So you think you can pitch? Well, it's time! The Three-Two-One pitch contest takes place today and tomorrow (Thursday and Friday), July 25th and 26th. Are you ready? Great!
But before you begin posting, take one last look at the rules and regulations:
The Three-Two-One pitch contest goes like this:
THREE - Pitch your story in only three sentences.
TWO - Two days to enter: July 25th and 26th.
ONE - One awesome agent—Lindsay Ribar of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates—will judge and pick a winner.
This contest is open to unagented, completed and polished manuscripts in the genres of YA and MG.
To be eligible, you must:
- Follow this blog - go ahead and click "Join this Site" on the right if you haven't already
- Follow Dorothy on Twitter
- Follow Elizabeth on Twitter
- Spread the word! Tweet, Blog, or mention on Facebook about the contest linking back to this post
To enter, leave a comment in the comments section in the following format:
- Name and Email
- Title of Manuscript
- Genre
- Wordcount
- Three-sentence Pitch
Remember, no run-on sentences! Each person is allowed two entries. I will turn off comments on Friday at midnight.
Good luck, everyone! Can't wait to read your pitches! Ready, set, go!
50 comments:
Kathleen S. Allen
gaelicfairie (at) gmail (dot) com
PIRATE JENNY
YA historical
50,000
Seventeen year old Jenny was left on the doorstep of a tavern when she was an infant. She was wrapped in a scarlet cloak pinned together with a brooch in the shape of a Tudor rose. Raised as a servant, she longs for a more adventurous life until one day she gets what she asked for.
Name: Molly Pinto Madigan
Email: mpintomadigan (at) gmail (dot) com
Title: OF BLOOD AND ROSES
Genre: YA urban fantasy/paranormal romance
Word count: 70,000 words
Maggie Mae Carter is sick of living life timidly, adrift in a sucky sea of collegiate drudgery, so when she hears a voice on the radio that makes her feel more alive than she has in years, she knows she has to meet the singer – the mysterious Thomas Lynn. Armed with a penchant for folk music, Maggie steals away to The Hall – a labyrinthine rock club teeming with secrets – to meet the man who spins ballads into rock ‘n’ roll perfection, but when she wakes up alone on the greenroom couch, petals in her curls and her arms raked with thorns, Maggie is plunged into the strange world behind the shadows of The Hall, where words bind, where music manipulates, and where mortality hints at something more. As she struggles to unravel the mystery behind the music, will Maggie be able to save Thomas Lynn from the fey forces that threaten him, and, more importantly, will she be able to save him from himself?
Name: Kelsey Keating
Email: kelseykeating (at) hotmail (dot) com
Title of Manuscript: MONSTROSITY
Genre: YA Fantasy
Wordcount: 80,000 words
Three-sentence Pitch:
Beauty can hide the ugliest of creatures, a truth Christopher Soirose knows all too well. In this gender swap of Beauty and the Beast it's now the village hearthrob in servitude to a hideous creature. Will his past prevent him from seeing the woman beneath the monster long enough to reveal the secrets that are truly ugly?
Martha Mayberry
martysunshine(at)yahoo(dot)com
GONE WILD
YA science fiction
90,000 words
Lia dreams of living in a world where she can go outside without a mask on her face and breathe air that’s fresh and clean. When her family’s selected for Stellar 3, a colony on a planet far across the galaxy, Lia’s prepared to close her eyes and deal, even if it means spending a year frozen in stasis. But Lia soon discovers the only perfect thing about Stellar 3 is its fresh air, and as she faces one challenge after another, she wonders if abandoning her dying Earth was truly the wisest decision.
Karen Y. Bynum
bynum(dot)karen(at)gmail(dot)com
RUNNING FROM SHADOWS
YA paranormal
78,000
High school senior Greta Shore has lost her magickal abilities, a demon has marked her for death, she's being forced to marry against her will, and to top it off she just found out she's a unicorn shifter. Fighting to regain her magick and derail her wedding, Greta falls for the demon who marked her and lusts after the souls of all Wiccans. But can Greta save her people by killing her love?
Michelle Hauck
Michelle9Hauck(at)aol(dot)com
Title: DODGE THE SUN
Genre: YA dystopian
Word Count: 81,000
Twelve years ago a supernova devastated the Earth, making sunlight lethal and awakening long dormant magic. With the shield over the farm failing, seventeen-year-old Little Bit escapes into a world corrupted by dark magic and scorched by the sun. To survive she’ll have to find help in New Chicago.
Michelle Hauck
Michelle9Hauck(at)aol(dot)com
Title: Pygmy Hazards
Genre: MG Fantasy
Word Count: 34,000
Classroom hamster Tom must escape before the pygmies dress him as Strawberry Shortcake again, only the principal finds him a troublemaker and wants him flushed. Not cool. Escape will take every scheme he’s got and the help of a pygmy nicknamed Squeezer.
L. L. McKinney
Tangynt(at)ymail(dot)com
HERITAGE BLADE: AWAKENING
YA Urban Fantasy
91,000
Fifteen-year-old Jay Mitchell is the most lethal secret walking the streets of Chicago. Trained to protect an unwitting mankind from rogue Pandorans—supernatural beings who cross into this world through Pandora's box–he's killed before, and he'll kill again. When a routine hunt goes wrong, he winds up with a price on his head, and everything that goes bump in the night arrives to collect.
Name: Mandy Mikulencak
Email: durangowriter(at)gmail(dot)com
Title: FACING FIRE
Genre: YA suspense
Word count: 60,000 words
A meth lab explosion leaves Arlie physically and emotionally scarred, yet she develops the street smarts and survival skills to keep her addict mother out of the reach of the law and hidden from her stepfather, Lloyd, the man responsible for the explosion that killed three people. Her mom’s suicide thrusts Arlie into a frustrating new world where social services and a new guardian set rules where none existed before. When Lloyd tracks her down, demanding drug money she doesn’t have, Arlie must figure out her stepfather’s role in her mother’s death before he can hurt the two people she’s finally come to love and trust.
Melissa Gorzelanczyk
Melissa @ peaceandprojects (dot) com
ARROWS
YA myth retelling
64,000 words
Wayward cupid Aaryn is banished to earth as a human to fix Karma’s life, a ballet prodigy whose destiny was derailed by his arrow. In Mount Olympus, a political war is brewing about passion and the old ways. The gods never expected Aaryn to fall in love …
Melissa Gorzelanczyk
Melissa @ peaceandprojects (dot) com
THE CHANNELS
YA paranormal mystery
58,000 words
Hannah can hear people’s secrets, but a family history of mental illness makes her question her own sanity. She meets Colin, a boy whose touch can make the voices melt away. There is one secret she can’t keep: Colin’s cousin is stalking his next human prey.
Name: Michelle Mason
Email: mfaszold(at)hotmail(dot)com
Title: THE DEXELON TWINCIDENT
Category and Genre: MG Science Fiction
Word Count: 47,000
3-sentence pitch:
Twelve-year-old black belt-in-training Harry Coventry has a lot of theories about what happened to her missing mom and twin, Celeste: amnesia, kidnapping, brainwashing. It’s a mystery she’s almost given up on solving, until a head injury triggers a freaky twin connection that gives Harry a glimpse of Celeste’s life—on another planet. Too bad her black belt training didn’t cover how to stage an intergalactic search and rescue.
Sara Thompson, sarathompsonwrites AT gmail DOT com
Daughter of Light
YA Science Fiction/Fantasy
70,000
The Second World War looms large as the Uberreich mobilizes in Europe under the command of Hitler’s right hand, the mad scientist Dr. Bosende. In Boston, Duna O'Malley could care less about the war in Europe, or whispers of Hitler's undead army. It seems this awkward 17-year-old is the last Lumenvox, the one who must learn to wield her power – to cast her light body into battle – and stop Hitler's horrific plan to enslave the world with his nightmare monsters.
Name: Megan Reyes
Email: meganreyeswrites (at) gmail(dot) com
Title of Manuscript: DAX PELUSO: AWKWARD. APPREHENSIVE. AND COMING TO SAVE THE DAY
Genre: MG Fantasy/Adventure
Wordcount: 86,000 words
Three-sentence Pitch:
Dax Peluso just found out he is actually from another world, where he is heir to the throne, which might be kind of awesome if his super evil uncle wasn’t sitting on it. King Jacoby has found a new way to terrorize his hijacked Kingdom but this time the consequences are lethal. With the help of his quirky and loyal sidekick trio, the reluctant (and often very awkward) Prince Dax must find a way to stop his Uncle before there’s nothing...and no one...left to save.
Danielle Q. Lee
dlee0614@yahoo.ca
Dark World
YA fantasy
81,000
All Scarlet ever wanted was a date with the most popular boy in high school--unfortunately for her, she got her wish. Now damned to a nocturnal realm crawling with demons, sphinxes and gargoyles,she fights to keep what sliver of humanity she has left. But the Devil needs a new body—and Scarlet’s is just the right size.
Ashley Bacon
ashleylynnbacon (at) gmail (dot) com
YA Sci-Fi
95,000
Sixteen-year-old Michael Newton has spent the last three years in a tiger’s body hunting down dangerous criminals for his government. When Michael receives a mission to protect Anna Faraday, a charming but rebellious teenage inventor, she almost makes Michael forget what he really is and no longer wants to be – a killer. But the truth behind why Anna is in danger will force him to choose between his country and the girl who makes him feel human again.
Name: Kimberly Lay
Email: Laycrew(at)aol(dot)com
Title: THE CHILDREN OF DRAGONS
Genre: YA fantasy
Wordcount: 63,000
Robin and Raven are half-dragon and half-human. They don’t look like most people, dragons, or even look like each other but they have special skills that can save them all. They want to help their dragon father oust the evil dragon Lithdore from power but it is their love for their family that triumphs over all.
Name: Kimberly Lay
Email: Laycrew(at)aol(dot) com
Title: LITTLE SHARPSHOOTER
Genre: YA Historical/Western with romance
Wordcount: 86,000
16-year-old Randy’s sure shot can rival Annie Oakley and she struggles with the fame it brings her as she travels across the west with her prized horse, smitten reformed horse thief, and an old friend out to get rich quick with her skills. Outlaws out to get her chase them all along the way and what’s even worse is Butch Cassidy’s real intentions to help or hinder Randy are a mystery. Randy could do without the fame, trouble, and danger being a rising star sharpshooter brings her, and the boy she loves.
Name: Kate Larkindale
Email: katelarkindale (at) gmail (dot) com
Title: STUMPED
Genre: YA Contemporary
Wordcount: 75,000
After losing his legs in an accident, Ozzy knows he’s a hideous freak. Determined to prove he can still be a man despite his disability, he throws himself into dumping the burden of his virginity, but finds there’s a limited number of people willing to touch legless dudes in wheelchairs. Ozzy’s obsession takes him into the seedy underworld of brothels and escort services where he discovers the difference between sex and intimacy, and that sometimes the price you pay for getting what you want is much higher than a sex worker’s fee.
Name: Venessa Ann Schwarz
Email: arkeus (at) cableone (dot) net
Title: HUMPHREY'S SECRET KINGDOM
Genre: MG contemporary
Wordcount: 26,000
On the heels of murdering a houseplant and other unmentionable crimes, eleven-year-old, Humphrey Herbert Peterson's busy mother leaves him at the front gates of Disneyland to spend the day alone. He's on the run, memorizing the entire Disneyland map, hiding out from a crazed lunatic, when he unexpectedly bumps into a girl from school, Maribel. Something about Maribel makes him blurt out all of his secrets, but if he allows her to help him - only then, can he be true to himself and to the one other person who really matters to him.
Lakrysa Jefferson
lakrysajefferson (at) gmail (dot) com
WISHFUL THINKING
YA Mystery
70,000
James Castle Jr. has rugby to deal with the stresses of high school. But even rugby can't help him deal with a madman hellbent on revenge. A man from his father's past who has James in his crosshairs.
Name: Leah & Kate Rooper
Email: lkrooper(at)hotmail(dot)com
Title: JANE UNWRAPPED
Genre: YA adventure romance
Word count: 90,000
When seventeen year-old Jane drowns, she doesn't expect death to mean waking up in the Egyptian underworld and being forced to align with a chaotic god in order to gain access to paradise. But sure enough, Jane finds that the only way to move on is to go back in time and steal the heart of the young pharaoh, King Tut. Falling in love with him also wasn't in the plan, so now Jane must decide if she will save the life of the boy who stole her heart, or literally steal his.
Moe Anani
moe(dot)anani(at)yahoo(dot)com
A HOUSE OF FOG
YA Fantasy
85000 words
In the midst of a bizarre series of murders along the coast of Maine, sixteen year old Elliot Carter struggles to navigate a life of lies and betrayal within his own family. After Elliot finds a cryptic book with instructions on how to awaken the elemental magic that lay dormant in his blood, he becomes a mark of the mysterious murderer who believes that Elliot's magic is his own. But as the lines between a fantastic new world and the life he's always known begin to blur, Elliot's magic takes a darker turn - and the truth of his connection to the killer is revealed.
Jen Nikitin
jenzie(at)live(dot)com
DOLLHOUSE PIXIES
YA Urban Fantasy
90K
Sixteen-year-old Natalie’s life is a struggle considering her best friend’s a pixie refugee. Hiding out in a dollhouse works for a while, but vicious fairies are determined to kill every last pixie and humans who shelter them. Now the pixie’s out of the bag—Natalie has to choose between her safety and that of the entire pixie race before they’re all exterminated.
Jen Nikitin
jenzie(at)live(dot)com
FLUSHED!
MG Adventure
50K
Ten-year-old Lucas has heard enough of his plumber dad’s warnings of sewer-sailing pirate abductions. Turns out he’s right, and Lucas gets flushed down the toilet as a new pirate recruit. Lucas realizes the sworn enemies of the pirates are plumbers like his dad—now he has to pick a side that doesn’t get everybody killed in the messiest battle the sewers have ever seen.
Mia K Rose
miakrose@gmail.com
DARKWEAVE
YA Fantasy
70,000
With the Empire out to strip her magic, a seventeen-year-old dark witch must choose between saving her mother's life or her own.
Pete Catalano
billypayne@aol.com
UNLIMITED WISHES
MG magical realism
41,000
Thirteen-year old Luke's new cell phone can grant wishes. But with autocorrect, even the simplest wish can have catastrophic consequences. Wishes . . . I thought you said Witches!
Pete Catalano
billypayne@aol.com
BARELY IMAGINED CREATURES
MG Urban Fantasy
46,000
One night while chasing a hideous, well-muscled demon through the narrow, cobblestone snickelways, Rum accidentally discovers a monster killing ordinary children with extraordinary power and stealing their magic. After barely surviving his first encounter, Rum enlists the aid of H.G. Wells and his arsenal of mechanical wonders and steam-powered weapons to be better prepared the next time. Researching reports of monsters and missing children, Wells finds similar crimes have occurred every twenty years for the last century and together they must kill it before it disappears.
Jennie Booth
jennieb.writes (at) gmail (dot) com
THE FIRST DROP
Contemporary Young Adult
57,500
18-year old travel-obsessed Olive plans to spend the first slice of her summer working alongside her best friend, Vi, at the local amusement park. The long hours under the roasting sun at Lakeside Adventures will fund their dream-turned-reality trip to Spain in August. When Vi abruptly ditches their Spain plans for a prestigious art program, Olive’s thrown for a loop bigger than any of the roller coasters at Lakeside.
Scott B Robinson
info@ScottBRobinson.net
THE YOUNG FATE
YA literary speculative
39,000
In this study of how we derive profoundest meaning from precisely that which is irrational in our ties with others, Yan, a preadolescent boy living in modern Bangkok, wakes to a world wherein his best friend has vanished from existence. While Yan at once contends with and indulges this and other recent surrealities, Mr. Torpong, who seems to merely float through life, gains and loses everything over the course of many years. Their mysteriously echoed lives intersect at the point when the man has almost nothing left to give, and the child stands at the threshold of becoming something wholly new.
L. L. McKinney
Tangynt(at)ymail(dot)com
COVETED
YA Urban Fantasy
93,000
When World War III breaks out dungeons and dragons style in downtown Kansas City, buildings crumble, black fire spreads, and gun-toting wizards rain down a shitstorm of bullet-riddled magic and mayhem. The wicked part, they’re fighting over seventeen-year-old Caleb Dunnelly, because they believe he can raise the dead. He can’t even keep a houseplant alive, and they expect him to grow people?
Name: Karyn Riddle
Email: karynriddle3(at)yahoo(dot)com
Title: WHERE HEATHER WAS HIDING
Genre: YA Contemporary
Word Count: 80,000
After moving to California, sixteen-year-old Shayna finds herself playing the role of “that weird new girl.” What her classmates don’t know, however, is that she’s hiding a huge secret: her neighbor and new friend is actress Heather La Mére, only the most famous teenager on the planet. All Shayna has to do is tell NOBODY, which becomes increasingly difficult as she longs to impress a cute boy with gray eyes.
Name: Dawn Allen
Email: dawnallen20(at)att(dot)net
THE GAP PROJECT
Sci-Fi
79,417 Words
Ginny Carrera is seventeen when she gets the 411 that she’s genetically engineered to survive a nuclear aftermath. A U.S. senator – into trafficking “Genetically Altered Persons” – wants to sell her for parts, the government wants to ‘shut her down’, and a foreign dignitary is trying to recover his purchased property: her. With the lives of all the GAPs at risk, and with the help of friends, Toad and Mayo, she sets out to take down the senator and his crew of human engineers.
Erika David
e-jdavid(at)rogers(dot)com
THE BARRENS
YA Sci-fi/Romance
97,000 words
Niko Molozov takes pride in her work, tending to crops of cancer-busting blueberries in The Barrens, the subterranean bio-mine run by her father, but still, she can’t help wishing that saving lives didn’t have to cost her a life of her own. Then scientist Alec Perdue arrives with an unexpected addition--two teenage sons--and Niko thinks maybe her luck has changed. But the Perdues are hiding a sinister agenda, and if Niko doesn’t unravel the truth, it’ll be her own life she has to save.
Miriam Caldwell
miriam (dot) caldwell (at) gmail (dot) com
NIGHTFALLEN
YA Fantasy
72,000 words
Lexy’s not the type of girl to stand by and watch a fight—after all she’s been training all of her life to fight the infected. In her world there are two simple rules: 1. Zombies are bad and 2. Werewolves are worse. But Lexy has to choose between following what her family has taught her or following Kaden, a werewolf, for a chance to save Jason the boy—I mean zombie of her dreams.
Name: Kristin Van Risseghem
Email: kristinvanrisseghem(at)msn(dot)com
Title: THE GUARDIAN
Category and Genre: YA Paranormal Romance
Word Count: 78,000
Evil has been allowed to run wild and unchecked on earth.
Hidden for seventeen years, demon knights have chased Zoe and Kieran, her Guardian Angel, into a warehouse where they try to kill them to stop her from fulfilling The Prophesy, but Zoe is rescued by a mystery guy dressed in black, who turns out to have a special connection with her; meaning she could have found her soul mate, or so she thinks and hopes. With the help of Kieran, Shay, the cute mystery guy who turns out to be a nephilim, and her own ‘special powers’ they send the demons back to Hell…for now.
Ella Schwartz
ella(at)ellaschwartz(dot)net
TEMPLE FALLS
MG Fantasy
50,000 words
An ousted princess.
A crippled commoner.
Together they must decipher why the gods are angry, stop the gods’ plagues, and save the kingdom that abandoned them—before they both lose their only remaining family.
Name: Sarie B. Korf II
Email: sariekorfii (at) gmail (dot) com
Title: HEROIC HEARTS
Genre: Upper MG Fantasy
Word Count: 88,000
Pitch:
Crown Prince Jarron is only thirteen, and the weight of his future position already burdens him. To save his kingdom from a threat his parents won't fully explain, Jarron agrees to marry a princess from an influential monarchy. But when terrorists storm the capital city right after his engagement, the new alliance is threatened and Jarron must defend his life, his kingdom, and his integrity.
Name: Mark McNulty
Email: mmcnulty (at) gmail (dot) com
Title: DYLAN BYRNES & THE SECRETS OF SALDANHA
Genre: MG Science Fiction / Fantasy
Word Count: 74,000
In spite of a relentlessly protective mother, the unforgiving sea has come to claim the life of precocious Dylan Byrnes, just as it claimed his father and grandfather before him. This tragedy only reveals an unbelievable family legacy in the undersea Kingdom of Saldanha, however. In his struggle to accept his destiny and protect this new world, Dylan will learn that many forces lurk beneath the ocean’s waves… magic, mystery, love, and absolute evil.
Joanna Ahleen
ahleen (dot) joanna (at) yahoo (dot) com
SHADOWS
YA Paranormal Romance
78,000 words
Samantha Bell is falling hard for her best friend Mark, but he’s in love with a ghost who has been dead over a century. Sam’s budding feelings for Mark are tested immediately as she is literally haunted by ghost girl-Kate who, according to a stupid prophesy, thinks Mark is destined to die and join her spirit-state very soon. To make matters worse, when Sam learns Kate isn’t the only ghost keeping an eye on her, Sam’s world shifts into something she isn’t sure she wants to be a part of: a world where ghosts aren’t merely harmless specters who slam doors and throw dishes.
Linda Jackson, jackson35015@bellsouth.net
FROM STACEY WITH LOVE
Contemporary Middle Grade
47,000
When her beloved granny suddenly drops dead, thirteen-year-old Stacey Graham doesn't have time for grief. With her mother locked away in the state mental institution, Stacey is more concerned about who will take in her and her two younger siblings. Much to Stacey's disappointment, her uncle Percy, who lives in a funeral home, is the only family member willing to take them in.
Wendy Parris
parris@ameritech.net
GHOST FARM
MG Mystery
34,000 words
When twelve-year-old Rebecca ends up at her relatives' Iowa farm instead of at summer camp with her friends, she's sure she's in for a boring vacation. That is, until a one-eyed cat appears under her bed, her nightmares about a freaky storm intensify, and a shadowy figure starts stalking her every move. Determined to find out what's going on, Rebecca follows ghostly whispers into her uncle's off-limits attic and discovers a stash of mysterious letters—which she uses to uncover a tragic family secret.
Linda Coy-Elmore
lcoyelmore (at) gmail (dot) com
THE UNDEAD
YA Paranormal
84,000
Sixteen-year-old Lyla Grimm can’t ditch her freak label at Martin High thanks to her family’s funeral business, but she’s too busy dodging reanimated corpses to worry about her reputation. Her newfound ability to raise the dead does more than wreck havoc on her friends and family, it draws the interest of the Grim Reaper, whose dark eyes and drop-dead looks threaten more than her safety.
When he offers to free her from the burden of the undead, Lyla must choose between life and death… catch is, it’s not her own.
Ammy Hall
writer (dot) designer (dot) 2 (at) gmail (dot) com
DEAD PEOPLE CAN'T SING
YA Paranormal
64,000
Newcomers aren’t allowed to participate in the music program but AmyLyn isn’t the average newcomer. A star in life, an outcast in death, now living in an abandoned mortuary, she’s determined to end the prejudice. Lindsay McKennan stands in her way, yet AmyLyn has one secret advantage: connections with a rock star from by-gone years willing to kill for center stage, in this YA Nashville, a la the underworld.
Rosie Pova
rosie.pova(at)yahoo(dot)com
HOLLY HART AND HER MISCHIEVOUS PAL FROM OUTER SPACE
MG sci-fi
43,000
Fourth-grader Holly Hart is a prankster on the brink of losing her birthday party, because her parents do not respond appropriately to her cries for attention and misinterpret her fun-loving nature as being irresponsible. Holly feels misunderstood and alienated until a mischievous alien moves in with her, living secretly in her closet. With two pranksters under one roof the mess is bigger than ever, but is it too late for Holly to save her birthday and her friendship, especially when it turns out she’s not the only one holding a secret?
Kim Beck
kimbeck1(at)gmail(dot)com
THE INTERPRETERS
YA Thriller
85K
Fifteen-year-old Lily can't read minds like the Interpreters, nor can she keep them from probing into her head like the Blockers. So why would convicted murderer Sergio ask Lily to help him escape? Because she knows the best hiding spots in New York City, especially the ones that are off-limits.
Joan He
joanart6 (at) gmail (dot) com
YA light scifi: INGENICIDE
65k
In the year 2089, education has been reinvented; prodigies run rampant in every imaginable work field. Before the "Genocide," a violent movement designed by Normals to topple the meritocracy, sparked in the US, 16 year old Sibyl Kenschild only wanted to be a Space Manipulator and design rooms that evoked the deepest stirrings of human emotion. But when the the bullets go off at the post-graduation dance, she realizes that it'll take not a Space Manipulator, nor a prodigy, but a traitor to survive.
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