This is what it takes to win a YA and or MG novel entry. Enjoy

Third place: 15 pg. request & critique

 THE STAIRS AND THE FLY by Stacy Stokes

Genre: Young Adult

Word count: 57,000

 Pitch: When high school student Taylor Anderson is struck by a car, instead of an afterlife filled with puffy clouds and hard-playing angels, she is forced to climb an endless staircase; a journey that uncovers surprising truths about her life and what happens when we die.

Anyone who saw me get hit by the car will call it an accident, and by definition I suppose it was.  She didn’t see me.  I didn’t see her.  Splat.  But in the deepest pit of my stomach, the part that flutters awake when I get caught doing something wrong or I see Justin Cobb walking down my high school’s corridors, I know that I wished for it. 

 ”Look who woke up on the right side of the bed for a change,” my mother chirps when she sees me bound into the kitchen with a Cheshire grin plastered on my face. 

 Second Place: 30 page request & critique

 THE GREAT CORSET REBELLION by Kerri Nelson

Genre: Historical Romance

Word count: 92,000

 Pitch: Bored with the binding feminine dress code of polite society, Lady Ainsely Archibold designs her own daring new clothing line but when the object of her infatuation mistakes her for much less than a lady, Ainsely must choose between the laws of love and linen.

 It was love at first gasp.

Lady Ainsely Archibold breathlessly watched the magnificent creature as he stood on the west balcony overlooking the garden below.  She was absolutely woozy at the mere sight of him.

Of course, the unsteadiness of her breathing could also be contributed to the unbelievably cramped binding of her lungs courtesy of her world-class, tightlacing proficient maidservant. 

Consequently, if it weren’t for this blamed corset, she’d be able to achieve this moment of simple adoration without concern.  As it were, she was trussed up like the feathered fowl for the fall feast on which they’d just dined.

 First place: 50 page request & critique

 A PLACE TO CALL HOME by Linda Jackson

Genre: Middle Grade

Word count: 40,000

 Pitch: Twelve-year-old Stacey Graham is not happy when she finds out that the only person willing to take her and her younger siblings in after the deaths of their mother and beloved “Granny” is their uncle Percy, who lives in the back of his funeral home.

 It really bugged me when it rained on the day Granny was buried. Rain just came pouring down first thing that morning and kept on falling all through the funeral. The cemetery had been all muddy and messy. And it just wasn’t right for a lady who kept things as neat as Granny to have to be put in the ground on such a nasty day. Her trailer might have been old and beat-up on the outside, but the inside was always good and clean. Granny’s was the only trailer in town where the vinyl floor was so shiny that folks always thought it was wet.

JOAN