Our mentors are editing, our mentees are revising, and we hope you’re making progress on your own manuscript! While we’re all working toward the Agent Showcase on November 3rd-9th, we hope you’ll take a moment during your writing breaks and get to know our 2016 Pitch Wars Teams.
And now, we have #TeamHatTrick . . .
Katharine Manning – Mentee
Shanna Rogers – Mentor
Katharine: Why did you choose to enter Pitch Wars?
Pitch Wars is the best! If you’re a writer, there is really no better opportunity out there. I could not pass by the chance for feedback and support from someone who is further down the path, and invested in making my book better. Also: the community around Pitch Wars is unparalleled.
Shanna: Why did you choose to mentor in Pitch Wars?
I wanted to mentor in Pitch Wars because I was lucky enough to be a mentee last year (working with the fabulous Joy McCullough-Carranza), and I wanted the chance to support another writer the way she supported me. Plus I absolutely love this community, so I jumped at the chance to stay involved!
Katharine: Summarize your book in three words:
Fierce Footwork & Friendship
Shanna: Summarize Katharine’s book in three words:
Footballers behaving badly
Katharine: Tell us about yourself. What makes you and your MS unique?
THE WILDCATS is a middle grade story about a friendship and rivalry on a girls’ soccer team when a new player joins the team. It’s set in the diverse suburbs of Washington, D.C., and has players of different races, ethnicities, and family structures. The main character is African-American, her best friend is Korean-American and has two moms, and the new girl on the team is a recent immigrant from the Czech Republic with a single father. THE WILDCATS stands alone or could start a series.
I am a former soccer player myself, including one ill-fated high school game against Mia Hamm. I couldn’t manage to convince my kids to play soccer, so I took my frustrated aspirations out on the page. My mother/daughter book club also inspired this story, when I noticed that all the girls ever wanted to talk about was friendship. I’m a member of the wonderful group blogs at The Winged Pen and From the Mixed-Up Files of Middle Grade Authors, and also have my own book blog, Kid Book List.
Shanna: Tell us about yourself. Something we might not already know.
Something you might not know: I love to karaoke, but only to old rap songs.
Stuff you might already know: When I wasn’t reading as a kid, I was acting out something I read in a book: starting a babysitters’ club, spying, searching the house for a secret passage, and convincing a neighbor I had an identical twin (I don’t). I‘m still twelve at heart, so writing middle grade was a natural choice.
After receiving my B.A. in journalism, I spent several years acting in Los Angeles before becoming a teacher. You can catch me in the background of dozens of shows, including as a dead body on The Closer (Kyra Sedgwick massaged my feet!) and sporting a spray tan on old episodes of The O.C. I once beat Woody Harrelson in a thumb war.
I live in northern California with my handy husband, hilarious daughter, and an overeager Morkie.
1 Comment
Pitch Wars 2016 | Katharine Manning · November 10, 2016 at 12:40 pm
[…] and editing advice on my manuscript, a middle grade contemporary about a girls soccer team. Here is an interview with Shanna and me, and here is my entry, the pitch and first page of THE […]
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