Welcome to #TeamNemesis!
and our epic WISH LIST!
Welcome, welcome, Pitch Wars hopefuls! We are Liz Lawson and Dante Medema and we’re so excited to be mentoring for Pitch Wars this year! We are big fans of writing, Saved by the Bell (as you’ll see below), annoying each other, arguing about plot vs. pantsing, talking about the enneagram, and helping new writers find their way!
For those who aren’t familiar, Pitch Wars is a mentoring program where published/agented authors, editors, or industry interns choose one mentee to work with on a specific manuscript for an agent showcase that will be on February 11, 2021! Our last mentee, Hannah Saywerr is a PW mentor this year, and got an offer of rep after ONE DAY!
For those who aren’t familiar, Pitch Wars is a mentoring program where published/agented authors, editors, or industry interns choose one mentee to work with on a specific manuscript for an agent showcase that will be on February 11, 2021! Our last mentee, Hannah Saywerr is a PW mentor this year, and got an offer of rep after ONE DAY!
Photograph of Liz Lawson, headshot in front of flowers.
|
Meet Liz!aka Zack MorrisHi I’m Liz and I’m an author who just recently moved to the DC metro region from Los Angeles. My debut contemporary YA, THE LUCKY ONES, came out April 7, 2020, just as the pandemic started (yay) and my next book, a YA mystery entitled THE AGATHAS, which I co-wrote with NYT Bestselling author Kathleen Glasgow, is out summer ‘22 (add it on Goodreads HERE!)
I have my Masters in Communications and my Bachelors in English and Philosophy from Villanova University, so needless to say, I have read a LOT of books in my life. I also have a bunch of editing experience, from working at Paste Magazine, holding a position on the board of my college newspaper, mentoring in Pitch Wars 2019/2020 & in other writers’ programs as well! I’m a big fan of giving back through mentoring, and am excited to help our future mentee shape their novel into something amazing! I can’t wait to see your work! |
Photo of Dante Medema, headshot in white room.
|
Meet Dante!aka AC SlaterHey friends! If you don't already know me, I'm Dante, author of The Truth Project (out now with HarperCollins / Quill Tree Books) and Message Not Found (out March 29th, 2020 with HarperCollins / Quill Tree Books). I live in Alaska, I have a bunch of kids, and I've been known to celebrate every single win with a pack of Pop Rocks or Champagne (whatever is handy). This spring I was the Writer in Residence at Alaska Pacific University where I've previously guest lectured on publishing. In addition to that, I spent a few years on the board for the Alaska Writers Guild, speaking on various subjects at the annual Alaska Writers Conference. I'm also involved in my local SCBRI Chapter, where I've presented as a webinar speaker. I love being a Pitch Wars mentor, because I'm passionate about helping authors meet their goals! I'm a big fan of dogs, a huge sucker for aliens (I'm got way too much X-Files memorabilia in my office)—and books, of course! When I'm not writing, I dabble in baking, cake decorating, and reading up on enneagram personality types.
|
Now meet our books!
THE LUCKY ONES
Cover for The Lucky Ones by Liz Lawson featuring male and female characters facing opposite directions.
(Delacorte Press/Random House)
|
THE TRUTH PROJECT
Cover for The Truth Project by Dante Medema featuring the main character hidden between birch trees.
(HarperCollins / Quill Tree Books)
|
MESSAGE NOT FOUND
Message Not Found by Dante Medema featuring the main character in a winter scene, holding a phone in front of the mountains that have a face hidden in them.
(HarperCollins / Quill Tree Books)
|
Our Mentoring Style
Gif from Saved By The Bell where Mr. Belding, Slater, and Zack all flex while Screech watches.
What You Can Expect From Us:
At the end of the day, this is your career and your book, and we think an ideal mentorship can only exist if both the mentee and the mentor acknowledge that. We might suggest changes that you don’t like — that’s fine! We’re more than happy to have someone push back on suggestions, ask us to give them reasons behind notes, and challenge edits. We want our mentee to be passionate enough about their writing and their book and confident enough in themselves to be able to do that.
That said, communication is key on both ends of this relationship. When we read your book, we’ll take notes and make line edits, and then send them on to you. After you’ve digested, we can chat over phone/skype/email/whatever, and make sure we’re on the same page. At the end of the day, our goal is to make YOUR book the best version of itself it can be — and work collaboratively with you to do just that.
What We Expect From You:
Expect to mediate a lot. Just kidding. All jokes aside we actually super love each other (just don’t tell anyone). Entering Pitch Wars is a leap of faith, for mentors and mentees alike. We appreciate this fact, and promise to keep it in mind while considering the projects each one of you has no doubt poured time and love into. That being said, there's a lot of work that goes into this, so get ready for some:
- Edit Letter (Big Picture developmental feedback)
- Line edit (dropping notes and cheerleading in a Word Document)
- Query & Synopsis Review
- Liz will tweet frequently at you during the editing stage
- Dante will enneagram type all your characters
- Both of us will probably post videos about this on TikTok
At the end of the day, this is your career and your book, and we think an ideal mentorship can only exist if both the mentee and the mentor acknowledge that. We might suggest changes that you don’t like — that’s fine! We’re more than happy to have someone push back on suggestions, ask us to give them reasons behind notes, and challenge edits. We want our mentee to be passionate enough about their writing and their book and confident enough in themselves to be able to do that.
That said, communication is key on both ends of this relationship. When we read your book, we’ll take notes and make line edits, and then send them on to you. After you’ve digested, we can chat over phone/skype/email/whatever, and make sure we’re on the same page. At the end of the day, our goal is to make YOUR book the best version of itself it can be — and work collaboratively with you to do just that.
What We Expect From You:
Expect to mediate a lot. Just kidding. All jokes aside we actually super love each other (just don’t tell anyone). Entering Pitch Wars is a leap of faith, for mentors and mentees alike. We appreciate this fact, and promise to keep it in mind while considering the projects each one of you has no doubt poured time and love into. That being said, there's a lot of work that goes into this, so get ready for some:
- Hard Work: We’re going to ask a lot out of our mentee, and we’re looking for someone who’s just as eager to dive in and get to work
- Be Receptive: There’s a good chance we’ll ask for wide-sweeping changes; a mentee should be willing to take constructive criticism and be open to feedback (although at the end of the day, we recognize that this is YOUR project, so please know that we will never force our notes on you.)
- Communicate: If there’s something about our edits that doesn’t sit right with you, please let us know, so we can convene as a group and discuss. Ultimately this is your manuscript, and we just want to be the best stewards we can be.
As we wish...
Gif from Saved By The Bell where Zack and Slater shake hands, snap, and point at each other in approval.
Our 2021 Wish List:
This year, we’re broadly accepting YA and NA stories in the following categories:Contemporary: Rom-coms; light/funny stories; we love a serious contemporary!
Science Fiction: Near Future, Alternate History. (Especially if it involves aliens- Dante loves them).
Thriller/Suspense: Give us a twist we don’t see coming --if you can make our jaw drop ala WE WERE LIARS by E. Lockhart we are dying to see it!
Mystery! We are both HUGE fans of Karen McManus so if you could comp your book to hers, PLEASE SHOW US! Seriously. Please. Don’t make us beg.
Adventure - take us on a wild adventure, get us lost, and bring us back home.
Historical: Preferably somewhat recent. Both of us would love to see books from the 80’s or 90’s creep into our inbox!
Retellings! We both like to see new spins on something we’ve seen before. Fairy tales, historical events, myths--we want to see them!
Want More???
Voice-Driven Stories: It’s true what they say about voice—it can’t be taught! So we’re on the lookout for stories with POV characters that have a strong voice that grabs us from the get-go. A voice that we fall into and won’t let us go.
Unreliable narrators: Here for them! Here. For. Them.
Unlikeable protagonists: Who gets to claim what is likable and unlikable anyway?? Bring on the unlikable girls who kick ass and don’t apologize for it! If you’ve been told that your character is too much of something (angry, emotional, rebellious) we want it.
Upper YA: We both write stories featuring teens on the back end of high school, and are hoping for more of the same from our mentee. That also means cursing, drinking, and drugs are okay by us.
Jokes/Dark Humor: If your sense of humor skews darker, we’re here for it. Dante can recite Heathers backward and forward and any lines that make us call each other to read out loud will rocket up to the top of our pile.
Witty Banter: Always. We love a good back and forth, but if you’ve got Casey McQuiston levels of banter in your book we will be personally offended that you don’t send it to us!
Enemies-to-lovers: Especially if done with a unique spin to it--if you’ve got a pair of ladies with a love hate relationship / that call each other nemesis affectionately, you know what to do.
Innovative Formatting: Think books like SADIE or DAISY JONES AND THE SIX --or an unputdownable novel-in-verse like THE POET X or LONG WAY DOWN!
Want EVEN More??
Some of our recent favorites:
This year, we’re broadly accepting YA and NA stories in the following categories:Contemporary: Rom-coms; light/funny stories; we love a serious contemporary!
Science Fiction: Near Future, Alternate History. (Especially if it involves aliens- Dante loves them).
Thriller/Suspense: Give us a twist we don’t see coming --if you can make our jaw drop ala WE WERE LIARS by E. Lockhart we are dying to see it!
Mystery! We are both HUGE fans of Karen McManus so if you could comp your book to hers, PLEASE SHOW US! Seriously. Please. Don’t make us beg.
Adventure - take us on a wild adventure, get us lost, and bring us back home.
Historical: Preferably somewhat recent. Both of us would love to see books from the 80’s or 90’s creep into our inbox!
Retellings! We both like to see new spins on something we’ve seen before. Fairy tales, historical events, myths--we want to see them!
Want More???
Voice-Driven Stories: It’s true what they say about voice—it can’t be taught! So we’re on the lookout for stories with POV characters that have a strong voice that grabs us from the get-go. A voice that we fall into and won’t let us go.
Unreliable narrators: Here for them! Here. For. Them.
Unlikeable protagonists: Who gets to claim what is likable and unlikable anyway?? Bring on the unlikable girls who kick ass and don’t apologize for it! If you’ve been told that your character is too much of something (angry, emotional, rebellious) we want it.
Upper YA: We both write stories featuring teens on the back end of high school, and are hoping for more of the same from our mentee. That also means cursing, drinking, and drugs are okay by us.
Jokes/Dark Humor: If your sense of humor skews darker, we’re here for it. Dante can recite Heathers backward and forward and any lines that make us call each other to read out loud will rocket up to the top of our pile.
Witty Banter: Always. We love a good back and forth, but if you’ve got Casey McQuiston levels of banter in your book we will be personally offended that you don’t send it to us!
Enemies-to-lovers: Especially if done with a unique spin to it--if you’ve got a pair of ladies with a love hate relationship / that call each other nemesis affectionately, you know what to do.
Innovative Formatting: Think books like SADIE or DAISY JONES AND THE SIX --or an unputdownable novel-in-verse like THE POET X or LONG WAY DOWN!
Want EVEN More??
- Diverse Stories
- Big Ovary Energy (stories that lean feminist)
- Proactive protagonists
- Stories that explore friendships and friendship breakups
- Anything that challenges gender stereotypes in relationships
- Boarding school stories *grabby hands galore*
- Humorous murder-y stories
- Secret societies!!!!
- Cults or Commune stories!
- Aliens. (this is Dante. ALL Dante.)
- NEMESAI (is that a word?)
- Something that makes us cry. Seriously. We want to sob.
- Unique settings. Dante wants to see stuff in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest and Liz would love to see stuff set in Los Angeles and DC (since it’s my new town!).
- We are also big fans of books that manage to tackle humor and heart together - if you can make us laugh and make us cry within a few pages, well, that’s a book we want to read!
Some of our recent favorites:
photo collage of If These Wings Could Fly by Kyrie McCauley, This is My America by Kim Johnson, A Short History of the Girl Next Door by Jared Reck, The Astonishing Color of After by Emily XR Pan, We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, and The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo.
|
photo collage of Sadie by Courtney Summers, Wilder Girls by Rory Power, One of Us is Lying by Karen M McManus, Emergency Contact by Mary HK Choi, The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson, and The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis.
|
Now alas!
Gif from Saved by the Bell where Slater is yelling at Zack, and Zack is holding his hands up to say "Time Out!"
What we are NOT looking for:
- Unfinished Manuscripts: This is a general Pitch Wars requirement, so any query that starts with “it’s almost done” will be dismissed.
- No hard Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Paranormal: Neither one of us reads much from these genres, and with so many amazing mentors fiending for them, you’re better off submitting elsewhere.
- Pure Romance: Look, we love love as much as the next guy, but if your manuscript is a capital R “Romance” we probably aren’t the best fit.
- Talking animals: unless it’s a story written from the POV of a chicken during the zombie apocalypse.
- Relentlessly Dark: Comic relief is your friend (or in this case, OUR friend) so books that are singularly dark aren’t right for us.
- Stories only about sports (we don’t mind if your character plays a sport but prefer it to be in the background of the greater story).
- Graphic details regarding rape, abuse, or suicide on the page.
- Stories that do not have a diverse cast. Representation is really important in YA lit, so it’s important to us that the book we mentor have good rep in it as well.
more questions?
If you’re still in doubt, ask. We’re both active on Twitter and TikTok, so feel free to @ us at the links listed below. It’s really important to make sure the mentors you’re subbing to are a good fit for your story’s main elements (but please don’t pitch us your book). Here are links to all our social medias in case you want to stalk our profiles for teasers (there will be teasers!) Thank you so much for checking out our wishlist and considering us as your future mentor! Good luck!
Pitch Wars 2021 Young Adult Mentors' Wish Lists
- Mary E. Roach (Accepts NA)
- Amelia Diane Coombs (Accepts NA)
- Diana Urban
- Susan Bishop Crispell (Accepts NA)
- TJ Ohler (Accepts NA)
- Laurie Dennison (Accepts NA)
- Justine Pucella Winans (Accepts NA)
- Zoulfa Katouh and Molly X Chang (Accepts NA)
- Sonora Reyes (Accepts NA)
- Abigail Johnson
- Rosiee Thor and Emily Grey
- Carlyn Greenwald (Accepts NA)
- M.T. Khan (Accepts NA)
- Sarvenaz Taghavian
- Emery Lee
- Margie Fuston (Accepts NA)
- Aashna Avachat (Accepts NA)
- Allison Saft (Accepts NA)
- Fiona McLaren
- Jessica Lewis
- Brianna Bourne (Accepts NA)
- Jamie McHenry
- Meg Long and Rochelle Hassan (Accepts NA)
- Laura Weymouth (Accepts NA)
- Natalie Crown and Angelica Monai (Accepts NA)
- Skyla Arndt and Alex Brown (Accepts NA)
- Charity Alyse and Cimone Watson (Accepts NA)
- Emily Thiede and Lauren Blackwood (Accepts NA)
- Anna Sortino and Annika J. Cosgrove (Accepts NA)
- Jenny Perinovic and Kyrie McCauley (Accepts NA)
- Carrie S. Allen and Sabrina Lotfi
- Jamie Howard and Meredith Tate (Accepts NA)
- KL Burd (Accepts NA)
- Jennifer Yu (Accepts NA)
- Hoda Agharazi and Lyssa Mia Smith (Accepts NA)
- Em X. Liu and Grace D. Li (Accepts NA)
- Carly Heath (Accepts NA)
- Kiana Krystle (Accepts NA)
- Sarah Underwood and Kat Dunn (Accepts NA)
- Joel Brigham (Accepts NA)
- Dante Medema and Liz Lawson (Accepts NA)
- Aty S. Behsam and Maedeh B. Saaina (Accepts NA)
- Kylie Schachte (Accepts NA)
- Gabi Burton (Accepts NA)
- Aaron Cole and Tamara Cole (Accepts NA)
- Hannah V. Sawyerr and Olivia Liu (Accepts NA)
- Bethany Mangle (Accepts NA)
- Lane Clarke (Accepts NA)
- Sunya Mara (Accepts NA)
- Karen Bao (Accepts NA)
Click here to view all Pitch Wars 2021 Mentors' Wish Lists. To view the wish lists by genre, visit this link.