Pitch Wars!

I made it! I’ve been so busy since my slam-dunk mentor, Dannie Morin, selected me, that I’m overdue to tell you about it.

First, I threw my hat in for Pitch Wars at the encouragement of my friend and former co-worker, Sarah Henning. She entered the adult category last year and eventually landed with the Irene Goodman Agency. After months and months of writing dates, I had a finished manuscript, an anti-bullying YA titled Backlash, followed by at least eight weeks of revisions pre-submission. So I ended up on #teamdannie with Alexandra Alessandri and Sonia Hartl,  who are so crazy-talented that I’m honored just to be working with them. In addition to Dannie’s guidance, we’ve been one another’s CPs, and we’ve synced beautifully.

Dannie took some time here to talk about how she narrowed down her Pitch Wars submissions to the three of us. Outside of Sarah and the very cool Sam Borham, whose Choose Your Own Apocalypse is a side-splitting manuscript on Mina Vaughn’s Pitch Wars team, the feedback gave me a lot of momentum and validation to keep at this journey.

Dannie interviewed Alexandra for more on her work, Through the Walled City. Dannie’s interview with me posts Friday. Sonia’s will post Jan. 10.

Whatever comes of this, I’m learning and having so much fun. And I believe I’m coming out of this ready to query and head back to another project, a YA romcom that can only benefit from the mentoring and polishing that Pitch Wars offers. Thanks so much, Dannie, and organizer Brenda Drake, for the opportunity. (And Sarah for all that chocolate.)