A Pitch Wars Team Interview with Mindy Nicole Thompson and her mentors, Gabrielle K. Byrne and Julia Nobel

Monday, 28 January 2019 | Posted by Gwynne Jackson

Our mentors are editing, our mentees are revising, and we hope you’re making progress on your own manuscript! While we’re all working toward the Agent Showcase starting on February 6, 2019, we hope you’ll take a moment during your writing breaks and get to know our 2018 Pitch Wars Teams.

Next up, we have . . .

Gabrielle and Julia, why did you choose Mindy?

Both of us fell in love with Mindy’s book right away. Neither of us could put it down. There was great tension, high stakes, and a setting and characters that pulled us in and made us want to stay forever.

Mindy, why did you choose to submit to Gabrielle and Julia?

I chose to submit to Julia and Gabrielle because they seemed like an amazing team who could help me in all of the areas my manuscript needed the most. This is my first Middle Grade manuscript and I really needed mentors who could show me the way as I dip my toes into the genre. Julia and Gabrielle are a dream team who I hoped could help me make this the best MG it can be.

Gabrielle and Julia, summarize Mindy’s book in 3 words.

Dangerous Magical Bookshop

Mindy, summarize your book in 3 words.

Books, Magic, Family

Gabrielle and Julia, tell us about yourself. Something we may not already know.

Gabrielle: I seriously adore sea slugs (nudibranchs)!

Julia: I love Hamilton–and my 4yo daughter loves to sing along with me!

Mindy, what do you hope to get out of the Pitch Wars experience?

I want to be part of a community, and so far that aspect has been amazing. Writing can be such a solitary thing if you let it. But PitchWars has showed me there are so many writers in the trenches together, all of us rooting each other on. I also am hoping to just learn more about editing and revising and the publishing industry itself. Overall, I hope PitchWars will be a stepping stone along the journey that will someday get me to publication.

Mindy, tell us about yourself! What makes you and your manuscript unique?

I live in Boise, Idaho and have sibling roommates. There are three of us, all trying to share a house together for the time being, and that is where the idea for this story was born. My manuscript is very much about siblings and the struggle to get along and understand each other, except instead of the pressures of normal everyday life, they have to deal with the pressures of a magic bookshop. I wrote this story after taking a break from writing for two years. It’s a book that almost never was, and I am so glad that I did not give up. Aside from that, I currently nanny my two year old nephew, who made me believe in magic again.

Coming August 6, 2019, Gabrielle’s RISE OF THE DRAGON MOON…

The princess of a frozen queendom fights to free her mother from the clutches of terrifying dragons in this middle grade fantasy debut.

Princess Toli may be heir to the throne, but she longs to be a fierce hunter and warrior. Alone in a frozen world, her queendom is at the mercy of the dragons that killed her father, and Toli is certain it’s only a matter of time before they come back to destroy what’s left of her family.

When the dragons rise and seize her mother, Toli will do anything to save her— even trust a young dragon who may be the only key to the Queen’s release.

With her sister and best friend at her side, Toli makes the treacherous journey across the vast ice barrens to Dragon Mountain, where long-held secrets await. Bear-cats are on their trail, and dragons stalk them, but the greatest danger might be a mystery buried in Toli’s past.

Indiebound

Coming March 5, 2019, Julia’s THE MYSTERY OF BLACK HOLLOW LANE…

The first in an exciting new series, this suspenseful debut brings readers on a journey filled with secrets, mystery, and unforgettable characters.

With a dad who disappeared years ago and a mother who’s a bit too busy to parent, Emmy is shipped off to Wellsworth, a prestigious boarding school in England, where she’s sure she won’t fit in.

But then she finds a box of mysterious medallions in the attic of her home–medallions that belonged to her father. Her father who may have gone to Wellsworth.

When she arrives at school, she finds the strange symbols from the medallions etched into walls and books, which leads Emmy and her new friends, Jack and Lola, to Wellsworth’s secret society: The Order of Black Hollow Lane. Emmy can’t help but think that the society had something to do with her dad’s disappearance, and that there may be more than just dark secrets in the halls of Wellsworth.

Amazon

Thank you for supporting our Pitch Wars Teams! The Agent Showcase is February 6 – 11, 2019. If you’re an agent and would like to participate, you must register here: https://pitchwars.org/info-for-agents/. We hope you’ll join us to support our teams on the Twitter hashtag #PitchWars.

Filed: Interviews