unrelenting in their quest to kill them.

    The answer leaves Saekina more alientated. There’s no way she can go to the royal family or authorities for help. The very goddess Saekina is named for, the goddess of mercy, stole her power, the same power Saekina and her friends can use, and she’ll hunt Saekina and her friends through reincarnations to protect it. As Saekina’s desire to do more than just survive grows, so does the goddess’ determination to end the cycle of rebirth. If Saekina wants to keep her new friends alive she must master her own god-like power to match a goddess’.

  • ShielaB
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Fifteen-year-old Valerie Garcia-Daniels is the newest curandera in her family’s long line of spirit healers. Her nana assures her she’s destined for great things – where Valerie sees a clumsy, too-dark white girl, Nana sees magic, beauty, and strength. But when a vengeful demon lord steals Nana’s soul to be eternally tortured for all the lives she’s saved, Valerie is forced to do the unthinkable.

    Allow someone else to die and trade their soul for Nana’s.

    To withhold healing and let someone die is a sin so dark, Nana would never have considered it. But Valerie doesn’t know what else to do and Nana’s not around to advise her. Valerie’s best friend has a grandmother in the hospital dying from an attempted suicide. The woman wants to die. So who’s Valerie to say she shouldn’t? Valerie can rescue Nana, or heal the woman and be everything Nana ever wanted her to be. But she can’t do both.

    Until a quick trip to the Underworld gives her another choice. One of the demon lord’s half-human sons says he knows of another way to save her nana, freeing Valerie to heal the dying woman. He’ll show her, but for a price. Tortured by his demonic half-brothers for his gentle nature, all he wants in return is to be reunited with his human mother. Even a novice spirit healer knows you don’t bring demons, half or otherwise, to Earth, but Valerie is running out of time and options.

    She must decide which rule will be less dangerous to break, not only for her own soul, but for the community she’s sworn to protect.

    DAY OF THE NOT SO DEAD is an #ownvoices contemporary YA fantasy complete at 62,000 words and is inspired by my own multicultural upbringing. Thank you for your consideration.

  • Pj McIlvaine
    · Reply

    CHARLEMAGNE CROSSE: AT HER MAJESTY’S PLEASURE, a YA alternative historical mystery adventure set in Victorian England (Outlander meets Dickens). Charlemagne Crosse had the most idyllic childhood any child could hope for, but her life is shattered when her parents disappear under puzzling circumstances. Four years later, having regained her wealth and freedom, she is determined to solve the mystery, but Queen Victoria has another agenda. Charlemagne learns too late that she can trust no one, not Her Royal Majesty, and not even herself.

  • Tiffini
    · Reply

    Beta Players is a Yong Adult Sci-fi completed at 70,935 that appeals to the fans of virtual reality game of WarCross meets the Testing.

    Obsessed with technology, seventeen-year-old Finley not only plays virtual reality but is creating her own game in hopes to one day work with Vtech, the most prestigious and well-known tech company. Walking home from school after the bus breaks down Vtech announces a huge project, in which they are allowing a certain number of people to beta test their newest virtual reality game, SHOWDOWN, with the potential of working for them afterward.

    After she beats out college graduates for one of the coveted spots, she gets close to those who are also testing the game along with becoming close to a tech, Keagan, who works behind the scenes at Vtech. There is a warning that the people behind Vtech explain that there might be some strange side effects of playing the game. When Finley has been playing for a few days, life starts to seem strange which she expected but things are getting out of hand and something about life just seems off- she is having issues focusing on people and has a difficult time hearing what others are saying.

    When she lets a little bit of the game slip when talking to Kevin, her best friend, she finds herself being kidnapped. Waking up in an unfamiliar area, with the metallic scent of blood in the air, Finley discovers that she must fight for her life in the hopes of surviving and finding a way home, even if it means killing someone, which frightens her most.

  • katydid
    · Reply

    Thank you so much for this opportunity! Below is my first 350 words (copying deleted the italics):
    Ebba’s soaked dress clung to her skin as she ran through the moonless night. The lake water left from her near-drowning had crystalized into a crust of icicles. If she fell, she might not be able to get up again. Keep moving. Get as far away from the witchfinder as possible, may he be reincarnated as a drunkard’s chamber pot.

    Heedless of direction, she climbed up the mountain, away from the town of Fort Jhaarth and everyone in it. A long wolf’s cry pierced the air. Ebba froze.

    The forest was dead silent again, not so much as an owl hooting or insect chirping. Vines strangled dead or dying trees. An ancient demonic invasion had left this place magic-cursed. After the wolves had first descended, only those too poor to leave had remained in her village. Ebba shivered. Most wolves avoid humans. Except for the red-eyed wolves. The ones generally found deeper in the woods. Anabiel help me.

    She refused to be devoured like her mother. Perhaps she could sneak back just long enough to steal a knife and some food. She’d been too panicked in her flight, afraid the witchfinder might wake up…

    Memory had her hands flying up to protect her face. He’d started with pins, directly on top of the mottled red birthmark covering her left cheek. If it was the mark of a witch, supposedly she wouldn’t feel pain there. Giant hands had held her down, his nails filthy and his liver spots as big as spiders. His too-close breath had reeked of onions.

    “Confess,” the witchfinder had ordered after every pin. Each time, she’d refused. They’d kill her once she confessed.

    The second day, he’d brought out the hot iron. This morning, the dunking. Through a blur of watery suffocation, her most distinct memory was, peculiarly, the smell of sausages. Mad Gill, the local beggar, had gone around selling them to bystanders. The pleas she’d made to her neighbors had only been met with disdain or bloodthirsty fascination.

    No, she wasn’t going back.

  • Elizabeth Scherman
    · Reply

    With respect, why is my comment “awaiting moderation” when the comments of those who have posted after me do not require “moderation.”

    • Alyssa
      · Reply

      Author

      Your comment required moderation because it contained personal details, which WordPress’ system automatically flags to make sure the webowner is comfortable putting those details live.

  • Sara
    · Reply

    Hi Emily,

    Thank you for doing this, it’s a wonderful opportunity!

    FAR FROM is an Urban Fantasy complete at 100,000 words with series potential.
    OLIVE GREY barely made it through her adolescent years alive. Strange occurrences made things tense in all but one foster home. It was a relief when she aged out of the system and was able to move on with the only friend she’d been able to make, DARREN.

    With his help, she learned to curb her unhealthy coping mechanisms and live a normal life in the city, Fell. Living somewhere outside of their bubble helped them both to move on from the mutual traumatic events of their youth. Olive strives to prove that she is a complete person and doesn’t need to be coddled, while trying not to appear ungrateful for Darren’s help.

    That is until Olive meets NOAH and strange occurrences begin to resurge. Olive’s life strikes out on a new path she never imagined possible. She finds that she can do and be more than anyone could have guessed. Her new found power is far too dangerous to share with Darren and their friendship begins to crack under the weight of old wounds.

    Olive has to figure out how to control her darker urges and protect Darren all while keeping him in the dark. To save him completely, she risks losing the only constant she’s ever had.

    I appreciate your time and hope to hear from you soon!

  • Jessica Grace kelley
    · Reply

    Dear Mr. Keyes,

    Mercy Killers is a diverse 96,000-word YA fantasy that tackles euthanasia and cultural oppression.

    There are worse things than dying from the Plague. You could survive it and be forced to become a Mercy Killer. The Guardian is one of those survivors. He’s taken hundreds of lives, euthanizing sufferers so they don’t have to endure the Plague’s cruel end. When he arrives outside Greylin’s city, people treat him like a hero. But all Greylin sees is the blood on his hands.
    She understands the Plague’s danger because she grew up as a vagabond, outside the safety of Attica, and she lost someone she loved to the sickness. Greylin is the only person who’s asking a very important question: why is a Mercy Killer outside the only city that’s never fallen to the Plague?
    Soon after the Guardian’s arrival, the Plague explodes outside the city. Greylin and the Guardian join forces, pulling political strings to keep Attica’s citizens safe, but every tug unravels a new connection that points to a sinister truth: the government wants the outer city to fall. Meanwhile, the Guardian’s return has brought back Greylin’s memories of her time as a vagabond, and their entwined childhood is becoming impossible to ignore. As the Plague creeps closer, Greylin learns there are even worse things than being a Mercy Killer—you could love one.

    Mercy Killers is the winner of the YA Authors.me contest and the 2017 Molly Award, and was a top three finalist in several national competitions. It is written with a POV structure similar to A.G. Howard’s Rosewood, and it combines the writing style of Marie Rutkoski’s The Winner’s Curse with the identity twist of Mary E. Pearson’s The Kiss of Deception. Five agents have current requests for the full, and there is a pending request from Stephen Morgan at Entangled.

    Thank you so much for your time,
    Jessica Grace Kelley

  • Annmarie
    · Reply

    Dear Emily,

    Thank you for this opportunity !

    GHOST HUNTER, a 36,000-word middle grade novel, was showcased in PitchWars 2017. It is similar to SPIRIT HUNTERS meets THE SIXTH SENSE.

    Newly dead Hunter’s embarrassing grave isn’t the worst of her problems. She only has three days to warn her ghost-hunting mother about the evil that lurks in their house; the monster that killed her. Too bad her mom, a famous medium, can’t actually see ghosts, let alone hear them.

    Nothing Hunter has ever known about ghosts is true, and her efforts to save her mom could make her disappear forever or turn her into the monster that she’s trying to stop. Hunter teams up with Nick, an older boy that she has a crush on and one of the few living people who can see her, and Alile, a car crash victim, to stop the monster that prowls her house…all while trying to evade the ghost hunters that want to destroy her.

    I have eighteen years of experience working with kids, teens, and books as a youth librarian.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.

  • Katherine
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Twelve-year-old Erayn is an all blue, half-human, half-demon warlock attending her first year at Ryvnik, School of the Arcane. She thinks it will be a fresh start, a place where she’s no longer bullied for her warlock marks, but she learns Ryvnik is no different from the outside world.

    While navigating her new life and trying to make new friends, Erayn accidentally touches a crafted bookmark, awakening her dormant warlock power. She learns the power she introduced herself to is dark and not meant for her.

    With the attention of the darkest warlock at school now turned on her, Erayn must team up with her new friends to solve the mystery of the dark and forbidden crafted objects on campus before an all-out marked vs unmarked warlock war begins.

    Crafted (50k words) is an upper middle grade fantasy that blends magic, warlocks, friendships, school, and the fight for equality. Crafted is a great fit for lovers of Cassandra Clare and Holly Black’s Magisterium Series, and Rachel Hawkins’ Hex Hall Series.

    I’m a wife and soon-to-be mom, working full-time in the environmental field in Texas. I have a blog and booktube channel, and when I’m not writing or reading, I enjoy spending time with family, traveling, and volunteering with animals.

    Thank you for your consideration,

    Katie Wilson

  • Christen
    · Reply

    Hello, Ms. Keyes:

    ALL THE LIES YOU CANNOT KNOW is Man in the High Castle meets Divergent. It’s a Young Adult alternative-future novel told in multiple POV complete at 61,500 words. Although it can stand alone, it is the first in a planned duology. Through maps, police reports, transcripts, and other multimedia at the beginning of each chapter readers are plunged deeper into my characters’ world.

    The great United States has fallen.

    There was a time when our country was called “the land of the free.” Now that the second civil war split America in two, freedom is anything but free.

    Seventeen-year-old Anna Sleeper is content with her peaceful life, raised by her uncle and managing his coffee shop until rebel fugitive James Mallory shows up at her door in the middle of the night. Mallory informs her uncle is missing, and Anna soon realizes everything she knew about her past—and the man who raised her—is a lie.

    A fugitive and rebel leader of the Underground, Mallory gives Anna reason to believe her life is at stake unless she comes with him. Now she’s in a race against time to find the truth and save her uncle before it’s too late.

    With evil Atlantic States of America leader, Uriah Craine, and his army hot on their trail, one question remains . . . Are Anna and Mallory running toward true freedom?

    I have organized the jungle of blog tours for the past five years as a publicity coordinator, and now work as a virtual assistant helping authors maintain their sanity. When I’m not digging my way out of my TBR pile or dreaming up new worlds while drinking yet another cup of coffee, you can find me loving life in small-town Arkansas with my real-life super hero husband and our three muggle children.

    Thank you so very much for your time, and please feel free to visit my website at http://ChristenKrumm.com.

    —Christen Krumm

  • Elizabeth Scherman
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    I am seeking representation for my middle-grade novel, The Island of Flying Children, complete at 40,000 words with series potential. I love stories that give voice to minority characters who fight to make their world a better place, and as a child growing up with a disability, I searched for stories about people like me. The Island of Flying Children may appeal to readers who enjoy the unusual bodies and call to courage of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and the magical worlds and family loyalty found in the books of Neil Gaiman.

    Never let go.
    Ten-year-old Figgy learns the meaning of these words when his little sister Osprey is born with a defect: She floats in the air. When he takes her for walks – floats, really – she must be tied to a cord, like a balloon. If he were to let go, she could disappear into the sky, never to return.
    Never let go. Even if it means that he must stow away on the ship headed to the Academy for Elevated Children, where Osprey and other children will learn to soar in the air. Even if it means joining forces with the Groundlings – Academy rejects who are forbidden to fly. Even if it means pirating a flying ship, traveling the world to find the floating island of the sinister Flying Child kidnapper Professor Slickworm, and pulling the entire island across the sea and back home to the mainland.
    And even if it means letting go at last – trusting Osprey and the other flyers to make their way across the sky. For other flying children are waiting – children that Slickworm is keeping hungry and caged, children who need to be told that they have the power to escape, before it is too late.
    But even though he longer holds her by a cord, Figgy knows that he is responsible for rescuing the fearless Osprey from the dangers that she all-too-willingly enters – or none of them will make it safely home.
    My most recent publication is “Mixed Assortment” in the anthology Tim Burton: Essays on the Films, published by McFarland and edited by Johnson Cheu. I am a former award-winning journalist and playwright with seven of my stage works receiving full production, including two under a National Endowment for the Humanities grant.

    Thank you for taking the time to consider The Island of Flying Children as a title for Fuse.

    Kindest regards,
    Elizabeth Leigh Scherman

  • Sonya
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    I was interested to learn that you like strong voices and humor in Middle Grade novels. I believe you may be interested in my coming-of-age-behind-the-iron-curtain novel, Voices in the Dark.

    It’s 1974 in Odessa, Ukraine, U.S.S.R. This is the year of a great transformation for the twelve-year-old Lena as her world is turning upside down. Lena, who thinks of herself as the proud Russian named after Lenin, is about to learn that she is Jewish and that her parents are making plans to depart the country for good. She has much to leave behind: an unobtainable crush, body image issues, and a friend who may aspire to be more than that.

    Lena is trying to discover who she is against the backdrop of uncertainty and upheaval. She’s struggling with whether to blend in, which is what the Soviet regime expects, or have the courage to stand out, which is what her crazy mother wants. Despite her instability and erratic behavior, Lena’s mother is the family’s driving force to emigrate.

    Some of Lena’s family members found their own ways to survive the Soviet system. Her magical and mysterious grandfather, Max, dabbles in the black market and listens to “The Voice of America,” while her grandfather Anton is a legitimate member of the Communist party. The family fears that Anton will not let them leave the country. They need to obtain his permission in order to do so. Will Anton let them go at a great risk to him, or make them stay?

    One of the book’s unforgettable characters is the setting. Readers enter life in the U.S.S.R, circa the mid-seventies. Despite the détente, the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union is still raging. Present-day Russian-Ukrainian conflict is brewing in the story’s background.

    Sincerely,

    Sonya Doernberg

  • Sheala D.
    · Reply

    PAINTING HALF THE SKY is an upper middle-grade fantasy complete at 58,000 words.

    Twelve-year-old Francis Li Bogle didn’t understand the dangers of meddling with an ancient magic she inherited until she lost her mother in a tragic fire. While investigators narrow in on the cause of the fire, Francis must hide the truth from everyone she loves, or her whole world is likely to combust.

    When she discovers that what she paints on the charred remains of her mother’s mirror leads to the world from the old stories they shared, a new hope rises. But as it is with the balance in Wu Xing, every desire comes with a price. Soon she learns there is a deeper and ancient truth behind her reflection. Outmatched by an evil sorcerer who rules the world inside the mirror, his fleet of sunbirds, man-sized koi, and friends-turned-feral foes, Francis must confront the perils beyond the mirror’s edge and deliver on her mother’s promise to find the elusive and legendary yellow dragon or everyone she cares about is destined to live as captives for all eternity.

    A blend of Deme’s classic The Magic Paintbrush and Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan. This story reflects themes of empowerment and identity and the oppressive struggle many young women have faced for centuries.

    I look forward to sharing this story as seen through this view. I’ve pasted the first ten pages below for your review.

    Thank you for your consideration,¬

    Sheala Dawn Henke

  • Robin Q Woodward
    · Reply

    THE BROKEN FAIRYTALE is a 63,665 word YA fantasy. It is not a retelling. I hoped to capture a sense of whimsy and share a moral without being obvious, playing with the idea that the typical fairytale outcome can go wrong when characters ignore the moral of the story. Comparative titles include Followed by Frost by Charlie N. Holmberg and Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier.

    Ardinae’s life as a servant is far from a fairytale, but when a beautiful and deadly witch, a handsome prince with unsavory motives, and a fabled child-eating beast cross her path, she must abandon her selfish desires and save the lives of those she loves. Ardinae’s vanity and determination to rejoin the nobility may not seem harmful, but unseen danger is always present when ancient curses are involved.

    I maintain a website and blog, write lyrics for a local musician, am active on twitter and instagram, am a serious bookworm, and created an online book club with three other writers so a large group of us could discuss YA reads and pick them apart with a writer’s eye.

  • Mary
    · Reply

    Sixteen-year-old Gemma DiMarco believes each person has a soulmate, one true love to be with forever. She finds hers when she meets Ben Hartwell. He’s sweet and funny and they go from “the friend zone” to deliriously in love in a flash. But Gemma’s abusive ex-boyfriend murders Ben, then kills himself, and now Gemma relives the devastating moment day after day. She’d give anything to have Ben, but of course, death is forever—unless she could somehow stop the murder from happening in the first place.

    When a boy claiming to be her guardian angel comes into the family deli, saying he can help her do just that, Gemma’s beyond skeptical. But with a touch, the boy subverts the laws of time and space and sends her back to the pivotal moment that led to Ben’s murder, allowing her to change the outcome.

    Back in the present, Ben is alive. But in this altered reality, Gemma’s ex is, too. To protect Ben and keep history from repeating itself, she decides she must find and dispose of the original murder weapon. With memories from this new life rapidly replacing her old ones, Gemma soon won’t remember the murder, the angel or changing the past at all. She has only a few days to get rid of the gun and save Ben before the old memories fade completely and her chance for a happy ending vanishes too.

    TIME PASSAGES is a 75,000 word YA fantasy where “Life is Strange” meets “The Good Place.” It will appeal to readers of THE LOVE THAT SPLIT THE WORLD by Emily Henry or THE EDGE OF EVERYTHING by Jeff Giles.

  • katydid
    · Reply

    I’m sorry, I thought this was for the first page. Instead, here is my query blurb. Sorry about that, please ignore my previous comment!

    Eighteen-year-old Ebba isn’t a witch, but she’s always been considered funny in the head, so it’s no surprise when the witch hunters come for her. Fatally injured, she flees into a magic-blighted forest and stumbles upon Kryptos, an alluring demon whose heart has been ripped out. He promises to heal her infected burns…if she will lend him her heart to replace his.

    Only after striking the bargain does he reveal himself to be one of twelve dark gods planning to invade her world. She’s become his champion in the death match to determine which deity will lead the conquest. Bound by their contract to fight or die, Ebba plots to sabotage Kryptos, only to accidentally initiate a courtship. How was she supposed to know throwing a severed head at him would be taken as a proposal of marriage? As they spend more time together, Kryptos turns out to be charming, handsome, a bit awkward—and utterly dedicated to world domination.

    As Ebba’s heartless condition erodes her conscience, her resolve wavers. To save her world, she must betray the demon who possesses her heart in more ways than one.

    HELL HATH ITS VIRTUES is an 83,000 word young adult high fantasy novel in the style of Terry Pratchett meets Leigh Bardugo. This is an #ownvoices story—both the heroine and I have Asperger syndrome. My book was in the 2017 agent rounds of the “Sun vs. Snow” and “Nightmare on Query Street” contests.

  • Bel_Writes
    · Reply

    Title: A Desire Dark and Fierce
    Length: 80K
    Genre: SF – YA

    Blurb:

    Seventeen-year-old Amy learns she wasn’t born in the twenty-first century when she literally runs into Dare, a time-traveling boy who claims to know her long-dead parents. Then when he saves her from dangerous pursuers, she realizes she must leave the home she’s known and follow him to an exciting but scary world.

    Dare reveals he’s from three hundred years in the future, in a society where wisdom is passed on in leaders through the transferred memories of their predecessors. Amy’s father was the last leader. After political unrest, he’d hidden Amy in the past, implanted with his most recent memories and knowledge, before he was assassinated. As the only heir to the leadership, Amy’s mind contains not only the final copy of this inherited wisdom, but proof that another popular and power-hungry politician, Ambrocio, incited the assassination plot. Her implanted memories—which should have emerged years earlier—refuse to surface and no one understands why.

    Without these crucial memories, Amy must navigate this new world carefully. She is desperate to stop Ambrocio as he slowly gains power, especially when she learns he’s endangering other eras and not just this new future world she finds herself in. She becomes embroiled in a battle where her father’s secrets clash with Ambrocio’s dark desires, and Dare is the only person she can trust—until she learns what Ambrocio has planned for Dare.

  • Maureen
    · Reply

    Would you trust your life to an invisible friend?

    Three kids stuck on Mars with five minutes to live have nothing left to lose. Taking a risk might just get them killed or it could change Earth forever.

    Sojourner’s Truth is a mid grade novel of 54,000 words set in the first decades of the human exploration of Mars. (The Goonies meet The Martian)

    Sojourner has given up trying to convince the Research Base personal that there are aliens on Mars. With the arrival of three kids to the expanded base there is a new chance for the martian spy Exwhy to make contact. A wave of deadly radiation from a solar spike forces the kids to take a risk on Sojourner’s invisible friend and find shelter in the alien home cave. When Exwhy dies the kids lose their protector and friend and are faced with hostile aliens they can’t see and nowhere to go. In a race against time they must learn how to work together to convince the aliens they have honour and mean no harm. Then they have to convince Earth that humans aren’t the only intelligence around and friendship is possible, even among themselves.
    I live in Wellington, New Zealand. I am a primary school teacher by trade and a wanna be astronaut by inclination. I have had a junior fiction novel published by Penguin New Zealand and contributed plays to Learning Media School Journal in New Zealand.
    I have programmed two national children’s writing conferences and am currently a judge for the New Zealand Children and Young Adults Book Awards.

    Thank you for this opportunity.

    Yours sincerely,
    Maureen Crisp

  • Kathleen
    · Reply

    THE THIRD STRIKE is a contemporary young adult novel complete at 67,000 words. It’s Speak meets Exit, Pursued by a Bear, and is about a sexual assault that takes away a girl’s favorite place in the world.

    From the top row of the bleachers, Alex Kingstin blends in with the rest of South High School’s boys Junior Varsity baseball team. But scoot a few rows closer and two things become apparent: Alex is the only freshman… and Alex is a girl.

    On the field, Alex holds her own against all of the guys. But when she’s raped by the team captain in the woods behind the practice fields, her baseball skills prove useless.

    Ashamed that she wasn’t strong enough to prevent the assault, Alex lies about her injuries. When a Facebook post spreads through the school claiming Alex earned her spot on the team by sleeping with her rapist, Connor, Alex is too depressed to defend herself. It’s not until she learns that Connor has other victims that Alex finds the strength to tell what really happened in those woods.

    However, Alex’s classmates, teammates, and coach don’t understand why she didn’t come forward immediately, and even after Connor’s arrest, still believe him when he says it was consensual. Blamed for making false accusations, Alex loses her spot on the team and gains the position of the most despised person in school.

    Although her physical wounds fade with time, her nightmares and depression become unrelenting. She’s not even sure she’ll have the strength to testify against Connor in court. Alex has to rediscover her own strength without the sport that made her strong, or accept living as an empty shell of the girl she once was.

    Thank you for your time and consideration,

    Katie Bono

  • Jennye Kamin
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Thank you for giving your time to WriteonCon. I greatly appreciate your willingness to review these submissions, and I hope you find works that will appeal to you.

    Irene sees the world through a microscope of science. Diana sees it through a kaleidoscope of dreams. They’ll have to see eye-to-eye to save the ocean they love.

    Thirteen-year-old Irene’s world has always been small—which is exactly how her overprotective, microbiologist parents want it to stay. She’s trapped in the bubble of her tiny Florida Key’s island until dolphin-obsessed tourist Diana bursts through. As Diana expands her world, Irene’s latent abilities emerge. She can swim underwater with no need to surface, use echolocation to “see” under the waves, and harness empathic powers that harm as well as heal. With Diana’s help, Irene seeks an explanation that will make sense of a world turned inside out. In their search, Irene gets caught in the crosshairs of a disgraced doctor who wants to use her to clear his name and a military sonar experiment that threatens to destroy the dolphins, the sea, and Irene. Only by mastering her gifts can Irene face her past and save the ocean she once called home.

    The Dolphin Nexus is an upper middle grade contemporary STEM fantasy complete at 65,000 words. Appealing to fans of Bayou Magic, the novel gives a magical twist to The Music of Dolphins with the added environmental conservation themes found in Flush.

    With Regards,

    Jennye Kamin

  • Christina
    · Reply

    Gah. So sorry if mine ms as a WiP didn’t qualify for this. I thought this was a ‘first impressions’ pitch, but now I’m not sure if it’s actually pitching! And is there a way to edit our posts (or delete)? I didn’t personalize mine thinking it was a crit pitch and feel bad about that now!

    • Jennifer Bushroe
      · Reply

      Hi Christina, since it’s a WIP, I *will* need to delete it, since pitch sessions are for completed work. But I recommend posting yours on the forums, if you haven’t already! That’s a great place for feedback.

  • Christina
    · Reply

    Gah. So sorry if mine as a WiP didn’t qualify for this. I thought this was a ‘first impressions’ pitch, but now I’m not sure if it’s actually pitching! And is there a way to edit our posts (or delete)? I didn’t personalize mine thinking it was a crit pitch and feel bad about that now!

  • Storyologist
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Eleven-year-old Winnie Ward lives in Dead Springs, a town that celebrates all things ordinary during its annual Beige Days Festival. But for a girl with a “dangerous imagination” and hair the color of a traffic cone, ordinary isn’t easy. In fact, it’s nearly impossible, since Winnie is the niece of the famous Felcity Farflung, author of the The Farflung Files, a national column in the vein of Ripley’s Believe It or Not. When Aunt Felicity has her personality extracted by the Beige-ancy, a sinister organization bent on “de-quirking” the planet, Winnie is forced to do some very out-of-the-ordinary things to save her.

    With help from her dentistry-obsessed best friend, Tib, Winnie travels to the City of Mermaids in Florida to find a gem containing Felicity’s larger-than-life personality. The kids must rely on Winnie’s wild imagination and Tib’s impressive set of dental tools to thwart the Beige-ancy and rescue Felicity before the de-quirking becomes–Gulp!–permanent. But to save herself, Winnie will first have to resist the urge to be ordinary and embrace her own wonderful weirdness.

    Entries from The Farflung Files are scattered through the book with references to actual locations, including: The Mustard Museum, Skunk Ape Head Quarters, and Weekie Wachee Springs (the REAL City of Mermaids).

    Complete at 50,000 words, THE WEIRD WORLD OF WINNIE WARD is a middle grade fantasy that will appeal to fans of novels like Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow and The Mysterious Benedict Society, as well as kids who love books filled with strange but true facts like Ripley’s Believe it or Not and Atlas Obscura.

    I hope you have as much fun reading about Winnie, Tib, and the Beige-ancy as I did writing about them.

    Thank you!

  • suja
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Thank you for taking the time to read my pitch for my own voices young adult thriller, TARNISHED.

    For half a decade, sixteen-year-old Tanvi has prayed that her cousin Mimi isn’t dead like the police presume. The only memory Tanvi has of the day Mimi vanished is waking up bruised and in a muddy dress she had no recollection of getting into. Since then, she’s lived with the fear that she might be responsible for Mimi’s disappearance, or worse, her death.

    Her prayers are answered when she spots Mimi in the nearby woods. But, when Mimi comes at her with a knife, Tanvi realizes that her cousin isn’t craving a reunion—she’s back to kill her. With her memory still elusive and Mimi in hiding again, Tanvi must piece together the events of the day Mimi went missing, or else end up dead at the hands of her murderous cousin.

    TARNISHED is complete at 62,000 words. It will appeal to fans of Lauren Oliver’s VANISHING GIRLS and ONE OF US IS LYING by Karen McManus. I am an Indian immigrant and physician, as well as a member of SCBWI.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.

    Best,

    Suja Sukumar

  • Emily
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Aurelia’s mother has a boy locked in her laboratory. Which is impossible, because XY’s are extinct.

    In the all-female society of Canica, seventeen-year-old Aurelia is trying—and failing—to be a model student. One who doesn’t ask so many questions and definitely doesn’t watch ancient vids of XYs at night. After a classroom confrontation derails her plan to finally fit in, Aurelia vows to stay out of trouble in exchange for one last chance. Then a wrong turn in Mother’s high-security research facility brings Aurelia face to face with the captive.

    As they meet in secret, the boy begins to seem less like an “other” and more like—well, a person. Aurelia starts dreaming of a future in which Canicians and XYs could coexist, where she might find a way to keep him in her life. Meanwhile, the prisoner is growing desperate for his freedom, but Aurelia can only give it to him if she’s willing to destroy her future, betray her mother, and worst of all, say goodbye.

    The boy in the basement isn’t the only secret at the laboratory, however, and if Aurelia doesn’t set him free soon, he’ll be the first—but not the last—innocent person to die. And it will be her fault.

    Chosen for PitchWars 2017, NO MAN’S LAND is grounded YA science fiction, complete at 87,000 words. NO MAN’S LAND can be pitched as DELIRIUM x THIS MORTAL COIL x LADYCASTLE, in a world where a historically powerful group takes a turn as outsiders.

    Sincerely,
    Emily Thiede

    • Elizabeth Scherman
      · Reply

      Alyssa,

      Can you explain why some of the pitches are followed by your comment “This comment accurately followed the rules” while others (which also followed the rules) were not followed by this comment?

      • Alyssa
        · Reply

        Author

        The specifications we were looking for were a blurb with only the blurb portion of the query (with title, genre, and wordcount if they included that). Specifically we were not looking for full queries or entries that included the resume portion of a query letter. We’ve since heard that Kaitlyn Johnson’s advice was contrary to our understanding, but at the time we had about 30 minutes to decide what to do before the event started, and none of the options were ideal (our first thought was to go through and ask people to edit their comments to the specs, but belatedly realized that WordPress offers no easy way to do this). Anyway, there were a lot of factors that made the decisions very fast, which unfortunately translates into the confusion for this event.

        If there are inconsistencies in entries that would qualify based on what I’ve said above, and we missed it, then I can only plead human error, and that we three were reading as quickly as possible to try and rectify the situation. I know that can still be a frustrating excuse, but we’ll be taking the lessons learned here into the next pitch events tomorrow.

  • Valia
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    All seventeen-year-old Gabriella Rose has ever wanted is to have a regular life. But when your mother is one of the current infamous serial killers, regular is not in the books.

    After her mother’s arrest, Gabriella flees the constant whispers by settling in a small town with her uncle. But when one of Gabriella’s classmates is brutally murdered her secret is exposed and the life she so desperately wants disappears. Plunged into the middle of the investigation, all eyes are continuously turned to her. Everyone thinks she either did it or she influenced someone into her sick game. After all, in the eyes of the town, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

    With the help of her uncle and a few friends, Gabriella decides to solve the murder herself. All those years spent living with a monster must have taught her how one thinks. So while the killer is stalking and torturing young and old alike, Gabriella is weaving a scheme of her own. One where her unusual upbringing is the key in solving the murder, before someone else ends up in the ground. And maybe, by saving them, she can finally find redemption for herself.

    Complete at 82,500 words, THE KILLER GENE, is a Young Adult murder mystery about a girl learning what the true meaning of good and evil are, and what it means to make the choice for herself. It is comparable to I HUNT KILLERS and THE NATURALS SERIES.

    Sincerely,

    Valia Lind

  • Dennise
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    The Ivory Curse is a fantasy novel for middle grade readers, complete at 40,000 words. Similar in attitude and humor to Holes and will appeal to fans of A Clatter of Jars. Larger themes of family relationships and bravery dot a coming-of-age plot that reflects a bit of Polish culture.

    Confronted by a deadly curse, a fearful boy must stop a resentful family traitor to save his magical birthright.

    Eleven-year-old Charlie Hinkelstein lives in a Jekyll Island hotel with his quirky family. After a mysterious fire at the hotel, Charlie’s mom leaves town unexpectedly. His grannie (Babka in Polish) says that his mother is trying to end a curse that forces fire to erupt from her hands. A visit from a crow convinces Charlie to research his ancestors. He learns that he is a descendant of the last witch ever executed in Poland. He resists his fear of being physically unable to help his mom because of a collapsed lung and makes a wish on a charmed heirloom to reunite with her. On board a cruise ship in the Atlantic, Charlie is shattered by the realization that the real villain is not the curse, but instead a family member whom Charlie admirers. Charlie must take a stand against the one who betrayed him to protect his family, an animal who trusts him and a magical talent that is his legacy.

    Charlie and Babka are featured in a sequel, The Tortoiseshell Curse, that involves Charlie’s sister Maxine and sibling rivalry. Per submission guidelines, I’ve included the first five pages.

    I am a former middle-school art teacher from Pennsylvania. I hold a Master of Education degree in art with a concentration in critical writing. I lived in Savannah, GA for college, and I frequented Jekyll Island, where Charlie’s family lives. I am a member of S.C.B.W.I., the Algonkian Author Salon and Children’s Book Insider.

    Thank you for your time and consideration,

    Dennise Heckman

  • Flor
    · Reply

    Joe hates her stupid stutter. She pretends to be mute so that no one will pay attention to her. But what keeps her numb with fear is a menacing army of child-snatchers from neighboring lands, and that she’ll be the next one kidnapped.

    Two years before Joe was born, her people escaped as war refugees to an uninhabited continent—Australia hundreds of years from now. But the refugees couldn’t have imagined they’d encounter yet another form of torture, the child-snatchers. Even though her father leads a resistance force, no one foresaw the attack that left Joe without her father and an arm.

    When the enemy takes too many children and targets her specifically, Joe has no choice but to grow up fast and learn how to battle the mysterious enemy, especially after she receives a helpful, highly advanced prosthetic arm. She discovers that the biggest threat comes from within—those she trusts the most have been keeping secrets about who the enemy really is and why her people are on this continent. With the help of a quirky, chatterbox boy and a group of undercover scientists, Joe must uncover the truth, or risk the entire population of her continent getting wiped out.

    DAMAGED GOODS is a 94,000 word YA science fiction novel that crosses MAD MAX with THE FORGETTING. It was a 2016 finalist and 2017 winner in the YA category of the Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest.

  • CassandraH
    · Reply

    Sixteen-year-old Harlow’s hometown is falling into the ocean, and no, she’s not exactly thrilled. But anything’s an opportunity if you squint hard enough. By saving the place she loves, she’ll prove she doesn’t ruin everything she touches. At least, not anymore.

    Step one: recruit her best friend Ellis to join her new task force, and together they’ll protect the town from coastal erosion, starting with his parents’ imperiled waterfront diner. Except Ellis won’t go along with her color-coded plan. If the family business fails, he can spend his weekends training for the cross country team instead of bussing tables.

    Which brings Harlow to step one-point-five: team up with Ellis’s twin brother, Tommy, instead. He works at the diner to pay for his dog’s cancer treatment, so he might be her biggest ally. But their track record isn’t great. Tommy was just hospitalized for a breakdown that was partly Harlow’s fault. She tries to apologize for making Tommy’s life miserable. Panics. Kisses him. And now he thinks it’s love or something.

    Harlow has to figure out how to let him down easy—or she could grow her task force membership to two. Tommy seems happy to do what she says, and it’s for his own good. One bad storm could destroy the diner, and the boys would have to move away. Anyways, those government representatives won’t call themselves, now will they?

    THE SEA IS SALT AND SO AM I (76,000 words) is a contemporary YA novel told from the viewpoints of Harlow, Ellis, and Tommy. It combines the smalltown New England quirk of GILMORE GIRLS with the toxic friendship and moral ambiguity of WE WERE LIARS.

  • Janine
    · Reply

    Thank you for this pitch opportunity! I am seeking representation for my 72,500 word contemporary YA novel, DANCE IMPOSSIBLE.

    The last thing 17-year-old Dahlia Emerson wanted was to become Kim Kardashian in a tutu.

    Her entire life she’s dreamed of being a dancer. That’s why she has bunions and blisters. That’s why she gave up any kind of normal social life. And that’s why she stopped helping at her parent’s B&B and agreed to appear with the rest of her ballet studio on a new reality show, Dance: Impossible. Part business makeover show, and part dance competition, Dance: Impossible promises Ferndale Ballet Academy will become a premier pre-professional school–and one of its dancers will become a star.

    But nothing about the reality show is what Dahlia expected. There are blogs and fan boards and twitter, all giving opinions on everything from the size of her thighs to her turnout. And when the cameras catch her kissing celebrity heartthrob and Emmy-winning choreographer Austin Murphy, the internet explodes with vitriol.

    Now the competition isn’t just about being the best dancer, it’s about being the best reality show dancer. Dahlia is swamped managing social media and her carefully crafted relationship with Austin, which may or may not be real. She’s not exactly sure. There isn’t room to figure out if professional dance is still something she wants. And it definitely doesn’t leave room for her complicated feelings for her brother’s best friend. But even reality shows have a finale, and when the dust settles Dahlia is left to figure out who she is now—and what she really wants.

    Thank you for your consideration,

    Janine Clayson

  • Brenna
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    At fourteen, Dessa chose her destiny—to become a Vessel, walled into a single room to devote her life to helping the Brothers by powering their spells with her own energy. At seventeen, she is the lone survivor of a brutal attack on her House, and all her choices go up in smoke.

    Inside the walls she was safe, but outside the tribes resent the Brothers who take girls like her from them in infancy. Slavers prey on homeless young wanderers, and her only guide is the book in which her predecessors have written their dying words. But those words are disappearing, and a mysterious new entry is appearing in their place—a letter that seems to have been written just for Dessa, and that challenges everything she thought she knew about her world and herself.

    Vessel is a young adult fantasy complete at 87,000 words. Steeped in magic and set in a world inspired by early medieval Europe, it will appeal to fans of Naomi Novik’s Uprooted and Robin McKinley’s Chalice. I am a member of the SCBWI, a French and English teacher, and a medievalist by training.

    Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

    Sincerely,
    Brenna Layne

  • Kendra
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    When eleven-year-old Opal learns she must leave her hometown of San Francisco and move to the other side of the country, she is devastated. Not only must she start over in a new place and make all new friends, but she will have no choice but leave just one thing she believes connects her to her twin sister Genevieve; her fairy garden. She created the garden to connect with Genevieve, who she lost as a baby, and now in her heart that connection will be lost forever.

    At her new home in New Haven, Connecticut, Opal is determined to recreate her fairy garden with all the elements such as bright colors, fairy lights, and letters she felt connected to Genevieve most. At Sycamore Shore Academy, a fancy private school, Opal will come face-to-face with her first crush, projects that bring failure and success, and a mean girl who can only seem to point out the things that made Opal unique. These things make the sixth grade much more difficult than Opal could have ever imagined.

    When the alluring opportunity to join the news team and a special art contest arises, Opal must work with one student who’s had an eye on her from the very beginning. She must choose to stretch her already inspired imagination or let the mean girls control her. If isn’t open to changing how she views the world and people around her, she could miss Genevieve’s light completely.

    OPAL’S GUIDING LIGHT is an own voices, contemporary novel complete at approximately 34,000 words. I’m a teacher assistant for a special needs student at an elementary school and has a passion for giving back and serving my community. I’m a current member of SCBWI.

    Thank you for your consideration.

    Sincerely,
    Kendra Felder

  • Jenn
    · Reply

    Dear Emily S. Keyes:

    Seventeen-year-old LEDA ALLARD is fighting for survival in Amaura, a country that only values the beautiful and the intelligent. She has one shot to escape a bleak future—pass the IQ exam or beauty test. If she succeeds, she will gain a place within the wealthy inner-city. Failure condemns her to poverty.

    Leda is desperate to attend University, but to her shock she passes the beauty test. Now she must enroll at the Academy—the last place she wants to go. Leda is terrified the beautiful people will destroy her identity and manipulate her into abandoning her family, just like they brainwashed her mother into deserting Leda as a baby. However the alternative is starving in the factories, so Leda reluctantly accepts her admission and leaves home to begin a new life.

    At the Academy, Leda is propelled into a corrupt world where assassination plots are uncovered and political rivalries threaten to tear Amaura apart. As the risk of civil war intensifies, Leda battles to hold on to her identity as the Academy endeavors to transform her into a beautiful girl. Then the fighting erupts, and Leda must make painful decisions that will determine which of her loved ones survives all while she struggles to keep her mind from unraveling.

    THE DESIRED IDENTITY (70,000 words), is a YA dystopian novel with themes similar to those found in UGLIES. I am a debut author with a BBA in marketing and I’d be delighted to send you my completed manuscript upon request.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.

    -Jenn Turik

  • Rochele
    · Reply

    Dear Emily Keyes,

    In a world where women have no say in their lives, seventeen-year-old Phoebe defies expectations and risks everything by traveling to an enemy kingdom to face the shocking truth of her past. She’s not human.

    All she ever wanted was a simple life of solitude, but when an unwanted betrothal shatters those dreams, Phoebe puts herself at the mercy of the Jhihari, a winged people exiled by humans to the northern alps a century before. Captured and charged as a spy by the embittered Jhihari king, she narrowly escapes execution and is left to die in the desolate alpine wilderness. Against all odds, she survives and stumbles into a remote village where she’s nursed back to health by an intriguing young Jhihari named Caleyb. There, a mysterious seer reveals the truth; she’s the last of a magical Jhirari bloodline, and she must recover an ancient book stolen by humans to unlock her own powers—powers that may bring salvation to the troubled kingdom.

    Loathe to let anyone dictate her destiny, Phoebe struggles to find her place among the Jhihari. When the king finds out she’s still alive and resumes his efforts to have her killed, she leaves and journeys back to human lands. War is looming, and if Phoebe risks her life for the people she has come to love, she may never have the opportunity to find the peace and quiet she’s always wanted.

    OF WINGS is a 98,000 word multiple POV YA fantasy with series potential, and will appeal to readers who enjoy the gritty mountain survival in Heather Fawcett’s EVEN THE DARKEST STARS and the strong character development and riveting intrigue of Mary Pearson’s THE REMNANT CHRONICLES trilogy.

  • Alejandra
    · Reply

    Keeping your life when you hold dark magic means having to pay a price. That is what they did many centuries ago, and now Kendra will do the same.

    After transferring to a boarding school hundreds of miles away from her Virginia home, Kendra discovers that there are others like her when she meets the brooding, though enchanting Cedric Betancourt. Little did Kendra expect to be drawn into a world roamed by witches, ones who are consumed in a ferocious struggle for dominance. As Kendra is the founder’s last living descendant, many people depend on her willingness to restore her powerful Muslim Roma line and free them from the malevolent monarchy. Which is why Cedric was sent by his ruler mother to search for Kendra and help put an end to the girl’s threat. They are a high risk to each other, immediate enemies, but choosing a side and playing the game has never been so deadly. Particularly when it comes to betraying a vicious family.

    NEW THORNBURY is a YA fantasy novel complete at 72,000 words. Since you are known to enjoy non-European based fantasies, I thought this novel would be a good fit for your list.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.

    All my best,

    Al Mendoza

  • Adam
    · Reply

    Thank you so much for reading!

    Isak Pyne is a scrawny sixteen-year old with too much to do and not enough time to sleep. A problem that has recently been exacerbated by the reality hopping Stranger who appeared in his attic last night to teach him about String theory and the magic of dream walking. As if being a socially inept introvert in high school wasn’t challenging enough.

    After several sleepless nights of listening to the Stranger, Isak unravels his involvement with the Order of Nocturnus: an ancient coalition that safeguards the cosmos. They do so by dream walking, a magic that allows them separate body from mind and travel to alternate realities on the verge of collapse. Unbeknownst to Isak his father was also a dream walker many years ago and once worked beside the Stranger. Their relationship ended in an incident that prevented his father’s spirit from returning to his body, which in turn left him the hollow and nearly comatose husk Isak has know most of his life.

    With assurances that it is not too late to save his father, Isak puts his trust in the Stranger and joins him on a journey across time and space. However his longing to fill the void left by his critically ill father prevents Isak from uncovering the Stranger’s true intentions until it’s too late. When Isak learns that releasing his father’s spirit would mean inadvertently releasing an ancient evil back into the cosmos, he must decide if saving his father is worth risking the entire cosmos.

    DREAM WALKER is a Young Adult Fantasy novel complete at 72,000 words.
    Adam Melfa

  • Amy Beaman
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes:

    VERTIGO RISING is an 81,000-word YA speculative fiction novel, best described as SHATTER ME by Tahereh Mafi meets Sherlock Holmes.

    Real: Patient, Jessalyn Alcott, eighteen-years-old, admitted to St. Mary’s Inpatient Psychiatric Ward, Nashville, Tennessee, 3 days, 6 hours, 39 minutes and 10 nubby fingernails ago.

    Not Real: Developing telekinesis and teleporting abilities. Recently causing her birth mother’s death. Visioning a honky-tonk thumping cellar sure to finally lead to her dad. Accidentally ticking-off a telepathic psychiatrist.

    Actually Real: Everything that’s Not Real.

    Left in the grasps of a mind scavenger by the psychiatrist, Jessalyn’s memories contain the clues for finding the cure for a debilitating mental disease—a cure that both the scavenger and her missing dad desperately need to combat the darkness creeping into their minds. Now, she must figure out how to find the single remaining vial of elixir before the scavenger (who can deduce what she ate for breakfast based on the stain on her elbow and the mud on her shoes), and before his mental probing permanently cripples her mind.

    Told in dual-POV between Jessalyn and the scavenger, VERTIGO RISING is a stand-alone novel with series potential. I am a member of SCBWI (and have attended multiple regional conferences), RWA and ITW. WriteOnCon and ITW’s Online Thriller School have also helped me to develop my craft, as well as participation in two SCBWI critique groups, one of which I lead.

    Thank you for your consideration.

  • Gwendolyn
    · Reply

    Dear Emily,
    Thank you for taking the time to do this!
    Two teens from opposing sides of a war end up needing to rely on each other for survival.
    When 18-year-old Flynd and his friends realize that his cousin is missing, they resolve to find him – even by hiking into the mountains that surround their home, Syrki, the capital of Nyviu. But the FireClan has just declared war on Nyviu, causing the military to enforce a ‘lockdown protocol’ for the protection of the citizens. No one in, no one out, and no way to know if their friend is even still alive. Flynd has never trusted officials and doesn’t want to follow their rules if it means jeopardizing his cousin. But his unsanctioned attempt at a rescue quickly falls apart when he and a friend trespass on the FireClan’s territory and are imprisoned.
    18-year-old Abryna of the FireClan longs to see the world, and she disagrees with the war – two disapproved of attitudes. She’s a warrior; she does what she’s told, and the fewer questions the better, particularly the sort of questions that she likes to ask. Those are downright dangerous now as the FireClan starts a war which they say is the only way to gain their freedom. So when two Nyvian civilians are slated for execution for trespassing, Abryna knows that she can’t say anything against it – but maybe there’s still a way to save them.
    But where can they go? Abryna is of the FireClan; she stands out starkly among the Nvyians. Flynd and his friends were never supposed to have left the city walls; they were seen, and it looks like Abryna was seen, too. Will Flynd choose to protect her, an enemy? Is Flynd’s cousin still alive? And should Abryna share a secret that might help Nyviu – but betray her Clan?

  • Andrea
    · Reply

    Eighteen-year-old Aurelia Sabina is a Latina who doesn’t speak Spanish, a girl who has a crush on her best friend’s boyfriend, and a future blogger who spends her time chatting up her Australian online friend, Holden, a vlogger himself. Her parents have promised her a birthday trip, and even though she knows they prefer she goes to Spain and Latin America, she’s determined to meet up with her online friend.

    Though she has to bring her perfect, Spanish-speaking older brother and friends along, Aurelia gets permission to go to Australia, where she has limited to meet up with Holden. Unfortunately, he’s giving her radio silence when she arrives in Sydney. She ends up entangled with Elias, the bass player for the New Zealand-based band Why Kick a Moo Cow, who’s both sarcastic, kind, and very attractive. Aurelia falls head over heels as Elias takes her to unique dates such as karaoke, daytrips to the beach, and he promises to take her across the country to meet Holden.

    But when a figure from Elias’s past shows up, it triggers his fear of intimacy, and Aurelia has to juggle keeping her relationship from crumbling and meeting Holden all before being forced to go back to America.

  • Debra
    · Reply

    MICHAEL MORGAN AND THE LEGEND OF THE PRIMA MATERIA is a completed 90,000-word Middle Grade fantasy manuscript intended to be the first of four books dealing with Michael’s search for the mythical Prima Materia and the way it transforms his life.

    In the first book, Michael’s mother suddenly leaves him at his grandparent’s farm. At the farm, Michael discovers a desk full of treasures that catapults him into the World of Merlin, as witches and wizards call their community. He discovers a family connection to the dark and mysterious Prima Materia, which unites the four elements of this world: earth, air, fire and water. At the base of his decision to seek the Prima Materia is his hope to find both of his parents, since this quest first united them then drove them apart.

    This is my first completed manuscript, but I have been writing for about ten years. As the mother of 2 daughters and one of six children myself, I have told stories all of my life. I am an avid people-watcher so developing characters is my strength and my characters carry the warmth and humor of real people and their situations.

    Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

    Sincerely,
    Debra J. Scheps

  • Isha
    · Reply

    am pleased to introduce WE ARE NO ONE, a 65,000 word YA Contemporary own-voices story.

    Ryka Patel is a stubborn, independent sixteen-year-old who struggles to assert herself and her dreams to her parents. She’s under constant pressure to follow in their footsteps and pursue a career as a CPA. It wasn’t always like this, but ever since her brother, Amir, went missing six years ago, the entire family dynamic has changed. When the opportunity arises for Ryka to compete for a scholarship at Athlos Academy’s summer program, she can’t pass it up. This is her chance to prove to her family that she can be a successful writer on her own terms and honor the memory of her brother. The competition has made the previous winners excel at their chosen career, even producing a Governor. It’s exactly the opportunity she needs. Forty students, three rounds of competition, and one winner. It seems simple enough. But from the moment Ryka gets to the Academy, she can’t shake the feeling that they are hiding more than just the prize money. That feeling is only magnified when she witnesses multiple events that make her believe that someone is trying to sabotage the competition.

    With the help of her new friends Emmi and Leo, and Kalan, the mysterious guy who can’t seem to leave her alone, Ryka takes it upon herself to find out who is behind this and why. But when one of the students disappears, she realizes that a lot more is at stake then she originally thought. But will it cost her the relationships she’s made and her dream? And the bigger question, is it all worth it?

    WE ARE NO ONE is perfect for readers who enjoy a mix of the mystery elements of One of Us is Lying and Truly Devious, the diverse components of When Dimple Met Rishi and the competition of Panic.

    Thank you for your consideration,
    Isha Modi

  • Jessica James
    · Reply

    Dear Emily,

    It is a truth galactically acknowledged that a headstrong pilot, in possession of superior flight skills but lacking in opportunity, must want to see the stars.

    A post-Earth society sprawled throughout a distant galaxy labels the descendants of convicted criminals as Lutes: second-class citizens with limited travel, education, and job opportunities. For eighteen-year-old Aven Sparks, these restrictions keep her from exploring space, her dream ever since the day she learned to fly a cruiser. She’s restless from being stuck on her home planet, and sick of dealing with the entitled upper class – most of all, the arrogant Luke Orion.

    Hoping to travel the galaxy, Aven accepts a job offer as a junior cargo pilot for the military. Shuttling supplies proves monotonous, yet through her work, she discovers the government controls many other Lute settlements by restricting access to basic necessities. When she encounters a secret rebel group, she agrees to become a double agent in exchange for a permanent way off planet. She insists it’s just business, but as Aven spies on her employers, she begins to focus more on helping the rebels than leaving everyone behind. As she’s lured by the rebellion, she also finds herself drawing closer to Orion, whose charms emerge with his passionate work to break down the class system. But defying the government bears constant risk, and if Aven is discovered, she’ll endanger not only her job, but her family’s lives.

    STEALING FLIGHT juxtaposes romantic tension inspired by PRIDE & PREJUDICE with the deep-space politics of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. This 82,000 word young adult sci-fi novel with series potential will appeal to fans of DEFY THE STARS and the STARBOUND series.

    Thank you for your time and consideration.

    Sincerely,

    Jessica James

  • Brenda Marie
    · Reply

    Um, what happened to giving priority to people who followed the rules?

    • Alyssa
      · Reply

      Author

      Communication between team members and our mod was delayed, so she did not hear the shift until she had already started reading. Thank you for your patience!

      • Karyne
        · Reply

        Is it possible to know why our queries were not flagged as following the rules? I want to make sure I don’t make the same mistake for tomorrow’s live event. Also, will the pitches tomorrow be handled in order received, or skipped around like this event?

        • Alyssa
          · Reply

          Author

          The specifications we were looking for were a blurb with only the blurb portion of the query (with title, genre, and wordcount if included). Specifically we were not looking for full queries or entries that included the resume portion of a query letter. We’re sorry this was so confusing — by the time we realized there had been a massive misunderstanding, our speaker had technical problems (to the point we weren’t even sure that she would be able to attend) and we had over 90 comments already. It all made for very fast decisions, which unfortunately translated into the disorganization.

          As to order, that’s something our team wants to discuss. But we’ll specify in the post descriptions for the later pitch events.

    • CarolynTara
      · Reply

      I think they are doing that! What are the rules being referred to?

      • CarolynTara
        · Reply

        Oh I think I see — it’s folks who only included their blurbs, not the whole query.

      • Alyssa
        · Reply

        Author

        The specifications we were looking for were a blurb with only the blurb portion of the query (with title, genre, and wordcount if they included that). Specifically we were not looking for full queries or entries that included the resume portion of a query letter. We’ve since heard that Kaitlyn Johnson’s advice was contrary to our understanding, but at the time we had about 30 minutes to decide what to do before the event started, and none of the options were ideal (our first thought was to go through and ask people to edit their comments to the specs, but belatedly realized that WordPress offers no easy way to do this). Anyway, there were a lot of factors that made the decisions very fast, which unfortunately translates into the confusion for this event. Thanks for your patience!

  • MikeHays
    · Reply

    Emily Keyes,

    CURSED BE THE VILLAIN is 25,000-word middle grade narrative nonfiction about Eliza “Lyda” Conley and the fight to save the Huron Indian Cemetery in Kansas City, Kansas.

    In an attempt to save their Wyandot Nation’s sacred burial ground from being sold by the United States Government in 1906, the Conley sisters seized control of the cemetery and built a wooden shack next to the graves of their parents and ancestors. They held watch from ‘Fort Conley’ in an act of civil (and often uncivil) disobedience to protect the cemetery for five years through rain, heat, and bitter cold. Lyda Conley, a lawyer, filed a suit against the government to prevent the sale. With a sharp intellect and a keen legal mind, she pleaded the case from circuit court all the way to the United States Supreme Court in 1910, where she became the first Native American woman to argue a case before the nation’s highest court.

    Even though the Conley Sisters ultimately lost their Supreme Court appeal, the publicity from both the curse and the case generated enough public support the government repealed its authorization to sell the cemetery and passed laws to protect it. After a century of repeated challenges to the burial ground, the United States National Parks Service elevated the cemetery to a designated National Historic Landmark, the Wyandotte National Burying Ground (Eliza Burton Conley Burial Site) in 2017.

    My middle grade historical fiction, THE YOUNGER DAYS, was published by MuseItUp Publishing. My short story, Last Will and Testament, appears in the Month9Books charity anthology, IN THE BEGINNING. I contributed two molecular biology science essays to the PUTTING THE SCIENCE IN FICTION collection from Writer’s Digest Books scheduled for a Fall 2018 release. I belong to the From the Mixed-Up Files…of Middle-Grade Authors blog team and am a host of the middle grade literature Twitter chat, #MGlitchat.

    Thank you for your time and consideration of this project.

  • Rebecca
    · Reply

    Dear Ms Keyes,

    It’s opening night and there’s a body on the stage. Who is it? Who did it? How can a summer holiday musical theatre camp turn deadly?

    Sophie’s in town to visit her mum and decide whether to move across the country or stay behind with her possessive boyfriend. The singing and dancing thing is a bit of fun, but soon not even the new friends she’s making can stop her fear. Is it all just her imagination?

    At Christmas Kat’s whole world was blown apart with news she still can’t quite process. Her mum directing Holiday Broadway means she can’t escape her family problems on the stage and not even sexy, tattooed Billy can take her mind off her feelings of betrayal. But what can she do about it?

    Chelle is the stage star with the perfect life but her dad’s falling for Sophie’s mum and hot player Lewis threatens to make her feel things she’s never felt before. She can’t let anyone get too close in case they see the ugliness beneath the façade. How far will she go?

    My YA contemporary GIRLS TELL LIES is complete at 93000w. Thank you for your time.

  • Mark Mosley
    · Reply

    Like most seniors, Cortez has a few goals for his last year of high school: get the girl, get in to college, don’t piss off the one-eyed murderous psycho that’s in control of the island of convicts.

    When Cortez is sent to the government-owned island that houses the most hardened criminals for a crime he didn’t commit, he stumbles into a commune of convicts ruled by Mason. As Cortez works to find allies among thieves and murderers, he runs into Sam–one of the female convicts trying to survive on the island. Together, Cortez and Sam discover that Mason is a puppet for a Mexican gang using the island to manufacture drugs and once Mason’s servitude is complete, the gang leader will take Mason off the island and kill those left behind. Cortez and Sam must come up with a plan to escape and combat the off-island gang before Mason sadistically punishes the islanders that rise against him.

    A combination of The Maze Runner and Arrow, CONVICT ISLAND is a YA fiction complete at 80,000 words. While it’s written as a stand-alone novel, it has series potential and is centered on the humorous voice of a minority protagonist that goes beyond the typical urban setting. The story also touches on the real issue of the overflowing US prison system. What happens when the number of inmates becomes too great—perhaps something similar to the British unloading convicts on islands to fend for themselves?

    I used my high school teaching experiences to create characters that are believable, creative, and fun. I’m an emerging author with a completed YA SF/F novel as well, but I hope you can help turn this particular passion into my first published work. Thank you for your consideration, and I look forward to hearing from you.

    Best regards,
    Mark Mosley

  • Shanice
    · Reply

    In a society where being black can get you killed or taken, Liv is given the choice to survive by systematically killing her own people, or be killed herself, but is survival important when her loved ones are dying?

    Black seventeen–year–old Liv Tate lives in Pinnacle, what’s left after the second American Civil War. In a totalitarian country the Patricians, the rich, administer a vaccine to the Plebians, the poor, through food genetically modified to inhibit emotions. Evaluations are conducted annually from puberty until seventeen years old to ensure compliance. Those who are immune are taken.

    As a Plebian, Liv knows she’s immune, so her only goal is to ensure she and her mother survive.
    Liv has made it to her final evaluation without detection, but, this time, she is taken prisoner to be a government test subject. When she arrives, her absentee father gives her an ultimatum: becomes a Taker, and systematically kill her own people, or die.

    Liv agrees, but when she refuses to an arranged marriage, her mother dies. She realizes she can’t hold on to her morals and survive as a Taker. She decides to flee the country after aiding and abetting in the release of an innocent fugitive. But, when her own people and the government, both, want her dead, will she succeed?

    SINS OF THE FATHER is a young adult sci-fi novel. Currently 55,000 words, it is the first in a series. It would appeal to fans of Sandcastle Empire.

    • Shanice
      · Reply

      I’m sorry, it has series potential.

    • Elizabeth Scherman
      · Reply

      Alyssa,

      Please let the moderators know — for future information — that the reason so many submitters included a complete query to Emily’s pitch is that this was done in, for example, Kaitlyn Johnson’s pitch sessions. In fact, those of us who followed the rules and submitted only a pitch at that session were at a disadvantage, as attention and praise was given to those who submitted complete queries. It is for this reason that I (and perhaps others) mindfully crafted a complete query this time around.

      I am wondering if a more consistent approach to posting or enforcing the “rules” could be encouraged in the future.
      Thanks for considering my suggestion.

      • Shanice
        · Reply

        Thank you for pointing this out! I was very frustrated because I had sat in on those sessions. I thought I was following the rules this time around, only to have my pitch passed over completely… very inconsistent.

      • Alyssa
        · Reply

        Author

        Thank you for your comment! This event had a few complications that created a situation where we had to make very quick decisions, and it was definitely a learning experience. We really appreciate everyone’s understanding.

  • Mark Mosley
    · Reply

    Dear Ms. Keyes,

    Since being forced to abandon Earth, mankind has searched galaxy after galaxy to find a habitable planet. Now, out of time and options, the survivors must depend on a renegade platoon to secure a tidally-locked and hostile-ridden planet named Dunia.

    Lieutenant Fink is a pessimistic teenager that has the weight of humanity thrust upon him when mankind’s hope of a new Earth is transformed to fear and warfare. While his ragtag platoon prepares the way for the civilian ship, Fink incurs unexpected obstacles—from the telepathic manipulation by the planet’s inhabitants, to betrayal and secrets from his military leaders, and even to falling in love with one of his squad members. If Fink cannot find a way to form alliances with those around him–including his enemies–the rest of humanity will be slaughtered.

    OUT OF THE DARKNESS is 78,000 words and is the first book of a planned a series on a unique fantasy world with diverse mythologies and compelling characters ranging from scientifically-enhanced humans known as Traits, to strong females, to shady allies that betray themselves and their loved ones. While the concept of a restructured and dystopian society has produced a great deal of YA success, my book is not just a restructured civilization—it’s an entirely new world.

    I am an emerging author with a YA adventure fiction novel completed as well, but I hope you can be the one that helps turn this particular passion in to my first published work. Thank you in advance for considering my manuscript and I look forward to your response.

    Mark Mosley

  • Ellen
    · Reply

    Dear Emily:

    Obsessive eighth grader Zinnia Clark believes she’s a mistake her mom made thirteen years ago, and she’d give anything to meet her dad. So when annoying student body president Isabella Watson announces a father-daughter dance, Zinnia’s inspired to find him. Mom, on the other hand, intends to keep Dad’s name to herself.

    Zinnia has a way around that. She steals Mom’s high school diary that’s hidden in an old BACK TO THE FUTURE lunchbox. But the diary is written in code and offers little help in her hunt for Dad. Zinnia’s no closer to uncovering her dad’s identity, let alone his whereabouts. Frustrated, she begs her friends for help, but they’re busy with plans to boycott Isabella’s exclusive dance that leaves no room for girls with two moms or boys who wear dresses. It had never occured to Zinnia that a dance that could bring her dad to her and help her feel complete might also make others feel left out or incomplete.

    As the day of the dance nears, Zinnia’s left with a decision: help her friends or continue chasing after a man who might not even be around. Oblivious to why her mom’s so secretive, Zinnia continues to uncover a past that could unsettle her future and upset her mom. She’s always counted on this mystery dad to materialize and fix her imperfect world, but it’s possible Zinnia’s been counting on the wrong person this whole time.

    COUNTING PERFECT, a 48,000-word contemporary upper middle grade with elements of magical realism, will appeal to fans of COUNTING BY 7s and WHEN YOU REACH ME.

    Ellen Mulholland

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    · Reply

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