Dear Kim, Last week I spoke with a group of writers at Life in the Spotlight. One of the authors asked me about using Twitter to reach her readers. You know I have a weak spot for The Twitter-sphere and shared my feelings as such with this writer. I think Twitter offers a great space to meet other authors, connect with teachers and librarians, share news about publishing, celebrate books, and even, for a select few, a place to nab a book deal. In 2014 I entered Brenda Drake's PitchWars contest. This online contest provides authors of unpublished novels the opportunity to work with a mentor, polish a manuscript, and then place the manuscript in front of Brenda's team of reputable literary agents. My team, made up of Coach, Natalie Traver , and mates, Julie Dao and Jerilyn Patterson , quickly became more family than team and worked together to bring home second place in the contest. What began with a single pitch, turned into a crash course in whole novel revision, ...
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GENRE: Young Adult Contemporary Science Fiction Thriller (I think I just made that up but it works.) N.K. Traver is awesome. First, she took her knowledge as a computer programmer and combined it with her talent as a writer and voila’ Duplicity was born. Second, because she mentee’d Alison Green Myers, my kick ass Ink Sister in #PitchWars. Alison sings her praises and I do pretty much whatever Alison tells me to do;) Traver nails the Male Protagonist Point of View (POV) in Duplicity —and I don’t admit that often. I scrutinize dialogue, body language, and inner monologue when a female/male writes the opposite genders POV. Most times when an author tries a different gender he or she uses stereotypical characterizations that make me cringe, but when the author gets it right? Well, that’s time for a Happy Dance. ...