The Writer's Voice 2013 RESULTS!!

I had soooo much fun co-hosting this contest! And I loved to get to know so many AMAZING peeps, too. I loved to work with many talented writers and with Krista, Brenda, and Cupid--seriously, coaches, YOU ROCK!! Also, thanks so much, Kimberly Chase for helping us with the all tech-y stuff. =D Thank you, agents, for being awesome. Thank you everyone!! 

Also, I’m SO grateful that EVERY MEMBER of my team got at least one request. That really made my day.

So, now... the results!

#1 FINVARRA’S CIRCUS

The full MS goes to: Sarah Davies, Mollie Glick, Christa Heschke, Caryn Wiseman, Monika Verma, Your Friendly Neighborhood Ninja, Red Ninja, MacNinja, and Laura Bradford.

#2 MASTERMIND

The full MS goes to: Mollie Glick, Christa Heschke, Caryn Wiseman, Monika Verma, John Rudolph, Red Ninja and Laura Bradford.

#3 LORELEI, ONCE

The full goes to: Your Friendly Neighborhood Ninja.

#4 JEWELLED

The partial goes to: Red Ninja.

#5 SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW

The partial goes to: Christa Heschke and Red Ninja.

#6 GARDEN OF THORNS

The full goes to: Christa Heschke, Tina Wexler, Elena Mechlin, Suzie Townsend, and Red Ninja.

#7 SEVEN LITTLE DEADLIES

The full goes to: Mollie Glick, Christa Heschke, and Catherine Drayton.

#8 THE KEEPERS

The partial goes to: Red Ninja.

#9 SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW

The full goes to: Ammi-Joan Paquette, Christa Heschke, Tina Wexler, Caryn Wiseman, Monika Verma, John Rudolph, and Laura Bradford.

That makes a total of 24 official votes! And 36 votes including the Ninja Agents!! (I’d thought they were a couple more, lol—cuz some agents had commented twice, haha!) Still, it makes me so freaking happy! *pets the 36 votes*

Way to go, team. Congrats!! And congrats to Team Krista who won this TWV 2013!!

Now—what you’ve all been waiting for!

The Ninja’s IDENTITIES!!

MacNinja is: Lauren MacLeod of the Strothman Agency!

Your Friendly Neighborhood Ninja is: Carrie Pestritto of the Prospect Agency!

Echo Ninja is: Peter Knapp of Park Literary!

Red Ninja is: Pooja Menon of Kimberly Cameron and Associates!

<3

Mónica

The Writer's Voice Contest Entries! Go Team Mónica!

“The Writer’s Voice” is a multi-blog, multi-agent contest hosted by Cupid of Cupid’s Literary Connection, Brenda Drake of Brenda Drake Writes, Krista Van Dolzer of Mother. Write. (Repeat.) and Mónica B.W. of Love YA. We based the contest on NBC’s singing reality show The Voice, so the four of us selected projects for our teams based on their queries and first pages and coached the talented writers who wrote them as they polished their entries.

And TODAY we get to post our team members’ finished entries on our blogs!

Thirteen amazing agents are going to read these queries and first pages, then vote for their favorites this Thursday and Friday, May 23 and 24. Each vote will count as a partial or full request depending on how many votes the entry receives. If an entry receives 1 or 2 votes, those votes will count as partial requests. If an entry receives 3 or more votes, those votes will count as full requests.

Our thirteen amazing agents:

Sarah Davies of Greenhouse Literary Agency

Catherine Drayton of InkWell Management
Mollie Glick of Foundry Literary + Media
Christa Heschke of McIntosh & Otis

Holly McGhee and Elena Mechlin of Pippin Properties

Ammi-Joan Paquette of Erin Murphy Literary Agency
John Rudolph of Dystel & Goderich Literary Management

Kate Schafer Testerman of kt literary

Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary & Media

Monika Verma of Levine Greenberg Literary Agency

Tina Wexler of ICM Partners

Caryn Wiseman of Andrea Brown Literary Agency

To read the other teams' entries, please use the following links:

Team Cupid
Team Brenda

Team Krista

Lastly, cheerleading is allowed, but only until Wednesday! We want to leave the comments free for the agents to vote on Thursday and Friday. (Also, we will only allow, well, cheerleading and/or positive feedback. Please don’t critique the entries before the agents vote. On the flip side, please don’t try to convince the agents that they want to vote for one of your favorites or, you know, threaten to douse the agents in silly string if they don’t vote for your critique partner. This is a silly-string-free site.)

Happy reading!

Team Mónica # 1 FINVARRA'S CIRCUS

FINVARRA'S CIRCUS
YA fantasy
91,000 words

QUERY

Finvarra's Circus is coming to town, and seventeen-year-old Leanna is determined to see it. Everyone knows once the circus leaves, the fairest girl in town is found dead, deformed, and heartless. Rumors say it’s the handsome ringmaster, Finvarra, who steals their beauty and their hearts, but this means little to Leanna. Her heart is damaged and failing her. Surely he won't want it. She sneaks into the circus, but caught by Finvarra, he gives her a choice: become their tightrope walker or die.

Leanna accepts, and now a part of their strange family, she learns that Finvarra never meant to harm her. He needs her to stay. An ancient curse binds the troupe to their circus. They must perform forever or perish. To break the curse, Finvarra must die, and only the famed muse, the Leanan Sidhe, can kill him. 

Finvarra believes he’s found his muse in Leanna, and Leanna can’t deny the growing attraction between them. But not everyone wants freedom for the circus and they’ll kill any girl suspected of being Finvarra’s inspiration.

With her life and the circus’s on the line, can Leanna sacrifice her love to free the troupe?  Will her feelings for Finvarra be their demise? Or will her heart fail her when she needs it the most?

PAGE

Leanna Weston looked at the newspaper on her lap and cursed her broken heart. Gracing the headlines in bold text were the words of her lifelong dream, a dream her damaged heart made impossible.

“Finvarra’s Circus, coming to Winter Abbey,” she whispered, trailing a finger along the vine-like symbols bordering the header. A sad smile curled her lips as her hand danced over the printed images of clowns and lions. Each gentle stroke unfurled memories in her mind of her mother’s stories, tales of dancers performing fluidly atop white unicorns and fire breathers riding chariots pulled by centaurs while they battled one another’s fire dragons.

“Don’t even think of it, child,” her nurse said, pouring Leanna a glass of water. She set it at the night table and took the paper from Leanna’s lap. “Your heart is much too weak for a journey to Grover’s Field, much less in this cold.” She gazed out the arched windows, to the gilded leaves brushing past in a gust of autumn wind. “This winter will be a vicious one, I tell you.”

Leanna ignored this. Though the newspaper was gone from her hands, she held fast to her memories and to the crystal necklace that dangled around her neck. “If opening night is in a week and their show so grand, they should be here by now.” She looked out over the tree tops. No tent peaks marked the landscape, but she sighed wistfully at the thought of them there.