How Do We Love Thee?

Let me count the days...


until March Mystery Agent! There are only four. I know, it's only the 25th, but February is a blessedly short month, which means I won't be waiting long for the pitch-reading fun!


It's been exciting opening up the Mystery Agent contest to match even more closely what our M.A.s want to see. It threw us all for a loop at the beginning of this month when Chris Richman asked for 25-word pitches! But weren't the resulting pitches amazing? I wrote one for my WIP, just for kicks and the challenge of it. It wasn't nearly as awesome as ones I saw in the entries, but it made me feel good about my story, being able to sum it up in 25 words.

NEXT month's Mystery Agent has asked for the following parameters for MARCH 1ST!

1) Entry limit: 75 entrants.

2) Pitch length: 140 characters. Think Tweet. Since we're talking 140 characters, Title and Genre don't have to be part of the pitch -- add them on to the comment somewhere.

3) Genres: YA (especially thriller, cyberpunk, horror, historical romance); MG; women's fiction; romance (especially with a strong, female heroine).



And we think it's going to be awesome! Not only has super generous March M.A. asked for a twitter-length pitch, which is just fun, but also raised the entry limit from fifty to seventy-five! That means we get to read 25 more pitches from you guys, and it also means we need you to spread the word so Mystery Agent can get what Mystery Agent wants. 


I'm curious to know your thoughts on the Mystery Agent contests. How can we make them even better?


Now for the end of my How Do We Love Thee poem:


We love thee like Lindsay loves a cookie fest,
and how Amparo loves Jensen Ackles best.
We love you like Kelly loves a fun contest.
And how Angie adores the Irish bles't,
We love you like Michelle loves lolcatz
And how Kristal loves write-a-thon chats
We love you as Katrina Squee!s and Woot!s


We love our blogger friends and wish you many hoots!


  

Writer Love!

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, on Monday Operation Awesome is showing love to our followers with a super awesome query critique give-away -- thanks to the generosity of actual living, breathing Mystery Agents!

And in honor of our contest in honor of our followers, I'm offering up a little love to the writer who inspired me to be a middle-grade writer. Be warned: This post is not very original.

I decided to write for kids after I read Harry Potter, the series that launched thousands of kid writers.

I was a latecomer to the series about six years ago, but when I read JK Rowling's books, everything clicked. I had been a writing major in college, but it wasn't the right time. Later I tried a few adult novels, but they weren't the stories I wanted to read, much less write. Then I picked up my first middle-grade novels since my own middle-grade years, I remembered what had made me love writing and reading in the first place.

In the past few years, I've read hundreds more children's books, and there are many titles I admire more than Harry Potter. But JK Rowling got me started, and for that I owe her much love.

Express love to the writers who influenced you. Who got you started on your current path?

BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY Winner (and agent query critique contest!)

And the winner is...

Samantha Sotto-Yambao

Please send your shipping info to katrina (dot) lantz (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll get this baby pre-ordered for you!

Samantha won BETWEEN SHADES OF GRAY as part of our Operation Awesome Month of Follower Love. 

Come back on Valentine's Day for some even bigger Follower Love!

TWO fabulous (and so generous) literary agents have offered up query critiques to help us celebrate our 300+ awesome followers: you guys! We'll have a random drawing from the comments, so be sure to stop by on Love Day!

Here's the awesomeness Samantha will be getting:

Add it on Goodreads

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously—and at great risk—documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.