Our mentors are mentoring, 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 9, 2021, we hope you’ll take a moment during your writing breaks and get to know our 2021 Pitch Wars Mentor and Mentee Teams.
Next up, we have . . .
Konstantinos (Kos) Kalofonos – Mentee
Sylvia Liu – Mentor
Sylvia, why did you choose Kos?
I chose Kos because his story was so immersive and fun, and I love his main character, a strong girl who must fight dark forces (a literal darkness and the monsters it spawns) to save her friends and family. He also did a great job developing a magic system and world influenced by Greek culture, strong and delightful friendships, a high-stakes contest, and thrilling action sequences.
From our correspondence during the reading period, I could tell Kos is open to feedback and isn’t afraid of working really hard to revise his story. He also seems like an all-around great guy, so I’m excited about this mentorship.
Kos, why did you choose to submit to Sylvia?
I chose Sylvia because of her immersive writing style and blog tips which felt like they were written to me. When I read her words, I can hear her behind them. The skills she discusses show me she understands what it takes to succeed.
Additionally, I felt she was the perfect person to help me bring out my culture in my book. Greek culture is so much more than just Zeus throwing lightning bolts or Poseidon sinking ships.
Sylvia, summarize Kos’s book in 3 words.
Magic, Monsters, Family
Kos, summarize your book in 3 words.
Darkness, Magic, Friends
Sylvia, tell us about yourself. Something we may not already know.
Most people know I grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, from the ages of five to seventeen. A funny memory from that time was that people didn’t celebrate Halloween, but my sister and I wanted to. So we dressed up and went up and down the floors of our apartment building and knocked on people’s doors, explaining that they were supposed to give us a treat. Our neighbors rummaged through their fridges and we ended up with an assortment of oranges and other random foodstuffs.
Kos, what do you hope to get out of the Pitch Wars experience?
Besides the instant wealth that befalls all writers upon matching up with that perfect agent that can put up with my humor (/sarcasm), I am looking forward to picking up the knowledge and skills to level up my writing. I have so many more books that need to be written and I plan on taking what I’ve learn here into the future and pass it on to others.
Kos, tell us about yourself. What makes you and your manuscript unique?
First, I’m a father to an amazing 10-year-old girl and husband to a super supportive wife. Second, I’m a really bad astro photographer, slightly better mountain biker, former fencing coach, and addicted tabletop role-player. I’ve lived, played D&D, and written in Texas, California, and Greece and pour all that into my words. I bring the tight “everyone knows your business and gossips about you” experience of life in Greece to this book. Throw in my wildly overactive imagination, sprinkle my love of the dark, and you get a pretty authentic story about a fantasy world unlike any I got to read as a kid. This is a book I can’t wait to read to my daughter.
Check out Sylvia’s upcoming release, HANA HSU AND THE GHOST CRAB NATION…
Perfect for fans of Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee, this thrilling, cinematic sci-fi novel follows Hana Hsu’s mission to save herself—and her friends—from a dangerous plot to control their minds.
Hana Hsu can’t wait to be meshed.
If she can beat out half her classmates at Start-Up, a tech school for the city’s most talented twelve-year-olds, she’ll be meshed to the multiweb through a neural implant like her mom and sister. But the competition is fierce, and when her passion for tinkering with bots gets her mixed up with dangerous junkyard rebels, she knows her future in the program is at risk.
Even scarier, she starts to notice that something’s not right at Start-Up—some of her friends are getting sick, and no matter what she does, her tech never seems to work right. With an ominous warning from her grandmother about being meshed, Hana begins to wonder if getting the implant early is really a good idea.
Desperate to figure out what’s going on, Hana and her friends find themselves spying on one of the most powerful corporations in the country—and the answers about the mystery at Start-Up could be closer to home than Hana’s willing to accept. Will she be able to save her friends—and herself— from a conspiracy that threatens everything she knows?
Coming June 2022
Thank you for supporting our Pitch Wars Teams! The Agent Showcase is February 9-14, 2022. Make sure to stop by then and check out all our mentees’ entries when it opens.