We’re so grateful for our Pitch Wars mentors! They give so much to help other authors succeed, and we couldn’t have Pitch Wars without them. So please help me in thanking the mentors for all they do via twitter, the comments, or on the Pitchwars Proboards.

Pitch Wars 2017 MIDDLE GRADE Mentors

 

Co-Mentors, Jenna Lehne & Tara Creel

Jenna Lehne

Website | Twitter

Jenna Lehne writes spooky MG/YA words and blogs for @Mdnight_Society She is represented by Gina Panettieri with Talcott Notch Literary.

Tara Creel

Website | Twitter

Tara Creel write books for children. Particularly picture books and middle grade.  She also offers editorial services for writers.   She reviews books for The Deseret News. She is also an editor for Month9Books, Tantrum Division. All of that means that she gets to read and write for work and for fun.

Jenny Lundquist 

Website | Twitter

Jenny Lundquist is a MG & YA Author. Some of her titles include Seeing Cinderella, The Wondrous World of Violet Barnaby (9/17) and The Carnival of Wishes and Dreams (Spring 2019). Jenny painted an orphanage in Mexico, taught English at a university in Russia, and hopes one day to kiss her husband at a café in Paris. She lives in northern California with her wonderful husband Ryan, our two sons and Rambo, the world’s whiniest cat. Jenny is represented by Kerry Sparks of Levine Greenberg Agency.

 

Jessica Bayliss

Twitter | Website | Instagram | Facebook | Goodreads

Jessica Bayliss is a fiction author who loves all things reading and writing. A clinical psychologist by day and a writer all the time, her genre-bending fiction holds a little something for everyone. She has been a lover ghost tales and horror since her days scanning VHS rental shelves—admittedly with eyes half-averted from the gory covers—so a touch of the mysterious always finds a home in Jessica’s work. Romance with a dash of supernatural. Horror with a bit of humor. You get the gist. Jessica also writes across age groups, whether young or not-so-young. Because one cannot live on writing alone, Jessica also spends a great deal of time with friends and family. She is a lover of all animals especially one very special Havanese. She also loves to eat, cook, and exercise—in that order—and is a firm believer that coffee makes the world a better place.

 

Co-Mentors Jessica Vitalis & Julie Artz

Jessica Vitalis

 Website | Twitter

Jessica Vitalis is a middle grade novelist represented by Saba Sulaiman at Talcott Notch. An active member of the literary community, she volunteers as a Pitch Wars mentor, with the We Need Diverse Books campaign, and writes for The Winged Pen. When she’s not pursuing her literary interests, Jessica can be found preparing for her upcoming move to Canada (or eating copious amounts of chocolate).

Julie Artz

 Website | Twitter

Julie Artz spent her childhood sneaking into wardrobes hoping to find Narnia. Now that she’s older, people think that’s creepy, so she writes middle grade instead. Her stories for children feature the natural world, folklore, mythology, history, and all that is magical about those things. In addition to helping run From The Mixed Up Files of Middle Grade Authors, she works as a developmental editor for Author Accelerator, contributes regularly to The Winged Pen, is a mentor for TeenPit and PitchWars, and is the incoming co-RA of SCBWI Western Washington. She is represented by Jennie Dunham of Dunham Lit. Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

 

Joy McCullough

Website | Twitter

Joy McCullough writes middle grade and young adult fiction, and her debut novel, BLOOD WATER PAINT, will be published in 2018 by Dutton Young Readers. She lives in the Seattle area, where she’s also a playwright and homeschooling mom. She’s the Pitchwars mentor liaison and is going into her fifth year as an MG mentor.

Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough

Pre-order: Blood Water Paint | Goodreads shelf

Her mother died when she was twelve, and suddenly Artemisia Gentileschi had a stark choice: a life as a nun in a convent or a life grinding pigment for her father’s paint.

She chose paint.

By the time she was seventeen, Artemisia did more than grind pigment. She was one of Rome’s most talented painters, even if no one knew her name. But Rome in 1610 was a city where men took what they wanted from women, and in the aftermath of rape Artemisia faced another terrible choice: a life of silence or a life of truth, no matter the cost.

He will not consume
my every thought.
I am a painter.
I will paint.

Joy McCullough’s bold novel in verse is a portrait of an artist as a young woman, filled with the soaring highs of creative inspiration and the devastating setbacks of a system built to break her. McCullough weaves Artemisia’s heartbreaking story with the stories of the ancient heroines, Susanna and Judith, who become not only the subjects of two of Artemisia’s most famous paintings but sources of strength as she battles to paint a woman’s timeless truth in the face of unspeakable and all-too-familiar violence.

I will show you
what a woman can do.

 

Julia Nobel

Twitter | Website

Julia is a writing coach and middle grade and young adult author. Her childhood obsession with The Babysitters Club turned into a lifelong passion for reading and writing children’s literature. She offers writing masterclasses and courses for writers in all genres, and is a 2017 Pitch Wars Mentor. Her 3-year-old daughter likes to help her write by throwing apple sauce at the keyboard and pressing the escape key.

Find out about Julia’s writing coach services on her Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/JuliaNobelBooks/ and check out her upcoming classes schedule here: http://julianobel.com/for-writers/.