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 starting on February 6, 2019, we hope you’ll take a moment during your writing breaks and get to know our 2018 Pitch Wars Teams.
Next up, we have . . .
Michelle Hulse – Mentee
Kit Frick – Mentor
Kit, why did you choose Michelle?
EIGHT ON A HAND drew me right in: dual timelines! drum corps! missing girl mystery! South Louisiana setting! complicated teen friendships! The novel combines so many of my favorite things: an interesting narrative structure that drives the propulsive plot, a chewy mystery, a teen girl protagonist passionate about an artistic interest, a fierce and complicated best friendship. I knew I could get in there and help Michelle take this manuscript to the next level of awesomeness. It was a natural fit!
Michelle, why did you choose to submit to Kit?
Kit’s debut, SEE ALL THE STARS, was already high on my TBR list, and since I was specifically looking for help with the dual timeline and mystery/suspense elements of my story, hers was the first mentor bio I checked out. I was immediately impressed with her background and editorial experience, and when I read her wishlist (thrillers/mystery/suspense, complicated friendships, interesting narrative structures, diverse characters pursuing passions, YES!) I knew immediately that I HAD to submit to her. I’m so incredibly thrilled to have her as a mentor!
Kit, summarize Michelle’s book in 3 words.
Drum corps mystery
Michelle, summarize your book in 3 words.
Marching Band Mystery
Kit, tell us about yourself. Something we may not already know.
I’ve seen Back to the Future over 20 times. Most viewings occurred one long elementary school summer, but I can still put that movie on anytime!
Michelle, what do you hope to get out of the Pitch Wars experience?
In my first communication with Kit, I told her that I was most hoping to “level up” with Pitch Wars. I’d been getting good feedback, but something was missing from the manuscript, and I wanted to find that missing piece. I’m already learning so much, and I’m really excited to continue to improve this manuscript and also to carry these news skills into future projects!
Michelle, tell us about yourself! What makes you and your manuscript unique?
Before I dove into the dazzling worlds of anthropology, freelance writing, and education, I was a percussionist and a music major. I did march one year in a small drum corps (I promise no one went missing there), and when I began writing this story I knew I wanted to set it in a marching band and a drum corps in South Louisiana. I actually started my first draft thinking it would be a lighter story, but it quickly evolved into this much darker suspenseful tale with a dual timeline, a bisexual female drummer, her missing best friend, and their complicated friendship.
When I’m not writing, I’m pretty busy homeschooling my two kids. We also volunteer and foster kitties for a local animal rescue organization, along with wrangling our own two dogs and two cats.
Check out Kit’s recent release, SEE ALL THE STARS …
It’s hard to find the truth beneath the lies you tell yourself.
Then: They were four—Bex, Jenni, Ellory, Ret. (Venus. Earth. Moon. Sun.) Electric, headstrong young women; Ellory’s whole solar system.
Now: Ellory is alone, her once inseparable group of friends torn apart by secrets, deception, and a shocking incident that changed their lives forever.
Then: Lazy summer days. A party. A beautiful boy. Ellory met Matthias and fell into the beginning of a spectacular, bright love.
Now: Ellory returns to Pine Brook to navigate senior year after a two-month suspension and summer away—no boyfriend, no friends. No going back. Tormented by some and sought out by others, troubled by a mysterious note-writer who won’t let Ellory forget, and consumed by guilt over her not entirely innocent role in everything and everyone she’s lost, Ellory finds that even in the present, the past is everywhere.
The path forward isn’t a straight line. And moving on will mean sorting the truth from the lies—the lies Ellory has been telling herself.
Thank you for supporting our Pitch Wars Teams! The Agent Showcase is February 6 – 11, 2019, and our next #PitMad is December 6, 2018!