Category: Pitchapalooza pitches

It Takes Two to Tidy by Jessica Lin

Josh Tan needs to finish the latest album he’s producing. Instead of putting on his headphones and making beats, he’s faced with dusty vinyl records that need to be cleared out of his beloved father’s office after his unexpected death. With his sister busy with a newborn and his mother’s own grief and declining health, he has to get the family house ready for sale. He’s working through his grief with his therapist, but he needs help getting rid of cherished mementos that won’t fit in his small apartment. 

Enter Shelly Chou, a professional organizer who has never met a problem she can’t solve and file away in her color-coded binder. But she wasn’t expecting to bond with her latest client over green tea and their shared experiences growing up with immigrant Chinese American parents. They begin sorting through boxes, photo albums, and memories together, but images of Josh’s strong arms begin popping up in her dreams.  

Falling for a client is definitely NOT part of her five-year plan. Her parents thought she was mad for leaving a stable job to start her own business. Armed with her trusty label maker, Shelly knows she can expand her client base and do it all on her own. But what will she do when she’s confronted by someone who’s definitely sparking joy (and then some)?

IT TAKES TWO TO TIDY is Marie Kondo meets SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE. IT TAKES TWO TO TIDY is a 50,000-word contemporary romance with two Chinese American protagonists.

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Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

A Little Bit Yours by Anna McClain

In Eastern California, Rowan, the image of perfection at Bayville Highschool, finds herself lost when her parents announce they’re divorcing. The world already seems to be falling apart, but gets worse when her best friend and girlfriend of two years, Alana, tells her she’s been cheating on her for two months and has to leave her before anyone else gets hurt. Just as Rowan is thinking of giving up completely, she meets a mysterious girl at a coffee shop who takes her on the adventure of her life. This story tells the narrative of thousands of girls in the real world living through heartbreaks and questioning how to survive high school. Rowan has to learn to test her own limits and change how she sees the world, her place in the world. Every teenage girl eventually has to learn how to define herself not by her traumas, but by her own terms.

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Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

BULLETS IN THE WATER by Conor McAnally – contemporary, conspiracy thriller

A senseless murder in his Texas hometown drags disgraced, national journalist MIKE CARSON into the rotting underbelly of historic Taborville and pits him against a powerful group, who know water will soon be more precious than oil. Mike must find the truth behind the murder, face down his failings and beat a murder rap, if he is to make it out of Texas. Taborville is a microcosm of America today, a confluence of venal antagonists, corrupt politicians and corporate greed which threaten the very lifeblood of the city. The truth will be painful for everyone. Can it restore Mike and save the town, or is it much too late?

This book is based on two murders in historic Bastrop, Texas, where we lived for 15 years and on my wife’s experiences as a member of the City Council, during a good ole boy era of casual corruption. This is my first novel. Author Anthony Trevelyan, when reviewing part of the manuscript, placed it somewhere between The Border by Don Winslow and Raylan by Elmore Leonard. I’m an award-winning investigative print journalist, who transitioned to producing television. I have written for TV entertainment in the USA, UK and Ireland. My shows have won 22 major awards including 5 BAFTAs and 5 from the Royal Television Society. I’ve written and performed three one-man shows on Texas history, Irish history and the Mexican American War.

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Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

Dead Man Walking by Sienna Leaver 

Death has been conquered. Dresno Tech, the world’s largest tech company, has done the impossible: They can predict exactly when you’re going to die. Their technology — the Death Date — gives you a three day alert. It’s just enough time to say your goodbyes and finish any unfinished business…

Will Raisan does not think three days is enough time. When he receives the alert, he panics. He’s only eighteen. His life has just begun. Still, he has no choice but to accept it. When the dreaded three days are up… nothing happens. His Death Date is wrong. The dates are never wrong. His miraculous case catches the attention of Dresno Tech CEO herself. He’s a glitch in their system. That makes him a weakness, a mistake. In response, they offer Will a colossal sum of hush money if he agrees to go with them and answer a few questions. How can he say no?

But as soon as he arrives, Will can tell something is wrong. The other people there — the other glitches — are treated as prisoners, while he’s treated as an esteemed guest. And when he meets a girl named Nine, he knows something is wrong. She drops him clues that have him digging around in the past of Dresno Tech. The more he learns, the more he knows he has to escape — before he loses everything on a gamble that could kill everyone.

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Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

You Treat Me to A Feast: If I Love You, I’ll Feed You by Chelle A. Carter-Wilson

Call me a djeli.

My Daddy was dark chocolate, a fire-filled, afro-adorned Baptist preacher, card-carrying member of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, and Princeton-educated theologian, fully aligned, with zero contradiction. He married a caramel-colored, college-educated woman born in the segregated American South, steeped in faith. I am the full inheritor of their best gifts. Raised in a home where social justice was a Christian value, Jesus had always been radical, and Black was beautiful, Black Liberation was never part of my theology, Black Liberation was my theology. Made in the perfect, precise Image of God, how could the Divine be anything besides Black like me?

Well, I once refused to eat a chicken because its feathers were black.  

Gifts, insights, and privilege notwithstanding, I remain watchful. Fail to be vigilant, and you no longer require an oppressor. You internalize the poison that racism is, and fully unaware, administer it routinely to yourself. 

A pieced quilt, my legacy is indelibly imprinted by the laying on of every forefather and mother’s holy hands. I am my ancestors’ wildest dream; genetically African yet American by birth, descended from royalty and enslaved by colonizers, I am the great-great-granddaughter of the captured, never conquered. 

Part psalm, part prose, some spun magic, this 40k word memoir is a spoken word performance – Bread & Wine meets Soul Food. Spirit-divination, spice, and Grace, these stories decode my faith, family food, and our cultural traditions, along with the lessons they taught me.

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Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

The Honeycomb by Jordan Donald 

How far will you go to belong?  That’s the question that plagues Jake, an athletic, reluctantly sensitive, average, white, high school student, who feels like a puzzle piece that doesn’t match.  Trying to be a loyal friend, his friend Jamie’s comments on race and sexuality become harder to ignore.  Then, during an English class, and under Jamie’s relentless pressure, Jake does something he will never be able to undo.

On the school football team, and surrounded by a group of friends that have been together forever, Jake seems to have what every student wants.  Well, what every student thinks they want.  A place they fit. 

However, an intentionally disruptive decision puts Jake in close quarters with Fatiha, a victim of Jamie’s attacks.  Fatiha’s profound insight, born from her experience of growing up Muslim in a white area, has Jake questioning what it means to be white, to have privilege, and to be silent.

Tension builds as Jake begins to understand why he has never felt like he belonged, and what it will take to change that.  Finally discovering the courage to confront Jamie, Jake becomes Jamie’s new target.

Jake has two choices – both have a cost.  Repair his friendship with Jamie, but lose who he’s becoming, or trust Fatiha and step onto a new path, risking everything he’s known.

The Honeycomb is a YA novel based on my experiences as a white Canadian discovering what it means to be truly human.

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Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

Animal Acceptance by Beatrice Vargas

This is not a fairy-tale. She’s no innocent. And there isn’t a big bad wolf.

There are two of them.

Lynne has turned her back on London and a bad marriage, only to be marooned in the Irish countryside by months of torrential rain. Until her cozy isolation is shattered by a long-lost friend, over from the U.S. and keen to saddle her with his companions. Men who barely speak but will calmly install themselves, first in her house and then in her bed. Men who turn out to be exactly what they seem. 

Not the moon-cursed transmutation, obviously. They get mad if you even say that word. Their kind is real, whether they like it or not. No fur, no sudden fangs. Because a man who truly embodies the spirit of a wolf is tall, lean, silent and mysterious. Formidable, but interesting. Always on the lookout for food, and sex. Meet Lou and Johnny.

Lynne may not know their secret, yet she knows exactly what she’s doing when she takes them on. It’s fun. But how will she keep this quirky ménage intact when the outside world, and the weather, insist upon intruding? And what will happen when she discovers their true nature, and their ulterior motive?

Literary with a paranormal streak, this is a story for women raised on Angela Carter, who relish dark and dangerous masculinity but would prefer it tempered by a modern sensibility. Instinctive, consensual, the way it is out there, in the forest.

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Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

ESTHER HANADA’S MEGA MANGA MIX-UP by Marianne Robin-Tani

Esther Hanada, 13, will never become a manga artist. 

Not with her strict CFO Japanese mom expecting her to study STEM. And her embarrassing YouTube performance artist Dad, who would make her the laughing-stock of Frida Kahlo High School. If she even gets in. Worse yet, Esther loses a chance to perfect her portfolio—via a mentorship with her favorite manga artist—to her arch-nemesis, Cora Sanchez.

Ready to hang up her drawing tablet for good, Esther discovers her power to magically transport into her own drawings. Which would be an awesome way to meet that hot teen librarian she created. However, Esther finds strange new characters wreaking havoc in her story. And these aren’t her creations—they’re Cora’s.

The mix-up doesn’t end on Esther’s pages. Two of her characters have disappeared into Cora’s manga. The girls have only five days to switch them back and fix their stories before the art school applications are due. As the deadline ticks closer, Esther and Cora must end their rivalry, work together to battle armed guards, scent hunting bots, and Cora’s hypnotizing rock star villain to finish Esther’s story #IRL before it finishes them.

ESTHER HANADA’S MEGA MANGA MIX-UP, a 76K MG fantasy, is SAL AND GABI BREAK THE UNIVERSE meets READY PLAYER ONE.

I’ve published three unauthorized celebrity biographies with St. Martin’s Press, produced and directed an award-winning children’s yoga DVD series. I’m fluent in Japanese and addicted to manga. I’ve never escaped into another world but hope to someday soon.

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Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

Snobs & Silly Mothers by Julia Henkelmann

Being Jane Austen’s most well-known (and, well, bitchy) romantic hero surely is the easy life. Except that most of what Fitzwilliam Darcy had to say ended up on the floor of the cutting room.

So what exactly did Miss Elizabeth tell him on those walks in Rosings that sounded like “please drop by and propose already”? And how did it come about that he visited his sister just days before she was about to ruin her life by eloping with her childhood friend and all-round scoundrel?  

For that matter, how was Darcy‘s life and personality influenced by growing up next to a cheat, liar and budding adulterer, watching even his own father being taken in by the little blighter? 

And talking about a lack of perception, how does he deal with having a best friend whose routine in any new place is „make himself acquainted with everybody of higher status than the green grocer – acquire invitations to the next village dance – immortally fall in love with the resident ‘most beautiful women I have met in all my life’ who, on a good day, will _not_ turn out to be closely related to the green grocer”  ? 

And how did the resulting Jerk With a Heart of Gold experience his encounter with yet another determined mother on the hunt and her gaggle of daughters?

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Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).

Win, Lose, or Rain by Jackie Deskovich

Carter Sims has spent the last eight years with the Wichita Whippets, catching for pitchers headed where he’s been aiming his whole life: the big leagues. Pitchers go, but the team’s unofficial pitching coach and good luck charm, Renee Bennett, stays every season, helping new guys and her friend Carter however she can.  When a pitcher leaves Wichita, they usually don’t come back. But of course, when one does, it’s exactly who Carter wishes it weren’t: his first love.

Jason “Ace” James tasted the majors before injuring himself and being sent back to the minor leagues to rehab his arm. Now he’s being traded, again, back to his old team where every face is new except one, his former best friend and the only man he’s ever been in love with.

Sharing the field again means neither of them can seem to handle the game they’ve dedicated their lives to, so Renee takes on Ace as her season project. That would be just fine if old feelings died and new feelings didn’t develop over a summer, but life and love are much more complicated than baseball.

Win, Lose, or Rain is a baseball romance meant for adult readers with queer characters figuring out what it means for them to love more than one person.  

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Vote for your favorite pitch. The pitch that receives the most votes will be named Fan Favorite, and the author will receive a free one-hour consult with us (worth $250).