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 YOUNG ADULT Mentors
Naomi Hughes
Website | Editing Website | Twitter
Naomi Hughes has been a freelance editor for a little over three years, as well as occasionally serving as an Assistant Editor over at Entangled Publishing. She’s also a YA/MG writer herself and loves to hide sneaky fandom references (Doctor Who! Pacific Rim! Sherlock!) in her quirky speculative fiction stories. She lives in the rural South with her husband, daughter, and a border collie named after a character from Avatar: The Last Airbender. You can follow her on Twitter at @NaomiLHughes.
Natalka Burian
Natalka Burian received an MA from Columbia University where she studied Eastern European literature with an emphasis on the work of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. She is the co-owner of two bars, ELSA and RAMONA, and CITY OF DAUGHTERS a line of specialty cocktail goods. She grew up on a farm in Maryland, and now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters. Welcome to the Slipstream is her first novel. She is represented by Kate Johnson at Wolf Literary Services.
Welcome to the Slipstream by Natalka Burian
Seventeen-year-old Van and her peripatetic lifestyle-loving mom move to Las Vegas. Van’s mother, Sofia, has been hired to helm the Silver Saddle, a crumbling casino off the strip. In Vegas, Van makes new friends, and is even invited to join an all girl, Sleater-Kinney-style band. Van–and the Silver Saddle–are left in the lurch when the brilliant but unstable Sofia disappears on a vision quest. Van buys a bus ticket, setting off into the desert to track Sofia down and bring her home.
Natasha Neagle
Natasha Neagle is the YA author of the upcoming YA Fantasy, THE BODY PARADOX (’18 Entangled Teen) who runs on Starbucks and believes the best way to hear music is live. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, two kids, and zoo of animals.
Natasha Razi
Disability in Kidlit | Twitter
It’s been half a year since Natasha Razi has stayed in the same country for longer than three weeks, so who knows where she is at the time you’re reading this. Probably somewhere with less vegetables than she wants there to be. When her health cooperates, she works as an environmental consultant. She spends the rest of her time writing fantasy novels, playing Broadway songs on endless repeat, and staying up way past her bedtime.
Nikki Roberti
Nikki Roberti Miller is a young adult author represented by Laura Bradford of Laura Bradford Literary. She’s also a professional journalist, and marketer with more than ten years of published writing experience. Before quitting the office life to stay home with her toddler, she wrote feature articles and marketing copy at an international relief non-profit, while also freelancing for various magazines and sites such as WeTV, Engagement 101, Parents magazine, and NBC’s iVillage.com. She was also the founder and editor-in-chief of REALITY Check Girl Magazine, which was featured in the Washington Post online.
Before writing novels, she was a seven-time award winning playwright with her short pieces performed around the country, including The Kennedy Center in D.C. She is also an avid young adult/middle grade author and was selected to be featured in the 2014 Pitch Wars for her young adult contemporary, THE TRUTH ABOUT TWO-SHOES and mentored by author Rachel Lynn Solomon.
But also in her spare time she enjoys cooking, making balloon sculptures and blogging about her author adventures and attempt at living a happy, healthy married life at www.MrsHealthyEverAfter.com.
Rachel Lynn Solomon
Rachel Lynn Solomon is the author of the upcoming contemporary YA novel You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone (out early 2018 from Simon & Schuster/Simon Pulse) with a second book slated for 2019. She is represented by Laura Bradford of Bradford Literary Agency. You can find her online at http://www.rachelsolomonboo
Rebecca Denton
Rebecca lives a thoroughly chaotic life between London, Vienna and NZ with her family and is, generally, exhausted. She spent her career traveling the world making Music TV for MTV and Channel 4, and wrangling young adult audiences for the BBC and ITV. Her first novel, THIS BEATS PERFECT, is a contemporary YA novel about a gifted musician and her run in with a Boyband. She has a further 2 books coming out with Atom Books in 2018.
This Beats Perfect by Rebecca Denton
‘This Beats Perfect is a fabulous celebration of music, friendship, and following your dreams’ Katherine Webber, author of Wing Jones Amelie Ayres has impeccable taste in music. Bowie. Bush. Bob. So when she finds herself backstage at The Keep’s only UK gig she expects to hate it; after all they are the world’s most tragic band. In fact she feels a grudging respect – not (obviously) for their music, but for the work that goes in to making them megastars. And when lead singer, ‘Maxx’, is not dressed up as a cross between Elvis and a My Little Pony, he is actually rather normal, talented and has creative struggles not too dissimilar to her own. But the next morning she wakes up and rolls over to discover a million new @’s on social media. Overnight, a photo of her at the gig has made her a subject of global speculation. Suddenly the world needs to know #Who’sThatGirl? – but for all the wrong reasons. All Amelie wants is to play her music. She’s got the guitar, the songs, the soul and, in the safety of her bedroom, she’s got the voice. But when it comes to getting up on stage, she struggles with self-doubt. Immaculate’s a concept. Flawless is fake. But just sometimes music – and hearts – can rock a perfect beat. ‘A witty exploration into the world of celebrity’ The Sun
Rebecca Schaeffer
Rebecca Schaeffer is a Canadian expat and compulsive nomad who has lived in Peru, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Her debut novel, Not Even Bones (HMH Fall 2018) is a Young Adult contemporary fantasy about a girl who dissects monsters and sells their bodies on the internet. Rebecca can generally be found in a cafe on the other side of the world, writing about villains, antiheroes, and morally ambiguous characters.
You can follow her on twitter, tumblr, and Goodreads.
Co-Mentors Stacey Trombley and Rebecca Sky . . .
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads
Naked by Stacey Trombley
The best place to hide is in a lie…
I could never fit in to the life my parents demanded. By the time I was thirteen, it was too much so I ran away to New York City and found a nightmare that lasted three years. A nightmare that began and ended with a pimp named Luis. Now I am Dirty Anna. Broken, like everything inside me has gone bad.
Except that for the first time, I have a chance to start over. Not just with my parents but at school. Still, the rumors follow me everywhere. Down the hall. In classes. And the only hope I can see is in the wide, brightly lit smile of Jackson, the boy next door. So I lie to him. I lie to protect him from my past. I lie so that I don’t have to be The Girl Who Went Bad.
The only problem is that someone in my school knows about New York.
Someone knows who I really am.
And it’s just a matter of time before the real Anna is exposed…
Rhiannon Hart
Rhiannon Hart remembers writing before she could read, puzzling over the strange squiggles in Jeremiah and the Dark Woods by Janet and Alan Ahlberg and putting her own words in their places. Her first love was Jareth the Goblin King at the tender age of eight. She wrote fan fiction in high school but she’d never admit to it out loud, so don’t ask. When she’s not reading or writing she is belly dancing, chasing after other people’s cats, or putting the pedal to the floor at her sewing machine. She grew up in north-western Australia and Melbourne and currently resides in London.
RuthAnne Snow
RuthAnne Snow was born and raised in Kaysville, Utah. She was a sorority girl in college and social activities director in law school—which was a lot like being back in the sorority. She has interned for the U.S. Senate, worked on policy papers for Congress and the State Department, and once spent a year sorting through emails looking for fraud. It wasn’t nearly as fun as writing fiction. She loves travel, dogs, horror movies, and baking.
Sarah Nicolas
Sarah Nicolas is a recovering mechanical engineer, library event planner, and author. She lives in Orlando with a 60-lb mutt who thinks he’s a chihuahua. Sarah writes YA novels as Sarah Nicolas and romance under the name Aria Kane. Sarah has published both traditionally and independently, and has also worked in the publishing industry as an editorial intern, editorial assistant, publicist, publicity director, cover artist, and art director.
When she’s not writing, she can be found playing volleyball or drinking wine. She is a contributor for Book Riot and at YAtopia. Sarah is represented by Rebecca Podos of Rees Literary Agency.
Co-Mentors Sharon M. Johnston & Stacey Nash
Sharon M. Johnston
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
Sharon M. Johnston is an author from sunny Queensland, Australia. She writes YA and NA fiction across a range of genres. In her spare time, she makes bookmarks and jewelry, and enjoys time with her family and fur babies.
An Open Heart Novel, Book 2
Healing a battered heart will risk her last link to humanity.
Mishca needs to save her sisters, but only Ryder can save her.
The truth about Mishca’s past shattered her heart. She deals with the pain by focusing on a new mission: saving her newfound family from their creator. With her sisters scheduled for termination, Mishca and her friends set out on a journey up the North Queensland Coast to save them before someone else dies.
Ryder understands the need driving Mischa. It’s in her DNA. But he’s not giving up on the chance they can still be together. She’s the only one to have seen him levitate. The only one to watch the sparks dance across his skin. The only one he trusts enough to know what is in his heart. And now, he might be the only one who can stop Mishca from losing her humanity.
Driven apart by secrets, will they come together in time?
Don’t miss Book 1, DIVIDED, available now.
Stacey Nash
Writing for the young and new adult market, Stacey’s books are all adventure filled stories with a good dose of danger, a smattering of romance, and plenty of kissing! Her debut novel, Forget Me Not was released as a three book series through HarperCollins Australia during 2014 / 2015. And her Oxley College Saga is out now.
Hailing from the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, she loves nothing more than immersing herself in the beauty and culture of the local area.
Forget Me Not by Stacey Nash
Amazon | iBooks | Googleplay | Barnes & Noble
Anamae is drawn into a world which shatters everything she knew to be true. The first in the trilogy of the brilliant YA Collective series. followed by REMEMBER ME and NEVER FORGOTTEN.
Since her mother vanished nine years ago, Anamae and her father have shared a quiet life. But when Anamae discovers a brooch identical to her mother’s favorite pendant, she unknowingly invites a slew of trouble into their world.
The jewels she finds are not just jewellery, they’re a highly developed technology capable of cloaking the human form. Triggering the jewellery’s power attracts the attention of a secret society determined to confiscate the device – and silence everyone who is aware of its existence. Anamae knows too much, and now she’s Enemy Number One. She’s forced to leave her father behind when she’s taken in by a group determined to keep her safe. Here, Anamae searches for answers about this hidden world.
With her father kidnapped and her own life on the line, Anamae must decide if saving her dad is worth risking her new friends’ lives. No matter what she does, somebody is going to get hurt.
Thank you to our 2017 Young Adult Mentors!
If you want to find out more about what they’re looking for in the submission inbox, you can find them in the 2017 Pitch Wars Mentor Wishlist Blog Hop!
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Agent Posts: Meet the Agents Part 1 and Meet the Agents Part 2
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