Pitch-Slam Weekend January 13-15, 2012 with Rachel Dugas, Leah Hultenschmidt and Carlie Webber

[Georgia McBride]

 

Pitch-slam weekend is here! Please read below for rules, and information on how to praticipate!

 

The pitches will be 4-5 lines in length and should be pasted in the COMMENTS section with your full name and title of the work. Nothing longer than 4-5 lines will be considered. The pitch should give the reader an idea of what the story is about. For example, below is a pitch for Harrry Potter.

 

"Harry Potter is the most miserable, lonely boy you can imagine. He’s shunned by his relatives,and forced to live in the cupboard under the stairs. Harry’s world gets turned upside down on his 11th birthday, when an invite to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry arrives. He learns of the evil Lord Voldemort who killed his parents, and then tried and failed to kill Harry when he was an infant. Harry later learns he was saved for a reason." -- from Wiki Summaries

 

Members will enter pitches beginning Friday January 13, 2012 at 3PM EST thru Sunday at midnight EST. Agents may read pitches at any time.

 

During the week of January 16-19 however, judges will read and respond to/comment on pitches.  

 

Judges will be looking for their top 5 pitches (per judge). A total of TEN members will have a chance to revise and resubmit based on agent feedback. These are the TEN finalists.

 

Upon completion of pitch review, judges will POST their top 5 pitches by author and title, establishing the top 15 finalists ON January 20 no later than 3PM EST. So be sure to check back then!

 

Once posted, those finalists will have a chance to resubmit and repost during the weekend of Jan 20-22, 2012. 

 

Judges will review the revised pitches and choose 1 (each judge) as winners: 1. The best and 2. A second best, and 3. Runner up, by Jan 23

 

The two who win the top designation will be awarded a full manuscript critique from whichever judge has chosen them. The 3rd will win a gift from Sourcebooks Fire and YALITCHAT.ORG, TBD.

 

Pitch-Slam Judge Profiles

 

Rachael Dugas

Rachael Dugas joined Talcott Notch Literary as an Associate Agent in June 2011. She earned her BA in English from Ithaca College and has worked as an editorial intern at Sourcebooks, where she assisted with their women's fiction, romance, and Jane Austen-related titles. Rachael currently represents cookbooks and young adult, middle grade, and adult fiction in the contemporary, paranormal, women's, and romance genres. She would also love a beautifully written historical and/or literary fiction, some really terrific memoir, and more fun, contemporary YA or adult fiction, especially pertaining to food or the performing arts. 

 

Website: www.talcottnotch.net

Twitter: @RachaelDugas

 

Carlie Webber

 

Carlie Webber refused to major in English in college because no one would let her read Stephen King or R.L. Stine for class. She took her love of young adult and genre fiction to the University of Pittsburgh, where she obtained a Master of Library and Information Science, and worked as a YA librarian and reviewer for publications including Kirkus Reviews. Wishing to explore her interest in the business side of books, she decided to switch from librarianship to publishing and enrolled in the Columbia Publishing Course. Now she is building her agenting career on her favorite genres: young adult, middle grade, romance, horror, mystery, suspense, thrillers, literary fiction, contemporary fantasy and women's fiction. Her ongoing submissions wishlist includes but is not limited to high-concept YA, literary suspense, grunge era nostalgia and things that go bump in the night. Carlie is also a member of the YALITCHAT.ORG Submissions Panel!

 

Website: Jane Rostrosen Literary Agency

 

 Leah Hultenschmidt

 (will not be offering editorial prizes, will read and comment on pitches)

Leah acquires YA fiction for the Sourcebooks Fire imprint, original single title romance for Sourcebooks Casablanca and select romance reprints for Casablanca Classics. She's looking for projects with a fresh premise, a lively pace and a solid marketing hook. YA should appeal to the older teen market with crossover adult potential.  The romance can be any subgenre: contemporary, paranormal, historical, romantic suspense, fantasy, time travel, or any combination thereof. Please submit cover letter in the body of an email with full manuscript (if available) or first 3 chapters and a synopsis attached as Word documents. Leah is also a member of the YALITCHAT.ORG Submissions Panel!

 

Website: www.sourcebooks.com

[Rachael Dugas]

Hi, Liz--

You kind of lose me midway through this pitch--it's an awful lot of words and relatively little action. I'd like to see more active verb choices/sentence construction that focuses on Julia and clearer motivations.

[Leah Hultenschmidt]

It's hard to understand why anyone is drawn to a guy who has dark rituals and kidnapping in his past, because it sounds to me as though he's the one doing the rituals and kidnapping.  We need to see exactly what it is that attracts her so we know why it's so important she save him.

[Trisha Leigh]

Heartstrings

Elora King has spent her life keeping a secret - she and a difficult boy named Honor, who she's never met, communicate through a strange connection between their hearts. When she finds the diary of a first century queen who claims to have suffered a similar affliction after a visit to the Oracle at Delphi, Elora begins to question whether the feelings she has for Honor are a gift or a curse. The Oracle has spent centuries tying the heartstrings of couples fated to ruin one another's lives, and Honor and Elora's future holds the promise of death should they choose to be together. When Honor disappears, Elora is the only person who believes he's alive. Desperate to save him, worried she'll kill him if she tries, Elora begs the Oracle for another option - and learns death is not the ultimate sacrifice after all.

[Rachael Dugas]

Hi, Trisha--

In general, this just needs to be tightened and streamlined. More specifically, I'm unclear as to why this connection is an "affliction". I would also love to learn more about the Oracle's motivations. I do like the line about death not being the ultimate sacrifice.

[Leah Hultenschmidt]

This is a bit long, and I'm having a hard time how people communicate through their hearts, which could make this a tricky one to pitch.

[Georgia McBride]

We are closed to pitches as of midnight. Please check back for feedback from the panel. All pitches posted here AFTER this post will be disqualified.

[K.L. Parry]

DISQUALIFIED SUBMISSION SENT AFTER PITCH SLAM ENDED PER MY POST ABOVE.

 

 

The Pirate's Daughter And A King's Ransom

14 yr. old Blue longs for adventure. Her father is dead set against it, making for a heart wrenching goodbye when he leaves her to return to his ship. Hurt over his refusal to see her as more than a child, a summons to Jasper Castle lifts her spirits. Her attempt to befriend the 16 yr. daughter of the castle’s Lord, proves to be no easy feat and one she comes to sorely regret when the girl, Rebbecca, accuses Blue of a crime. Now, facing a lifetime of servitude, Blue sets out on an unimaginable journey to find the father that will save her.

[Keisha]

DISQUALIFIED SUBMISSION SENT AFTER PITCH SLAM ENDED PER MY POST ABOVE.

 

ETERNALLY

Seventeen -year old Soreise Morgan obsessed with classic Jane Austen’s novels, loses sight of reality and immense herself in the fictional world to cope with her alcoholic and neglectful mother. Her reality is distorted when she begins to obsess about being part of the world and all her problems would be gone, believing the only way she could enter Jane Austen’s world, is through death Soriese makes a grave decision and in Bath, England, Soriese jumps off a cliff but, instead of entering the fictional world she ends up in the eternal realm and has to get someone from the mortal world to remember her, which will enable the fates to give her a second life; things don’t quite go that way when dark entities shake things up and the fates instead burden Soriese with a quest to kill the evil Morgath and save the other realms from her wrath.

[Georgia McBride]

Hello Pitch Slammers!

 

PLEASE FOLLOW CONTEST RULES! You do not have to respond to panelist comments re your pitches. The panelists do not have time to respond to or even read additional comments. Continuting to add to the original entry, adds confusion for others, as well as the panelists, and adds nothing to the understanding of your original pitch--even if you think you are explaining yourself. Finalists will be chosen, per the rules above, and those writers will have a chance to revise and resubmit. ONLY then, when the finalists are chosen, should ANYONE respond to or, revise and resubmit their initial entry.

 

ALL other responses will be deleted. Thank you.

[Gayle C. Krause]

Dear Georgia:

Thank you for your generous offer to resubmit. I did post my pitch on Saturday night, but on the wrong page. Here is my pitch again. Thank you for this opportunity.

Betrayal, revenge and hope best describe the powerful emotions that drive Ratgirl, a dark, edgy retelling of The Pied Piper set in a dangerous city, where rats rival the homeless for food and shelter. 

 

It’s every man/woman for themselves, and 16-year-old streetwise orphan, Jax Stone, is an expert at surviving, but it’s no coincidence her little brother is kidnapped by the tyrannical mayor and she can’t rescue him alone. Desperate, she barters with the mayor and his crooked Council to rid the city of rats in exchange for her brother’s freedom.

 

She uses her hypnotic singing voice to lure the rats to their death, but when the corrupt mayor and his cohorts renege on their agreement she is forced to use her voice again.

 

A ragtag band of loyal friends, a handsome stranger with a secret to her past, and the long-lost remnants of a subversive environmental society help Jax Stone win the battle to save her brother and lead not only him, but all of the city’s children to safety, destroying the mayor’s fiendish plan.

 

 Gayle C. Krause

[Rachael Dugas]

Hi, Gayle--

This is way too long, but I love the idea of a female retelling of the Pied Piper. I'd say the second paragraph is the meat of your pitch. Work on fusing it with a few important elements from the rest of the paragraphs and this would definitely be something I'd take a look at.

[Christy Hintz]

REPOST re: Georgia McBrides Request

(There was a mishap in the replies to my original pitch post.  I didn't change my pitch at all.  Leah and Carlie already replied to the original post.  Thanks!)

Christy Hintz

BITTERSWEET

Seventeen-year-old Shelby Harris survives having snotty friends long enough to ditch them and make new ones.  Then her ex-friends play a prank that causes her to lose the only real friends she ever had, along with her hard-earned reputation. Friendless and suspended, she doesn't expect to find the peace she's craved since her parent's divorce seven years before. However, through the loyalty of a boy (who’s not her boyfriend) and an old man struggling with the onset of dementia she finds renewed confidence in herself to face her so-called friends, stand up for herself and set her record straight.