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 . . .
L.L. Madrid – Mentee
Andrea Contos – Mentor
Kay McCray – Mentor
Andrea and Kay, why did you choose L.L.?
We loved COPPER CITY WISHBONES from the first page. It was atmospheric and vulnerable, foreboding and intriguing–we just felt pulled into this little copper mining town and the hint of ghosts and magic, where nothing feels quite as it seems. The prose is gorgeous and lyrical, and we’re both suckers for a beautiful turn of phrase, but it never detracted from the mystery and thriller aspects, and we lost far too much sleep racing to the end of the book.
Tl;dr– Think of a f/f version of the movie Ghost, with mystery, magic, and secrets hidden deep in the woods.
We couldn’t choose this book fast enough.
L.L., why did you choose to submit to Andrea and Kay?
I chose to submit to my mentors, aka Team Tangled Web, for a few reasons. First, my manuscript matched their wish list—they even had my comp titles listed as examples of books they loved. More importantly, I got the warm and fuzzies while reading their bios and their tweets. Andrea and Kay are such talented, kind, and funny people. I felt like I knew them before I even submitted.
Andrea and Kay, summarize L.L.’s book in 3 words.
Andrea: Haunting, lyrical, riveting
Kay: Beautiful, Haunted, Mystery
L.L., summarize your book in 3 words.
She came back.
Andrea and Kay, tell us about yourself. Something we may not already know.
Andrea: I’m the second of five kids. I love skydiving. I know every lyric to every song in The Sound Of Music.
Kay: I am a hardcore crafter/creative. I’ll build/create anything I have to tools and determination to build/create. If I can’t buy it, I’ll make it.
L.L., what do you hope to get out of the Pitch Wars experience?
A better book. Seriously, while I love my manuscript, it still needs work, and I ran out of ideas on how to fix it and exhausted my critique partners. Thanks to Pitch Wars, my book is already stronger, and it’s only going to get better. The big bonus to Pitch Wars is the community, even before the announcements, I met amazing writers and made friends just by following the Pitch Wars hashtag. I couldn’t ask for more from this experience.
L.L., tell us about yourself! What makes you and your manuscript unique?
I came up with the idea for COPPER CITY WISHBONES while on a weekend trip to Bisbee AZ, an old mining town turned artist colony. The route we took cut through Tombstone, a historical wild west tourist trap, and the quirky settings melded in my mind, and a story started percolating. I spent the next year writing the manuscript in a closet; which may be why good chunks of the book take place in small, dark places. It was great fun working on this book as I managed to write in a lot of my obsessions: music, true crime, ghosts, dark tourism, and angsty teen love.
Check out Andrea Contos’ upcoming release, THROWAWAY GIRLS…
KCP Loft has bought Throwaway Girls, a #PitchWars debut YA novel by Andrea Contos. Told from two points of view, the story is about a girl whose life is upended by the disappearances of her lover and her best friend, two girls from opposite sides of the tracks, and the discovery that she is the only link between them. Publication is planned for spring 2020.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41443431-throwaway-girls
Thank you for supporting our Pitch Wars Teams! The Agent Showcase is February 6 – 11, 2019. We hope you’ll join us to support our teams on the Twitter hashtag #PitchWars.