Tag: Pitchapalooza pitches

Incriminated by Gregory Caplan 

Bolstered by the notion “confession is good for the soul,” I unburden my conscience in a charismatic & candid memoir about the real justice system titled, Incriminated. A 65,300 word draft is written.

I grew up in middle-class suburbs during the mid-1970s through early 1980s. My conception of justice consisted of elementary, yet misguided, premises: 1. prosecutor = good guy; 2. defense attorney = bad guy. Despite tangential concerns about systematic shortcomings, I believed justice universally prevailed. I became a prosecutor and energetically delivered “justice.” My confidence about earlier suppositions gradually faltered. I was then immersed in a shadowy world of politics & bureaucratic infirmities. I experienced a metamorphosis, and ventured across the proverbial boundary of good & evil, from high & mighty prosecutor to rabble-rousing defense attorney.

I partook in courthouse capers & unsanctioned governmental escapades. Luckily, I preserved copious notes. This “evidence” reveals substantiation for my tumultuous conversion and subsequent reintegration.

Incriminated “serves up” a candid & humorous rendering of justice with conviction in a spirit akin to workplace memoirs such as The Job and A Thousand Naked Strangers. Incriminated welcomes readers to examine quandaries of justice professionals which are overcome through indispensable moments of humor.

I worked nine years as a prosecutor & 10+ years in private practice. I manage a diverse marketing & social media platform, publish a criminal law magazine, & provide guest analysis for KNBC & KABC, EW, & LA Daily News.

Thank you for your consideration of Incriminated.

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

Parties for a Purpose: Hope Ridings Miller & the Golden Age of Washington Society by Joseph Dalton

There was a time in Washington when our leaders acted with dignity and mutual respect.  As a result, things got done.  Formal dinners and other high society events had something to do with that.  Politicians found it harder to attack each other by day when they were breaking bread together by night.

Reporting on the serious business of Washington parties through five administrations, from FDR’s New Deal to LBJ’s Great Society, was the journalist and author Hope Ridings Miller.  She arrived in DC at age 28, a small town girl with big ambitions.  Five years later she became Society Editor of the Washington Post.

Miller was welcomed as a guest at countless state dinners, embassy receptions and private affairs — gatherings where teacup talk could make or destroy careers.  Her columns were a must-read for Washingtonians who wanted to know what was really going on.

In the biography Parties for a Purpose: Hope Ridings Miller & the Golden Age of Washington Society readers are escorted into the Capital’s regal mansions and elegant salons.  Included are personal observations on the First Ladies; unpublished letters from the famed hostesses Evalyn Walsh McLean, Cissy Patterson and Perle Mesta; and intimate conversations between Miller and her fellow Texan and great patron Speaker Sam Rayburn.

Author Joseph Dalton is an award-winning journalist, also Miller’s younger cousin.  Before her death Helen Thomas contributed the Foreword.

Utilizing both charm and discretion, Hope Ridings Miller reigned over Washington society.  Parties for a Purpose tells how she did it.

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

The State Beverages Club by Janelle Greene

The last time Claire Watkins saw Famous Jam Study play, she ended up sobbing on the sidewalk outside Verdigris Town Hall as an ambulance drove away. Now the band is getting back together, and somehow an invitation to their reunion show ended up in Claire’s mailbox. 

Despite all advice to the contrary, Claire kind of wants to go. Not just because her ex-boyfriend is the guitarist, and not just because their best song is about her dead dad, and not just because she spent three years selling their shitty t-shirts and cassette tapes. But because when she lost the band, she lost the only leadership position she ever loved—president and founding member of a club designed for bored-stiff band girlfriends (even the ones she hated).

THE STATE BEVERAGES CLUB follows Claire as she relives and tries to reclaim her merch girl years and abandoned friendships. From the pioneer plains of South Dakota to a tomato survivalist festival in Ohio to the alcohol-soaked campgrounds outside the Indianapolis 500, Claire struggles with her own still-bubbling bitterness—and searches for the courage to face the pain she left in her wake.

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

Ledger Demain and the Awesome Umbrella by Michael Lunsford

Ledger is worried. If his tinkering dad doesn’t stop wasting money on eccentric brainstorms and flakey inventions, they could lose the family bookstore, life savings and house. To make matters worse, Dad’s workshop just exploded—and this was no accident. Somebody blew it up on purpose.

Granddad arrives to take Ledger and his kid sister, Savvy, to Camp Eureka—The Quintessential Inventor’s Camp for Nerdy kids—until Dad can figure out who dynamited his workshop. But on the way, Granddad goes missing and now Ledger and Savvy are on their own to reach Camp Eureka and figure out who’s messing with their family before they strike again.

When they arrive (dripping wet but alive), the perplexing camp director won’t let them join the search for Granddad—that is, unless they prove themselves by winning the Weird Wacky Water War and Pretty Nerdy Baby Buggy Derby. Ledger can’t understand what’s up with the camp director, but one thing he knows for sure: An inventive mind could really come in handy right now.

LEDGER DEMAIN AND THE AWESOME UMBRELLA is a 57,000-word, upper MG adventure with Sci-Fi elements and series potential.

By the way, I know a little something about inventions, living and inventing in Silicon Valley with 27 patents to my name. I’m also a member of SCBWI and South Bay Writers Club, graduate of U. of MD with a BA in English Lit and author of 14 tech books published by Bantam, Simon & Schuster and other top publishers.

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

Faces by K.J. Milton

In the aftermath of a car crash that claims the lives of his wife and child, world-renowned actor and musician Jonah Wilder spirals into the hell of heroin addiction. To avoid publicity during rehab, Jonah slips into his most ambitious role to date, becoming John Walker — a bearded, long-haired, reclusive auto mechanic. Under the guise of Walker, Jonah enters an inpatient Methadone program in a rural Minnesota sobriety house.

Andi Sawyer has left her abusive husband behind, and her first priority now is to provide a stable home environment for Charli, her musically gifted, special-needs daughter. But stability seems elusive in Pine Valley, Minnesota, as Shumway Steel, the town’s largest industry, faces closure. Then an unexpected friendship blossoms with John, the new arrival at the men’s sobriety house next door. As his walls crumble and love opens the door to dreams of a new life, John Walker envisions a future for the three of them as a family … as long as his tragic past as Jonah Wilder stays hidden.

When the feeling that she’s met John before drives Andi to put her artistic skills to work, she realizes that John may not be the man she thought she knew. Worse, Andi’s dangerously obsessed ex-husband has returned, and Peter Sawyer will stop at nothing to unmask the imposter in Andi’s life. Jonah must reconcile his past and accept the better man he’s become, or he will lose everything he’s come to cherish—Andi, Charli—and his second chance at life.

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