Wow, everyone should be thinking good thoughts about Ms. Stampfel-Volpe. Talk about a lot of reading. Not only that, but she's volunteered to do a guest-blog post for us on writing the pitch! So watch for that to be coming soon to the QueryTracker blog. Thanks Joanna!Winners, please email me (Elana) at my querytracker address (the same one you sent your entries to) for specific submission details and instructions.
Here's what Joanna had to say:
This was a very difficult contest to judge! In the end, there were twenty-seven pitches that I really liked, but I still had to whittle that number down to the four winners out of a serious variety of genres and themes. What won out in the end is high concept and something fresh or with a fresh twist. But I still have to reiterate--it was freaking hard!
To everyone that participated, thank you so much for making this a fun experience for me. And although I may not have picked your pitch, I hope to still see queries from you in the future.
Cheers,
Joanna Stampfel-Volpe
3rd Place: Submission of first 10 pages
Danny Bryan - On their way to happily ever after, the Princess Detectives must first contend with a mysterious death, an impossible jewel heist, multiple kidnappings, a very inconvenient poisoning, and a jester's truly horrific jokes.
2nd Place: Submission of first 30 pages
Jocelyn Rish - After the body she discovers in the woods disappears, seventeen-year-old Breanna must prove it was not the product of her notorious overactive imagination, but rather the handiwork of a killer who plans to silence her.
1st Place: Submission of first 50 pages
Leanna Weissmann - Sixteen-year-old Lily McPherson is skating for Olympic gold - on a pair of skates she shoplifted from Robinson's Supercenter, the store where her cop father died during a shoot out.
Grand Prize: Submission of full manuscript
Katie Anderson - When you look into someone's eyes, you see his soul, but when sixteen year old Emerson Taylor kisses their lips, she sees their pasts.
Winners, please email Elana (elanajohnson@querytracker.net) for specific submission details and instructions.
Congratulations everyone! Thanks again Joanna!
29 comments:
They all sound great, but I really hope to see Katie's in the bookstore one day. That's exactly the kind of story I love to read. My fingers are crossed for you, and please keep us posted. If your story lives up to the promise, I'll be one of the first to buy your book. :D
Congrats to all the winners!
Excellent pitches! Congratulations!
Congrats to our winners! And thanks a million times over to Ms. Stampfel-Volpe.
Congratulations everyone, and thanks to Joanna!
Go Katie! Congrats to all!
Heck, I want to read the Grand Prize winner.
Congrats!
Big Thanks to Ms. Stampel-Volpe. And nice to know you made it through the weekend intact.
These are great pitches (is it weird that I almost wrote bitches? Freudian slip?).
Congratulations to all the winners, but a HUGE congrats to Katie. Do I get any credit for talking her into entering?? I want to read her book NOW. Or at least as soon as we're done with our revisions.
And Joanna, I don't know how you did it! Are you still drunk? Thank you so much for being the kind of agent who's generous with time and feedback. All of us aspiring authors out here really appreciate it!
Wow. They were all YA, huh. Too bad I bothered entering my adult scifi lol. Congrats to the winners.
I am FREAKING OUT!!!!!! Thanks Guys!!! What an exciting/strange feeling to have y'all say, "you want to see it in a bookstore one day?!"
I do too!!!!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Joanna, it's comin' your way!
And a huge thanks to ELANA! Have a great day!!!
Perhaps the fact that they were YA/MG reflects what Ms. Stampfel-Volpe is looking for at this time. Save your entry, rsgarcia, we have contests planned for the future and we would love to have you enter again.
Congrats to all the winners! They all sound incredible! And more thanks than we'll ever be able to express to Joanna. You've just been amazing :)
Congrats to all the winners -- excellent pitches. It seems Ms. Volpe likes YA, juding by the content of all the pitches. I'll have to recommend her highly to my a couple of my crit partners who write YA.
Great pitches! Congrats to everyone. Thanks for the contest.
Congratulations to all the winners - AND to everyone who submitted their "one liner" for consideration. It's always a success of sorts just to get a query (even a one liner) out the door, and open ourselves up to possible rejection. Sooner or later it's bound to pay off, and I'm delighted on behalf of the winners who are enjoying the rewards of their efforts right now!
Congrats to all the winners and good luck!!
I did say to Elana that the winners all being YA was COMPLETELY unintentional. Of the twenty-seven I had picked as the best there were two non-fictions, three thrillers, a mystery, three romances, four historicals, two women's fiction, three general/literary fiction, two adult fantasies, a sci-fi, and the rest were YA and MG. At first I was going to try and pick a variety, but then I thought that wouldn't be fair if I felt some of the others were actually better, but I chose one of the thrillers or a romance just to have genre variance. My poor husband had to hear those twenty-seven pitches about ten times each (reading them out loud helps me) before I finally came to a decision.
In some cases there were some really good ideas, but the pitches didn't exactly follow pitch guidelines. I wrote notes next to almost all 585 of them. Things like "This is not a proper pitch--but I would read this!" or "Bad pitch, cool concept." So that inspired me to write a blog post for QueryTracker on pitchlines, because some of you guys have some great ideas but seem to be having trouble executing the pitch.
Anyway, I can't thank everyone who participated enough, especially Elana and her team--and all of the writers!
Thanks again!
Joanna
Joanna, I was just about to post that bit in your email about the unintentional pick of YA material. Thanks for coming on over!
:)
Thanks very much to Joanna and Elana. Any chance you might list the top 27?
Congratulations you guys! All of your premises sound very interesting.
I too would like to know if I made the top 27. How about it, guys? Throw us a bone out here?
Congrats winners! Great one liners! :)
Those are great pitches, congratulations to the winners.
Congrats to the winners! Well deserved. :D
Wonderful pitches. I would love to read all those stories.
Cheers!
I'd love to know if mine was one of the 27...it'd feel great if it was!!
Oh - and congratulations to the winners!!! So exciting!
Congrats to the winners! Thanks for doing this. I read on Elana's blog that there were 500+ entries?
WOW!
Thanks Joanna and Elana! I appreciate all the work you put into this.
It was great practice for me to work on my pitch. I feel a bit like Dr. Claw as I keep thinking "I'll get you next time..." with my pitch.
Congrats to the winners. So simple and yet so effective! Good stuff.
It was a good exercise, if nothing else. Thanks!
Post a Comment