Got a manuscript you've been itching to pitch? Well, wait no longer, because #PitProm is heading your way this weekend!

Calling all Sci Fi and Fantasy writers! Pitch your manuscripts and see if you can make it to the Top 20 finalists. We are accepting up to 200 submissions for this year's PitProm contest. Our Royal Advisors will take the submissions and pick the top ten favorite sci fi and top ten favorite fantasy pitches. Those finalists will then work with published authors to sharpen their pitches, submit the final work, and industry experts will vote for their favorites! Whichever manuscript pitch receives the most requests from an agent or publisher will be crowned King or Queen of this year's PitProm!

The fun begins July 14th at 10:00 AM, Central Standard Time. Simply go to PitProm.com and submit your 140-character pitch, query letter, and the first ten pages of your completed Sci Fi or Fantasy manuscript.

Know someone who has a manuscript waiting to be published? Share the news so they can enter and dance to the finish line!

​See you on the floor this Saturday!

Recently I had the honor of assistant adjudicating for a manuscript pitch contest. A fellow Clean Reads author Eli Celata asked if I would help and I jumped at the opportunity. She had the brilliant idea to call the contest PitProm, and each of us would have a court -- I worked with Court Sci Fi and she managed Court Fantasy. The winning pitches would be crowned the Queen or King of PitProm and hopefully be offered contracts to get those amazing manuscripts published.

After 200 entries, with the top twenty hopefuls taking a week to work with our author mentors to edit and refresh their pitches, we ended up with a three-way tie, and Queens bowed gracefully upon the PitProm stage. Here we explore their worlds a bit more in-depth, and check out the pitches which won these ladies their crowns!

​Fascinated by storytelling from a young age, author J.S. Dewes cut her teeth writing screenplays for award-winning short and feature films. A creative at heart, she loves immersing herself in the exciting realms portrayed in science-fiction and fantasy, where her aptitude for crafting imaginative tales can have free reign.

Manuscript Title: THE DIVIDE

140-Character Pitch: A castoff commander and her rebellious crew are all that stand between mankind and the universe’s collapse. #PitProm #A #SF

Who's your favorite character in your manuscript?
If I had to pick just one, I would say Cavalon, one of my two POV characters. Though I love all my characters, I had more fun writing him than anyone else. He’s the smartest guy in the room, but you would have no idea. He’s also the funniest guy in the room, and he’ll go to great lengths to make sure you’re aware of it. He’s a weird mix of humble and proud, genuine and sarcastic, defiant and cooperative. He’s also extremely willing to learn and change, and to push his boundaries, though he does get a little help from the other POV character in that regard. Their personalities play off each other in a really constructive way, and though the plot and stakes of the story are rather intense, the core of the book is really about that friendship and how the two balance each other.

What are your favorite and least favorite things about writing?
My favorite thing about writing is the discovery process. I love letting my characters take the reigns and lead the story in unanticipated directions. Though I really do enjoy the whole process, if I had to pick a least favorite aspect of writing, I’d say the general editing process after draft one. I’m a pantser, so for me, that initial unearthing process of finding the story is what I enjoy the most. After that point, it can be difficult to “see the forest for the trees,” though I have a group of trusted critique partners that have helped ease that process tremendously!

Jamie Rusovick-Smith is a California-born girl transplanted to the not-so-sunny state of Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband, four children, and pet rabbit. When she’s not writing, reading, or plotting, you can find her shaking her groove thing at a Zumba class, baking cupcakes, or taking her brood to do anything and everything fun within a fifty mile radius of her home.

Manuscript title: THE BURN KINGDOM 

140-Character Pitch: FROSTBLOOD+LABRYINTHLOST Mother Nature made fire-wielding Azara to end the world. Instead she falls for a Brujo on her hit list #YA #Pitprom

Where did you get the idea for your manuscript? 
The idea behind this MS was sort of a mishmash of things: It started after a major natural disaster a while back, and everyone was asking, “Why, if there’s a God, does He let these things happen?” And my author brain went into overdrive. I thought, what if that’s exactly what was going on — He was letting things happen, but it was Mother Nature doing this to mankind. What did she have against us? What was the ultimate goal? When I overlaid those questions onto the Biblical accounts of a flooding of the earth, and the prophecy of its eventual destruction by fire, I had the bones of my story. But it really came together after I remembered the Mexican Myth of the weather-controlling Acalica. (My great grandmother was born and raised in Guadalajara Mexico, so, per tradition, monster stories were a big part of my upbringing.) I really wanted to incorporate something from my heritage, this myth especially, into the story, but I didn’t want my main character to be a wizened old man! So my amazing CP and best friend (Hi Vanessa!) suggested I gender flip it. “Make them all young women,” she said. And it was like, Ah heck yes, that’s it! The Burn Kingdom was born.  
 
Who’s your favorite character in your manuscript?
Grimmer, my MC’s mentor that, in my brain, looks exactly like Danny Trejo. While I was writing this, he surprised me the most and I tend to have a soft spot for the characters that drop twists I never saw coming.

​Katherine Toran has had short fiction published in Abyss & Apex Magazine, the Whortleberry Press anthology Strange Changes, Every Day Fiction and Short Fiction Break. She also received an honorable mention in the Writers of the Future Contest. She’s currently working on her economics PhD at the University of Kentucky and writes fiction as a relief from the endless math jargon.

Manuscript Title: THE WITCH AND THE DEMON

140-Character Pitch: Fleeing a witchhunter, autistic Ebba sells her heart to a demon—trapping her in a deathmatch and an equally violent courtship. #PitProm #YA

Where did you get the idea for your manuscript? 
I write the stories I wish someone else had written so I could read them. THE WITCH AND THE DEMON was inspired by my adoration for bad boy heroes but frustration with the genre’s clichés. I wanted to see if I could write my villainous love interest while avoiding unfortunate stalkerish implications or love triangles. My heroine, Ebba, accidentally ends up in a courtship with a demon after she throws a severed head at him. The difference between their moral values is both played for laughs and a major source of conflict throughout the book.
 
Who's your favorite character in your manuscript? 
Kryptos, the demon, is my favorite character. As the God of Cowardice, he has a puffed-up ego and doesn’t understand humans, which makes him great fun to write.

These ladies rocked it, knocking those pitches out of the park. Each PitProm participant submitted a 140-character pitch, a query letter, and the first ten pages of their manuscript. You can see their final works at http://www.pitprom.ml/finals and see just how amazing these books are going to be. 

Congratulations to all the PitProm participants -- and especially to our Queens. May you rule the 2017 PitProm Kingdom as fabulously as you can. Happy pitching everyone!

I drummed the coin against the table. Three fast, one slow, then repeated. My foot tapped. Jitters ran down my legs, and every few minutes, I’d hold still. Not even a breath would escape. Then I’d begin again. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the sun dip lower, inch by inch, in the sky. It trickled down like a waterfall of gold sinking below the darkening cityscape. The steady warmth of summer faded with each vanishing ray though August – in name alone – would remain for another few days.
“Come on,” I whispered.
The sky shifted. My leg stilled. Metal paused, hanging above then falling to sit against the wood. As the sun fell down below the horizon, the Void Hours came in spades. Evening turned to night inside the bookshop, but I still pressed into the rising tension. A figure shifted down the street, but I kept my eyes straight ahead. The street lights buzzed and flickered on. Lemniscates shimmered over the window panes. From one side of the glass to the next, the sideways figure eights connected one into the next like linked chain. Inhaling, I let my eyes shut as the world hummed around me. Then the angel rang, and the door opened as if by a gust of air. The whole shop stretched out in the same breath and eased back with a sigh as the door locked. Fingers tapped the chalk remnants on the door before unhooking the ringer.
“Jon.”
I smiled, opening my eyes. “Welcome back to the States.”

Sometimes the fairy tale’s end is just the Grimm beginning.

Enjoyed this excerpt from Eli Celata's new novel, Grimm Remains? Then be sure to check out the whole thing, available for $3.99 now on iTunes, Amazon, Nook, and more!

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​Back Cover Blurb:
Mammon’s summoning turned Rochester into a beacon for the denizens of Hell. As demon activity increases, Jon settles in for a new academic year, and Jordan moves in as the city’s protector. Unfortunately, the young warlock of Rochester might not be around long if the Devil’s marine legion has a say. Havfine, demonic mermaids, don’t often leave deep lakes and ocean waters. They’re better known for drowning mortal sailors than hunting magic users, but something has sent them upstream from Lake Ontario. When three orphans vanish from a magical sanctuary in Toronto, their caretaker – the Wizard Monday – dredges up a part of Jordan’s and Jon’s father’s history that Jordan would have rather forgotten. In this race against the Bane of Hamelin, more than three souls may be on the line.

Author Bio:
Eli Celata was born in Rochester, NY and currently attends Binghamton University as a doctoral student in Biological Anthropology. When she isn’t studying bones or working on interdisciplinary experiments, Eli writes science fiction and fantasy.

Follow Eli on social media!

• Twitter: @Celata_E
• Website: elicelata.wordpress.com
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• Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/EliCelata/