MY
MANUSCRIPTS
Manuscripts
Rising Kite Award 3rd Place Winner
SONG of the SWAMP
MG Contemporary
All alone in the backwater bogs of North Florida, nine-year-old Tay must care for his four-year-old sister and her collection of feather-bedazzled skulls after their father falls ill and leaves for the city hospital. Pa's last words—protect your sister, tell no one.
By Halloween, Pa still hasn't returned. By Thanksgiving, food is running out. As Christmas approaches, Tay fears the worst. Did Pa make it?
When rumors surface that a body has been spied in the marsh along their father’s last known route, Tay is thrust into a race against local teenagers who are determined to find the body first.
STAND BY ME meets THE LITTLE DRUMMER BOY and hangs out with WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING
Will appeal to fans of Kate DiCamillo’s BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE and Clare Vanderpool's MOON OVER MANIFEST.
CROKER and ME
MG 1970s Historical Fiction
Eleven-year-old Patrick and his best friend, Billy, aim to have the best summer ever—kudzu forts, fiddler crabs, and swim team competitions—kid heaven by any definition. Nothing can get in the way. Not the Vietnam war. Not Billy’s parents’ impending divorce. Not even neighborhood bully, Lester Crisp—the creep.
Nothing, that is, except for Patrick’s new babysitter.
Instead of allowing him to have the summer of his dreams, Patrick’s parents leave him in the care of a grouchy old Gullah man in South Carolina's Lowcountry, and… how can I say this? Patrick does not like the man—feeling, mutual. If Patrick can't unravel Croker’s native Gullah tongue and the two can’t find common ground amidst their differences, his perfect summer could end up a nightmare.
My favorite manuscript. Shhhh!
MARKED
Book One of Moon Born Series
Upper MG Low Fantasy
On the verge of madness, twelve-year-old Fallon, an island girl who possesses the same cursed powers that killed her mother, accidentally pummels her homeland with a conjured water-spout. When she discovers coded-clues in her mother’s childhood journal may hold the answer to controlling her curse, she must unravel their truths before she annihilates the island and its inhabitants. This time on purpose.
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ReadyChapter1 First Place Winner
WAVELING LORD
Early YA
Fantasy with Horror Elements
When sea demons that steal your mind before dragging you beneath the waves are accidentally unleashed on land, fourteen-year-old Gage, an ill-tempered farm boy with no formal training, must cobble together a ragtag group of enemies and frenemies before the demons take his sanity and suck every last villager to the ocean floor.
Fast pace and high stakes of Patrick Ness's The Knife of Never Letting Go meets the tone and feel of Jennifer A. Nielsen's The False Prince​
BACKWATER GUMSHOE
MG Mystery
THREE TIMES LUCKY meets THE GOONIES and hangs with DOLPHIN TALE
Rising Kite Award
PitchWars Manuscript
One-line pitch:
A simple case leads an eleven-year-old detective and her ragtag group of friends into the sinister world of treasure stealing pirates.
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Longer Pitch:
Eleven-year-old Shoes McIvey is as proud of her case-cracking record as seagulls are of stolen bait. With her dog, Potcake, and best friend, Bunker, Shoes solves mysteries in the Florida Keys. So far, every case has gone down as easy as a bite of Grams’s banana pudding.
But when money needed to save Marble, their school’s sea turtle mascot, from being shipped to Orlando is stolen, Bunker is blamed. Shoes discovers the theft may be tied to a recent heist of silver coins from the Anardo shipwreck—a crime stumping local officials for months. Finally, Shoes has the case of a lifetime.
But in no time flat, Potcake is kidnapped, Bunker is trapped in a Shrimp boat’s smelly fish hold, and the supposed ghosts of pirates who sank the Anardo are haunting Shoes. Suddenly, there’s more going on in this twisted case than anyone could have imagined and Marble’s fate, Bunker’s reputation, and Shoes's perfect record hang in the balance.
TURNPIKE CASSELBERRY
MG Contemporary
One-line Pitch:
When her father’s alcoholism spirals out of control, his young daughter forms an unlikely alliance with the local bully and a salty old war veteran with PTSD to help keep her out of the foster care system.
Longer Pitch:
Ten-year-old Turnpike Casselberry lives on a dilapidated sailboat with her alcoholic father, Phil, and her dog, Ralph. Before you go feeling sorry for her, you should know that she and Phil are as happy as gators eating marshmallows, thanks, and she’ll be happy for you to mind your own beeswax. But when Phil spirals out of control, Turnpike must learn that not all knots hold in every storm and you can’t always stop someone else’s boat from sinking or she could risk swamping her own life raft to keep him afloat.
THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF COYOTE SUNRISE meets
WHERE THE WATERMELONS GROW
Actually, I think this one might be my favorite...