#pimpmybio

Hellooooo and welcome! I’m Victoria.

I’m submitting a YA dual-timeline alt-history political fantasy for 2017 #pitchwars. Come find me on twitter!

THE FEVER KING is a hero-to-villain origin story. TFK is basically all about the psychological impact of being a revolutionary and the thin line between hero and villain.

It’s like SHADOW AND BONE met VICIOUS and their baby had:

the programming skills of MR ROBOT &

the revolutionary fervor of Magneto from X-MEN.

Two boys’ lives intersect across a chasm of a hundred years.

1969, North Carolina. Calix Lehrer has a genius for military strategy. He’s survived four years of torture at the hands of a government that fears people with abilities like Calix’s power of mind control. Liberated, he joins his unstable brother’s domestic terrorist organization, plotting to seize control of the country and build a sovereign witching state in its place. Calix is determined to be colder than the demons that haunt his nightmares...but as his strategies for victory become increasingly lethal he might become the kind of monster that can’t be saved.

2074, Carolinia. Noam Álvaro would do anything--even go to prison--if it meant justice for refugees like his parents. Conscripted into a government-funded elite magical training program, Noam vows to use his new magical power over technology to fight for refugee rights. That means allying himself with legendary war hero and Minister of Defense Calix Lehrer to plot a political coup against the same country Lehrer founded 100 years ago. As Noam’s loyalties are thrown into conflict, Noam has to decide how far he’s willing to go for justice—and if avenging his family is worth becoming the villain.

TROPEY GOODNESS:

alternate history &

dual timelines &

magic is literally a virus &

complicated sibling relationships &

queer enemies-to-lovers &

ambitious fuckups &

boys who read Nabokov and Wittgenstein &

morally grey protagonists &

charismatic villains &

genius bastards &

past trauma &

political intrigue &

slow slooow burn &

unreliable narrators &

questionable decisions &

psychological manipulation &

love interests on opposite sides of an ideological conflict &

divided loyalties &

trying very very very hard not to get a crush on the much-older might-be-villain.

You’ll like this story if you like complicated emotional journeys where the Right Side of the Conflict is ambiguous and the narrator may or may not be extremely unreliable. 

AESTHETICS:

1.

2.

ON DIVERSITY:

Diversity in literature is extremely important to me. As a writer with several marginalized identities, I represented some of these among the two main characters (yay for #ownvoices!). I also did my research when including identities to which I do not belong, and am very open to feedback on the representation of these characters.

Characters in this story are people of color, gay and bisexual, Jewish, and have mental illness.

ME ME ME ME ME!

I have a graduate degree in psychology and have written 22 (count ‘em) complete novels before this one, although this is the first I’m trying to publish. (Yes, I started very young. And am kind of a perfectionist. These previous books were of variable quality.) I also used to write fanfiction. (Whatever, I’ll admit it.) (Parenthetical asides are fun.)

I currently live in Europe, but am American. Sadly, I am moving back to the US soon. I hail from the dogwood state, North Carolina, and THE FEVER KING is set in my hometown of Durham.

Hmm, let's see. One time I hitchhiked from Thailand to Myanmar in the back of a van, stuffed between packages of beer, propane gas, live chickens, and the three other people we picked up on the side of the road.

I think Python is the objective best programming language.

Also, I feel like I ought to say that I am very fond of constructive criticism. I have a thick skin. I can take it. I really can. Bring it on.

Honestly, as I see it, I want to become a better writer--and the best way to do that is to practice and get feedback. At the end of the day, it’s not about whether this scene was bad or not, it’s about how I can make the scene better. My goal is to strive for excellence. In grad school we talk a lot about being lifelong learners, and that’s me. I know I can always improve. This book has been through five drafts so far over these two years, with three critique partners. Editing and I are very good friends.

So go drench my MS in red ink, because I am here for it.

SOUNDTRACK? 

You betcha.

Control (Halsey)

Two Evils (Bastille)

Young God (Halsey)

War Sweater (Wakey Wakey)

Evening on the Ground (Iron and Wine)

Born to Die (Lana Del Rey)

THANKS FOR READING MY THING, and go check out all the other mentees on the #pimpmybio hashtag on twitter or right here! Thanks also to Brenda Drake and the organizers for making Pitch Wars 2017 happen.

Confession (I’m a big fan of confessions and disclaimers): I actually have no idea how Tumblr works, so I’m kind of using this as an opportunity to explore a new medium as well as put myself out there for you fine people. 

About My Book:

Title: A Garden of Light and Shadows

Sasha Chantry has always known that she would be a dancer, just like her grandmother. But when her beloved Baba Nadia dies, a host of disturbing visions and other neurological symptoms begin to threaten Sasha’s dancing career and her very life. As her mind and body weaken, Sasha falls deeper into Kingsgarden, the glittering but dangerous world of her nightmares, where she has been sold as a thrall: a mute and mindless source of magical power to be used—or abused—by wealthy citizens.

When the nightmare doesn’t end, Sasha finds herself trapped in Kingsgarden. Under the eyes of her suspicious owners and the corrupt House of Light and Shadow which first enslaved her, Sasha fights to win her freedom and find her way home. She isn’t certain if Kingsgarden is a real place or a construct of her fractured mind, but this distinction seems less important than her plans for escape—until the moment she realizes that “home” isn’t necessarily where she thought it was. Torn apart by conflicting bonds of love and obligation, Sasha must now decide once and for all if the line between reality and madness is as important, or as fixed, as one might think.

Previously titled Under the Willow Root  (and, let’s be real, it might change again), this is my first original novel. I have a few fulls out, but I’m hoping that a mentor will be able to help me really make the manuscript shine for any future agent requests. I feel like I’ve made Sasha’s story as shiny as I can on my own, and I’m really hoping for some guidance. 

About Me (and, yes, I was actually tearing up I was so excited about this baby goat):

I use the pen name Tamara Linden because my real name is over twenty letters long, not including my middle name. I won’t tell you what my real name is (if you’re a mentor you already know my real name) but I will tell you that Tamara is my middle name and Linden is the English translation of the root word of my last name, which is possibly the Greek-est thing you’ll ever see. 

I work as an exam prep and college essay tutor by day (and evenings and weekends) and moonlight as a folk musician. In college I majored in music (primary instrument: flute, secondary: voice, concentration: composition) but when I got out I worked mostly office jobs until I started tutoring, which I love. I read like it’s my job--because it kind of is! Not YA Fantasy novels, though, and that’s what I read the most. 

I’ve had a few short stories published, which has reinforced my desire to really commit to and invest in myself as a writer. As the consensus seems to be that a formal MFA program isn’t necessary to get published or even get a job in publishing, I’m trying to up my writing game on my own. I’m looking into conferences and workshops, and I’m working through Gabriela Pereira’s DIY MFA. And I’m here, diving into Pitch Wars! 

 Bonus: the video below is of me singing a song (written by moi) that appears in my manuscript.

Why You Want to Work With Me:

I will work hard. I’m very serious about growing not only as a writer but as an entrepreneur. 

I take instruction well. I studied music for over fifteen years, and I was an athlete for at least as long as that. I’m used to people critiquing me and pushing me to dig deeper. I really value the mentor/mentee relationship because I’ve been on both sides and I know how powerful it can be. 

I’m pretty nice =). 

I might make you laugh, probably unintentionally. 

Random Fun Facts:

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Favorite Food: Soup (I really, really love soup)

Top 5 Books/Series (because who just has one): Watership Down by Richard Adams, Harry Potter by J.K, Rowling, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, The Lady by Anne McCaffrey, Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, 

Favorite (Current) Shows: GoT, Outlander, Nashville, Jane the Virgin

Favorite Netflix: Sense8, Firefly, Scrubs, Hart of Dixie

Favorite Individual Animal: My cat Loki, pictured below

WELCOME, FRIENDS.

First, I’ve gotta say: all the other mentee hopefuls are slaying their bios with ACTUAL WEBSITES and gifs galore. I am not so skilled in the ways of being Boss as Fuck, so I welcome one and all to my humble Tumblr Dot Com space on the Internet.

My nom de plume is Bailey South, but a quick search will return woefully little on my exploits and infamy. Thus, the evil plan succeeds. You see, I’ve spent the last ten years writing all kinds of sordid fan fiction under another name.

The kind of fanfic that received thousands of reviews and endless amounts of lovingly rendered fan art. People tattooed my words on their bodies. That is nuts. All over two college dudes doing drugs and really wanting to suck each others Ds.

Sure, there was a fair amount of crippling depression and chaotic memetic desire thrown in, but I had no idea, when I was writing it, what sort of beast it would become. In order to gain some distance, I developed a shiny new name and brushed off the dusty outlines and painstaking map-making I made way back in 2005. There was magic! And a boarding school! It was basically Harry Potter! I tried for years to get things rolling with the manuscript, but I lost focus, then I lost interest.

Fast forward to 2014. I have an idea one night, hating the mundanity of my existence and loathing the sight of the restaurant I force myself into day in and day out, smiling at strangers and putting on the Grand Show of hospitality. I’m angry and educated and tired, so tired, of doing nothing. I open a Word document and words begin pouring out. Those words eventually became my Pitch Wars 2017 submission: MINNOWS, speculative contemporary YA that is furious and philosophical and probably going to end up buried on my hard drive never seeing the light of day because agents hate post-apocalyptic YA right now. But I did it. I wrote it.

I remember being in fourth grade and reading Bruce Coville’s Into the Land of Unicorns. I was all batshit about it and made a teeny-tiny pocket-sized book about unicorns, crayon-scrawled hard cardboard cover and all. In essence, I wrote fanfic. I wanted to create more, wanted to know more about these different worlds and characters. Even now, when I really love something and it ends, I just want more. Writing MINNOWS, for me, was about learning to love what I create, about wanting more of the worlds and characters I’ve created. 

And now, AN ABBREVIATED LIST OF THINGS I LOVE:

books

Shades of Magic series by V.E. Schwab because holy world creating and Kell and the Londons and Rhy and it’s the first series since Harry Potter that had me THERE. You know where I mean. RIGHT THERE.

The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare because H/D fanfic writer turned YA fantasy dominator who the haters are gunna hate, but I love wholly anyway. Because HERONDALES and angels and demons and the entire chronology of Jem and Will as parabatai. I think about Will Herondale even now, years later, and hurt.

The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman because gritty magical boarding school? Fuck yes.

Harry Potter series by…. you know who it’s by. Because I don’t care how problematic it’s supposed to be or why XYZ is wrong because of varyingly valid reasons. I love it because it changed my life as a junior in high school when I felt like the whole world was against me. Harry’s entire life, from his childhood to his destiny, was and is the most moving, soul-encompassing experience of my life thus far. I’m a Hogwarts Ravenclaw and Ilvermorny Thunderbird. My wand is 10 ¾" elm wood with a unicorn hair core. My patronus is a wild boar. (Which is HILARIOUS). I went to the California Wizarding World of Harry Potter last October and did magic in the streets of Hogsmeade with a bunch of ten-year-olds and LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

Fight Club and Survivor and Choke by Chuck Palahniuk. Instrumental in crafting my idea of what it means to write.

films

The Social Network by David Fincher. I tend to like directors’ entire filmography and this is definitely true for Fincher. Se7en, anyone? But TSN is spectacularly cast, searingly written by Sorkin, and just fantastic filmmaking. It’s smart and devastating. It’s compellingly told and so realistically depicted. And it’s a film about Facebook of all things. I was in Speech 101 in college and for our final we had to give a persuasive speech on any topic. The professor joked that it could be about saving the whales, politics, or even simply being a good person. The last bit got a huge laugh out of the class, like it’s somehow a joke to be a good person. Wrong. I picked compassion as my topic and received a standing ovation. Making something Big out of something not so big, making it into an amazing piece of art, that’s why I love The Social Network.

The Fountain by Darren Aronofsky. Another amazing filmmaker with an impressive oeuvre (Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, etc). It’s a love story at heart, but woven so intricately and directed so hauntingly. A true cinematic work of art.

Sunshine by Danny Boyle. Great ensemble cast and a powerful message about awe. Boyle is another director with all sorts of staggering achievements under his belt (Slumdog Millionaire, 28 Days Later, Trainspotting).

Dead Poets Society. Because gather ye rosebuds while ye may, carpe diem, O’ captain my captain, etc.

music

Brand New. Literally my favorite band of all time. Jesse Lacey, you are beyond words.

The Receiving End of Sirens. Sheer beauty.

Gatsby’s American Dream. Thematically astounding with lyrical elements embedded both in my soul and in my manuscript! A band that writes practically a whole record on Ursula Le Guin’s The Wizard of Earthsea can do no wrong. 

and a whole slew of 2000s emo/punk/pop-punk/post-punk/melodic hardcore/pop-core like New Found Glory, Say Anything,The Starting Line, All Time Low, Fall Out Boy, Set Your Goals, Four Year Strong, Forgive Durden, This Providence, The Juliana Theory, Taking Back Sunday, Dashboard Confessional, Allister, Further Seems Forever, Blink 182, Green Day. I lived in Los Angeles for the first twenty-six years of my life; I cut my teeth on Hollywood club shows.

SOME TRU FUN FAX ABT ME:

I can’t whistle. So whenever Sabriel whistled instead of using her dope ass bells in the Garth Nix books, I was sad.

I wanted to be an English professor. I graduated summa cum laude from the University of California Santa Barbara (right on the beach, which was the setting of my aforementioned massive 133k fanfic). Then I went to a graduate school I hated because they offered me a scholarship, and I promptly dropped out after a semester.

I moved away from the endless independent contracting offered to me in Los Angeles and moved to Greenville, South Carolina for absolutely no reason at all other than I thought the Dawson’s Creek scenes shot in North Carolina looked pretty. Really.

Hi, I’m Amy.

This is my first ever PitchWars, and I’m hyped af.

About My Manuscript

Title: More Fierce Than Fire (title comes from here)

Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy

Word Count: 75,000

Comps: The Young Elites by Marie Lu, The Story of Owen by E. K. Johnston

Sixteen-year-old Abigail Hunter, the best healer in Grady Hospital’s Magical Trauma Ward, has a secret. Ten years ago, Abby wished her mother dead on the worst possible day—the day dragons awoke and brought magical powers to everyone in the world. Abby's angry wish became the powerful spell that ended her mother's life. 

Abby has devoted her life to healing magic to atone for the sins of her past. Though she’s still afraid of losing control, she has become increasingly aware of the threat the dragons pose and frustrated that she is helpless to do anything about it. Hoping to develop the skills required to protect others, she joins a new United Nations-sponsored program which promises to give her the chance to work directly with the dragons and their victims. Training with some of the best young mages in the world, she prepares for the war to come.

And the war is coming. When a group of unregistered mages leads the dragons in a deadly attack on American cities, Abby must decide if she’s ready to join the fight against them, or if she’ll be stuck reliving the mistakes of her past forever. 

A Note About Diversity

Diversity is extremely important to me in my writing. Most of the characters in my book other than my MC are POC and/or LGBTQ. I did not feel that I had the skill or experience to write a first-person perspective for a POC/LGBTQ character, so I didn’t. However, I have been fortunate to grow up in an extremely diverse place, so I’ve included a number of POC/LGBTQ characters (loosely) based on real people. I feel that authentic, thoughtful representation is important in all forms of media and am hoping to find a mentor who feels the same.

MS Pinterest Board

Novel Aesthetic (Quotes & More on My Instagram)

About Me

Let’s start this the way you did back in pre-school. My name is Amy Lanchester, and I’m twenty-eight years old. My favorite color is pink (and has been since long before millennial pink became a thing #ILikedItBeforeItWasCool). More Fierce Than Fire is my first novel. 

I’m “from Atlanta” in the way that most people who say they are “from Atlanta” are “from Atlanta,” in that I actually grew up about thirty minutes away and only moved to the city as an adult. I set my book here because I feel that entirely too many books are set in NYC, London, or Chicago.

I’ve been funemployed for the past year.

I started my first “real job” before I’d even finished my master’s degree, and after working there for three years, I decided I wanted to do a few things before I’m too old/settled. So I’ve traveled Europe:

ALL

OVER

EUROPE

and the western United States:

ALL

OVER

THE 

WILD

WEST

and I finally achieved a life goal in writing this book. I highly recommend taking a “gap year” to anyone who is able.

I live with my boyfriend and our beautiful asshole of a cat, Bret. We found him about two years ago at a local McDonald’s hanging out near the drive-thru. We went back the next day and lured him out with bits of hamburger, and he’s been our lovable jerk of a pet ever since. 

Why You Should Mentor Me

- I am really, really serious about this. I’ve devoted an insane amount of time, energy, and research on this project in the past year and fully intend to see it through all the way. I love and believe in my work. 

- I am crazy meticulous. I come from a STEM background, and I use the tools I learned there in my work. I’m a firm believer in spreadsheets, outlines, automation, and using technology to the fullest. I am a grammar nut who googles everything she isn’t sure about and spends hours nerding out reading style guides and grammar blogs.

- I take criticism well. I’m a fairly self-critical person who is realistic about her flaws and shortcomings. Though I love my work, I know it is far from perfect, and I am greatly looking forward to receiving a thoughtful critique. You won’t hurt my feelings. I want my work to be the best it can be, and I know that takes knowledge and experience I don’t have.

Writing History

I had the idea for my MS in May 2016. It was inspired by this tumblr post which made its way to reddit (a site I love and hate and spend entirely too much time on):

I decided I could write that book, and so I did. I wrote a prologue that I cut and part of the first chapter on a train from Warsaw to Berlin in September. I made an outline when I got back home in October, and I wrote the rest of the book during NaNoWriMo 2016. I did finish my 50,000 words in November, but the book wasn’t done. I had a completed (terrible) first draft of about 55,000 words by the first week of December. 

My first draft was mostly just dialogue and action. I discovered that I hate writing description as much as I hate reading it. So my next several drafts mostly involved adding description to scenes, and it took forever. I cut several scenes and characters entirely during this process and added a few more scenes and characters, bringing my final word count to 75,000 words. My current draft contains very little from the original NaNoWriMo draft, and believe me, that’s for the best.

Writing Style

I am definitely a planner. I would have gotten nowhere without my outline or character spreadsheet. However, most of my character’s personalities came out through writing their dialogue. I used dialogue (that I went back and cut because it was boring and redundant) to solve plot problems and work out motivations in scenes. If I ever got stuck, I just started writing a conversation between my characters, and it solved basically all of my problems. 

How I Write 

I started writing in Scrivener, a program I’d gotten for free when I worked at the Apple Store back in 2010. It helped me a lot with organizing scenes and research. I transitioned to Google Docs after a save file got corrupted and I spent an evening panicking that I’d lost everything (I hadn’t, thank God). Google Docs sucks for long documents, but it saves to the cloud every few seconds, so I suffered through it.

I write at night almost exclusively. My best creative work comes after midnight, and usually once I’m already in bed.

I dread having to get back on a normal schedule because the night owl life is best for my writing.

Favorite Writing Resources

- Excel/Google Sheets

- Grammar Girl

- Chicago Manual of Style (I’m too poor to actually own this, but I use their FAQs and this hyphenation table all the time.)

- Hemingway Editor

- Grammarly

- ProWritingAid

Upcoming Projects Preview

I have so many ideas. I think of new project ideas every day, and I constantly struggle not to get distracted by my newest, shiniest concept. Here are a couple of things I’ve started planning:

- Shakespeare’s plays retold in a combined setting like into the Woods or Marissa Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles. A central, overarching series plot with individual volumes devoted to some of the plots of the original plays. I’ll be combining side characters from one show with main characters from another.

- A space opera/sci-fi series centered on a girl who rescues an alien from a hostile species at war with Earth’s space empires. The aliens have superior technology and are annihilating the space colonies, but we can’t communicate with them. My MC and her android nanny devise a method for rudimentary communication and are captured by government forces who have ulterior motives.

Stuff I Like

Books

- Harry Potter, obviously. Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite. I spent years convincing myself I was a Gryffindor like Hermione, my hero, but I’m really a Ravenclaw.

- The Young Elites by Marie Lu

- Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E. K. Johnston

- A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin

- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

- 1984 by George Orwell

- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

TV Shows

I freaking love TV. 

I’m convinced that if Ray Bradbury had lived in the Golden Age of Television that we’re living through, he would never have written Fahrenheit 451.

A short list of shows I love: Futurama, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Parks and Recreation, BoJack Horseman, Game of Thrones, The Handmaid’s Tale, Breaking Bad, The Wire, Jessica Jones, Broadchurch, Steven Universe, Stranger Things, You’re the Worst, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

Musicals 

I love Broadway so much. 

I’ve been in (school productions of) Once on This Island, Les Miserables, Into the Woods, and Dreamgirls. Other shows I love include Hamilton, The Book of Mormon, The Last Five Years, Aida, Phantom of the Opera, Evita, The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, and West Side Story.

Cosplay 

I picked up cosplay a few years back. I didn’t own a sewing machine, didn’t know how to sew, and had limited crafting experience. I taught myself using books, online tutorials, and YouTube videos. Some of my projects:

Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones

Chell from Portal

Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter

Elsa from Frozen

Joy from Inside Out

Eleven from Stranger Things

That was entirely too long, and I’m sorry.

Hi! You’ve reached the Pitch Wars 2017: #PimpMyBio of Rachel Kramer. I’m not in right now, but if you leave a message on my twitter @RachelKWrites I’ll get back to you ASAP.

About My MS:

OF BONES AND STARLIGHT

Young Adult Fantasy

Ellowen Valos is the chosen one. To be sacrificed.

Locked in a tomb awaiting her own death, Ellowen is spared by one of the Gods. But salvation comes with a price.  In order to reunite with her family and stop future sacrifices, Ellowen agrees to steal a mysterious artifact from the God of the Underworld. Trapped in a realm of powerful deities with ulterior motives, she discovers the Gods are quite unlike their depictions in ancient texts, and just as flawed as their mortal counterparts. Ellowen must learn who to trust before one God’s agenda destroys her homeland and everyone she loves along with it. 

Inspired by Greek and Egyptian mythology, and the legend of Atlantis, OF BONES AND STARLIGHT is a dark YA fantasy, complete at 73,000 words.

As cheesy as it may sound, I got the idea for this story from two separate dreams that I couldn’t shake, so I decided to make it my 2016 NaNoWriMo project. This will be my first time submitting to Pitch Wars, and I have spent the last seven months editing and revising my WIP in preparation. I know it still has a long way to go, but I am hoping to find a mentor who can help transform my MS into something magical. Also, I could really use a writerly BFF who understands the struggle ;P

Here’s a little aesthetic board I made for OBAS:

About Me:

I’m a grocery store clerk and sign artist by day, and a writer by night (that's right, I never sleep :p). If I’m not reading or writing in my free time, I’m probably in a car road trippin’ it across the U.S. I don’t always watch T.V., but when I do, I binge on Netflix.

Some of my favorite YA books:

The Harry Potter series (obviously)

A Court Of Mist and Fury

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

The Wrath and the Dawn

The Hunger Games

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender 

And so many others I don’t have the time to list.

Favorite Shows:

Game of Thrones

Westworld

Sense8

Orphan Black

Stranger Things

BBC’s Sherlock

Hannibal 

Penny Dreadful

13 Reasons Why

and, a little comedy for balance and perspective, Parks and Recreation.

Ok, so it’s been a WHILE since I’ve even posted on this thing. But I’m hellbent on waging a proper Pitch War, so here goes nothing...

Werewolves are my thing. Always have been. Don’t ask me why. It seems they have a story to tell, and want me to tell it. Something to do with Atlantis. It gets complicated. So, I write. How goes it? I’m Jeff, pleasure to meet you.

I’ll get right to the book then, shall I? If you have a similar affinity for the lycanthropic, the fantastical, the esoteric... you might enjoy this macabre thing I call THE PERSONAL ACCOUNT OF DARIUS CARLYLE

I like to think my work occupies a happy middle ground between YA and adult. The genre is flexible enough, and our kids desensitized enough that a little blood and gore might be good for them. Plus, Happily Never Afters are where it’s at.

What’s most important to note about this book is that it’s a journal. Not my journal per se, but Darius’s. Here’s where I usually digress onto some inane tangent about the handwritten rough draft. The intimacy of pen on paper akin to channeling a past life from a parallel universe, blah blah blah...

In truth, it actually was cathartic. Cathartic, and creative. It’s a bloody work of art I couldn’t be prouder of, because I was able to dig through thousands of years of history, written only ten years before, when I fancied myself the next Tolkien (my crest has fallen since, of course). And therein I found the key to a story half a lifetime in the writing...

BLURB:

In 1888 Darius Carlyle investigates the slew of murders London's penny dreadfuls attribute to Jack the Ripper. When his dearest Kate follows him to Whitechapel, she becomes the Ripper's next intended victim. Unhinged, Darius hunts the Ripper down with murderous prejudice. But the Ripper's death reveals the true threat: an ancient werewolf with a personal vendetta. And Darius soon learns the depths of the creature's malice, as Kate's humanity begins waning with each full moon. 

PITCH:

Werewolves, Jack the Ripper, esoteric magick, and damned love. All recounted in a mystical werewolf hunter’s journal.

OR:

All Darius Carlyle ever wanted was someone to love and werewolves to hunt. By cruel happenstance, his dearest Kate becomes one and the same.

ME:

Give me a good book, a good movie, and a good beer (Jameson to wash it down, please, on the rocks). Some of my favorite films/TV shows:

Lord of the Rings (all three Extended Editions)

Batman Begins

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (favorite guilty pleasure)

The Prestige

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Ancient. Effing. Aliens

Penny Dreadful (not so secretly in love with Eva Green)

Supernatural (c’mon)

The Flash

Harry Potter should be a given

I grew up on a healthy literary diet of R. L. Stine (Goosebumps) and K. A. Applegate (Animorphs). Recent favorite books include I, Lucifer by Glenn Duncan and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clark. I also take a lot of inspiration from the likes of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde and of course, the great Professor, J. R. R. Tolkien, perhaps the singular great literary influence on my life. 

 I’ve always been fascinated by what’s on the fringe of the impossible, and gravitate to stories which explore it. The idea there’s so much we don’t know for certain draws me to history and myth, science and superstition. And I suppose that’s seeped into my writing.

I wish I could add gifs; sadly I’m not that fluent in Tumblr. I have a lot more personality on Twitter. Suffice it to say I’ve pimped my bio, yes? 

Don’t be shy, say hi!

Sincerely,

Pitch Wars #pimpmybio #pitchwars

Hi guys! I’m entering Pitch Wars next month, which – for those of you who don’t know – is a competition where you submit your polished manuscript to up to four potential mentors, and if you’re chosen you get to work with a mentor for two months to perfect your manuscript and pitch for the agent round in November. I’ve also entered #MenteesHelpingMentees, which is a pre-Pitch Wars raffle to win a…

My lair has more books and less gold than Smaugs…

My name is Morgan and I write YA Fantasy from my lair in Northern Virginia. (Well, at least right now I’m writing YA, who knows what it will be next time.) By day, I write software, by night I write novels and blog my adventures and writing tips here as I glean them on my journey towards publication. Plus, I just started putting some of my blogposts on YouTube. (THAT was pretty intimidating)

I help run 2 facebook support groups for PitchWarriors past and present. I like to think I represent the writing extrovert (or at least, the writing ambivert).

PITCHWARRIORS and the PitchWars YA Subgroup

Both groups are active, friendly, and happy to help their fellow competitors/writers.** It’s an amazing thing, being able to talk to people at the same stage in their writing careers. People who know the struggle of FINISHING a novel and REVISING it. People who have done their research about how to query, and have ended up alongside you on this journey.

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“Beauty and the Mark of the Beast”

My “Bookwyrm”

I’ve attended Balticon, DragonCon, InterventionCon, and the Steampunk World’s Fair,  attending up to 20 hours of panels on writing, editing, and publishing per long weekend. Most of my notes end up in my blog. While at conventions, I’ve been known to cosplay. Especially bad puns. I also worked with the webcomic guests at the anime convention KatsuCon for 6 years, partially to feed my webcomic addiction.

Go Team Mystic!

When I’m not doing something writing related, I lend my voice to the folktale podcast, Anansi Storytime. In my (hahaha! Imaginary) spare time, I like taking long Pokewalks, taking pictures of nature, and pretending I’m actually going to start going back to the gym again. I’m also a gamer (although, I’m down to 1 monthly D&D game). Oh, and of course I enjoy watching TV with my friends. Currently, we’re watching ‘Supernatural’ and ‘Grace and Frankie’. Recently watched were ‘Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency’, ‘Gilmore Girls’, and we’re a few season behind on ‘Lost Girl’ and ‘Once Upon A Time.

Morgan & her twin

I come from a family of Science Fiction and Fantasy readers. My dad’s heavily involved in fandom and is an aspiring writer himself. Meanwhile, my mother was a high school librarian for nearly 30 years and these days works on her massive to-read pile–when it’s not raid night #Alliance. One fun fact about me, I’m an identical twin. She’s not a writer, but she does help manage a local library!

My current project is FLESH AND INK, a matriarchal mash-up between The Golden Compass and the movie Frozen, with a hint of Avatar.

Lilyen loves her apprenticeship as a religious inker-of-flesh, even if it’s nothing compared to her little sister’s prestigious scholarship to the holy Domina’s Academy. But Lilyen’s years of training are jeopardized when her father spots her demon-stains—blue demonic letters that should only appear on those who’ve consorted with demons.

If the church finds out, they’ll kill her and sentence her family to twenty years of hard service, destroying her sister’s future. Lilyen flees her home before risking anyone else, desperately following rumors of others like her—demon-stained exiles living in hiding.

Things I love about FLESH AND INK:

Lilyen’s unwavering faith in her Goddess. Even as her church/country hunts her, even as she learns about the church’s lies, even when she learns what they’ve been doing to her sister, she recognizes the fallible state of humanity.

The world and the magic. How the elements correlate to each other and to the world.

Finding ways to play with patriarchal norms that we don’t even notice.

The way sexual orientation in my world isn’t either/or, it’s about the person.

That, while my story includes love interest(s), they’re a side issue, not the drive of the story.

The technological level. I envision it as a sort of anime level (think almost Miyazaki’s films: The Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke), (elemental powered) trains, bikes, but no phones, no weapons of mass destruction.)

P.S. Hufflepuff, because you can be clever, ambitious, and brave, but it’s best when you put people before ideals.

* PitchWars is an annual contest, run by the amazing Brenda Drake, that takes authors who are polishing their novels for that all-important agent query, and pairs them with mentors! If selected, in 2 months, the mentees will completely revamp their novels, making it ready in time for the Agent Round, where real agents read their queries and first pages and potentially make offers!  Last year, I was not selected, but I did find a wonderful group of supportive writers!

**  Feel free to join, but send me or one of the other admins a note, especially if your account is private, so we can verify you aren’t a spam account!