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Pitch Wars … The Mentors' Picks!!

Wednesday, 24 August 2016  |  Posted by Brenda Drake

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After weeks of reading and obsessing over all the fabulous entries, our amazing mentors have chosen their mentees! Please know that mentors are not required to send feedback to those who submitted to them. Our mentors have their own books to write, mentees to mentor, jobs, and family life.  Some will have the time to send feedback and some will not. Don’t pester mentors for feedback in their emails, their sites, or social media. If you get feedback, it’s a bonus.

A few things first. We have some amazing giveaways for those of you who didn’t make it into the mentoring round. Here they are …

Cornerstones Literary Consultancy is offering an amazing giveaway and you can check it out here. You don’t want to miss this one!

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Author Accelerator is offering a giveaway and you can check what they are offering here. It’s amazing so you want to enter!

Author Accelerator Website

We had some of our wonderful mentors donate editing prizes for everyone who entered and donated to Pitch Wars.  I will draw winners soon. But if you wanted to check out what the prizes were, go to this post here.

ProWritingAid will be sending a free 6 months subscription to all the 2016 mentees. Heather Cashman uses this program and she swears by it! For everyone who entered Pitch Wars but didn’t get a mentee spot, they’re giving a discount of 25% off the Premium version. Use voucher code PITCHWARS. If you don’t want to purchase it, the online editor is pretty comprehensive and completely free to use.

Check it out here …

Prowriting AidProWritingAid

And here are the picks …

The scavenger hunt mentee drawing winners are …

Middle Grade winner with mentor Shanna Rogers: THE WILDCATS by Katharine Manning

Young Adult winner with Heather Cashman and me (Brenda Drake) as co-mentors: NOT HER STORY by Kara McDowell

Adult and New Adult winner with mentor E.L. Wicker: SIGHT OF HAND by Leigh Stanfield

You will see that some mentors have more than one mentee. We drew nine names for wild card picks for mentors who wanted an extra mentee. But then it just wasn’t enough and we just drew three more. So here are three extra wild card winners and their mentee picks …

Middle Grade Wild Card: Ellie Terry will mentor BREATHING UNDERWATER by Sarah Allen

Young Adult Wild Card: Destiny Vandeput will mentor THEN BEGGARS WOULD RIDE by Tracie Martin

Adult Wild Card: Tamara Mataya will mentor LIES UNDERCOVER by KK Hendin

Middle Grade Picks …

Middle Grade Mentor Picks

Adult and New Adult picks …

Adult NA Mentor Picks

Young Adult and New Adult picks …

YA Mentor Pick 1 YA Mentor Picks 2

 

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Filed: Pitch Wars

24 Comments
  • I don’t see my name or novel IN THE SHADOW OF THE HOUSE OF GOD on any list here. Does that mean I’m out of the running, and November is now null and void for me?

  • Congratulations to all the mentees! What a wonderful opportunity and learning experience this has been. Thank you Brenda for putting this on!

  • Many thanks to the hosts of the event 🙂

  • Candace says:

    Congratulations to all the mentees and their mentors. Now the work begins!

  • Pamela Newton Smith says:

    Even though I was not selected as a mentee, it was the first time in PitchWars that I received a request. Thanks to E. B. Wheeler for her interest in my manuscript and thanks to Brenda Drake for putting this together.

  • Pete Fanning says:

    Great job guys. Big thanks to Brenda Drake for the opportunity to participate. What a ride! So much fun, so much to learn. Back to writing.

  • Jonathan Peto says:

    Congratulations mentees! Good luck in the next steps. Thanks mentors and organisers for all your hard work thus far. This is an awesome event. I really appreciate your enthusiasm and commitment!

  • This was an amazing opportunity. Thanks so much to Brenda Drake, and Heather Ashman and Nikki Roberti for making it all possible.

  • Jane Estes says:

    Congratulations everyone!! Good luck and many, many thanks to all of the organizers/volunteers/mentors!

  • Maggie Wheeler says:

    Thanks for the opportunity. Good luck everyone!

  • Frank says:

    First, congratulations to the picks and winners. And, I’m a little confused – you have 6 winners and approximately 90 picks, but none of the winners are on the pick list, so how does that work? Also, to ensure I’m not wasting my time (because I do not have time to waste), how many entries were received? For example, if there were 300 entries and 96 considered good enough, that means my manuscript must have been pretty bad. Of course if there were a few thousand, that’s another issue. It’s very important to me, because if my writing is terrible, then it’s time to move on to other things while I’m still able (health issues), though I was an SCBWI finalist last year during a comedy writing contest, so perhaps I should focus on comedy writing. Also, I am a bit disappointed with the choice of material – lots of darkness in the titles. When will people consider traditional stories still viable?

    • Brenda Drake says:

      There were 1977 entries. The 6 were added after the picks. 140 writers made it into the mentoring round. Good luck with future writing endeavors.

      • Amira says:

        Wow, so many! Thank you for hosting this and helping so many writers; you’re awesome! I hope I can be a mentor someday after I’m published.

    • betsy says:

      I really don’t understand your logic. Your novel may be wonderful and it was a tough choice but the mentor just had a particular preference for the winner’s subject matter. I don’t think it really matters how many entrants there were. You should have a couple of people you know and trust to read your manuscript and help you edit if you want these kinds of answers.

      • Frank says:

        Thanks, Brenda for the quick answer. Ironically, 1977 was the best year of my life (so far). Betsy, my logic is purely statistical. The fewer the entrants, the greater the chance the pass was more due to talent than anything else. If a person is of a group of 100 and is not chosen that’s one issue, but if there are only 10, then it certainly means another. In this case, 14.2% were chosen of the 1,977 entrants, so I have to consider that when deciding to be in a bad mood or not (laugh). With last year’s SCBWI contest, there were at least 500 entrants with 20 finalists, and was very happy to have been of the 20 entrants. I’ll have to think this through, but glad I got it off my chest (beats being in a bad mood all day).

        • Frank says:

          During lunch realized my math was incorrect – 146 of 1,977 = 7.2%, not 14.2, so even more of a reason for me NOT to have a case of the grumps, and again congratulations to all. I need to check with SCBWI for critique groups (there are no family or friends to help out)…

          • Angi says:

            1977 is also when my story kicks off! Alas, I, too, will be looking elsewhere to take it to the next level. Congrats, winners, and good luck to everyone in whatever happens next for you!

  • Congrats to all of the picks! And a HUGE thank you to Brenda, her amazing admin team, and all of the mentors! You guys are so awesome to donate your time to help other writers improve and succeed. 🙂

    Good luck, mentees! Go get those revisions!

  • J.S. Roberts says:

    Congratulations to the 2016 mentees! If you didn’t get in, don’t give up. Your opportunity might be right around the corner!

  • Terry says:

    Congrats to all the mentees! Best of success with your manuscripts.

    Side note: I counted and there are only 9 male names in the list :/ Come on guys, we’ve got to step up our game!

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