CAGI Entry #14

Title: CAN'T BUY ME LOVE

Genre: Upper Middle Grade

Word Count: 54,000

Query:

Thirteen-year-old Marnie Mercer thinks middle school would be perfect if she could just address a few critical issues. The lack of cell phone thing, for one. Her yawn-inducing social status, for another. And would it be too much to ask for a first kiss to knock her (discount store) shoes off? But when she inherits a fortune from an unknown great-aunt, she discovers a brand new set of complications.

Now, her best friend is convinced money corrupts, her parents need a loan, and a group of popular girls offer Marnie access to the top of the social pyramid, but first she’ll have to complete their zany pledging checklist.  Soon she’s sneaking locks of her principal’s hair, stealing her teacher’s beloved laser pointer, and throwing a sure-to-get-her-grounded-for-LIFE party.

To make matters worse, she’s finally met a guy worth his weight in gold—only he might not be so interested if he finds out how many commas separate their allowances. Marnie needs to find a way to manage her money and her life while staying true to herself. Otherwise, she can say goodbye to her best friend’s respect, her parents’ trust, and any chance of getting her first kiss from a boy who makes her feel priceless.

Life as a teenage heiress is one mixed bag of crazy.

First 250:

Is it totally wrong to be jealous of someone else’s coffin? I mean, it’s not like I have a death wish or anything but my great-aunt’s casket is seriously blinged out. It has actual diamonds in the handles. When my time’s up, I definitely wouldn’t mind flaming out movie-star-style, like Aunt Glinda.

Maybe if I’d ever laid eyes on her (or at least the casket I assume she’s inside) even once in the last thirteen years, I might be a little more into paying my respects instead of calculating carats, but until two days ago, I didn’t even know I had an Aunt Glinda.

“Marnie, please move it along,” hisses Mom, under her breath.

Whoops! I realize I’ve been standing over Aunt Glinda’s casket for like two whole minutes and there’s a line of people backed up behind me.

“Sorry,” I whisper and speed walk back to our pew.

It’s a little difficult to get worked up for a stranger-relative, but from all the nice things everyone is saying about Aunt Glinda, she sounds like she was pretty cool. And RICH! The diamonds are practically blinding, especially when they catch the sunlight coming in through the stained glass windows.  There are beams of color flying all over the place, like when Mr. Martin goes crazy with his laser pointer in history class. He so doesn’t get that pointing a red dot at Abe Lincoln’s nostril does not make the Civil War more interesting. 

CAGI Entry #13

Title: DISCOVERING ISAAC

Genre: Contemporary Middle Grade

Word Count: 44,000

Query:

Eleven-year-old Isaac Sanchez has never belonged anywhere or mattered to anyone. But he’s only a little bitter—like dark chocolate, not like dish soap. Mostly he’s just lonely and lost. When the mom who abandoned him as a baby comes back and asks for another chance, Isaac struggles to adapt to a whole new life with a whole new family.

Then Isaac receives his father’s old copy of Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica and discovers that he has more in common with the greatest scientist in history than just first names: a dead dad he never knew (check), a deadbeat mom he doesn't remember (check), and a crummy history of being the smallest, most picked-on kid in the neighborhood (check and check). All of the things that made him feel insignificant now convince Isaac that, like Newton, he is destined to become super rich, rock-star famous, and one of the greatest geniuses of all time.

Isaac decides to follow in Newton’s footsteps. He gets pet mice, wears red every day, shuns his new family, tries to spook the neighbors by flying glowing kites after dark, and uses Newton's favorite fruit (apples, of course) for a projectile experiment that goes horribly wrong. He even solves the secret code his dad wrote in the margins of Principia. But his most surprising discovery of all is that he may be able to forgive his mom and care about his sisters, and they might care about him too. When Isaac's scientific pursuits cause a life-threatening accident, he must decide whether his "destiny" is worth the price.

DISCOVERING ISAAC contains sneaky bits of physics, history, and biology. My previous publications include pieces in the children's magazines Friend and New Era. I am also the lead author of several scientific papers in some of the nation’s top chemistry journals, which are every bit as riveting as you’d imagine. I currently teach chemistry at Southern Utah University and am a member of SCBWI.

First 250:

Isaac Newton: “For the natural days are truly unequal, though they are commonly considered as equal, and used for a measure of time…”

Isaac Sanchez: Every day has 24 hours, but that doesn’t mean they’re equal. Some days, it seems like about 24 hours too many.

It all started with baseball.

           

I hated baseball.

           

I would’ve rather yanked out my own nose hairs one by one in front of the whole sixth grade wearing only yesterday’s underwear than play a baseball game. But every year, my grandma made me play. I had no choice. The worst thing about torture is that it’s not optional.

           

So there I was, ten minutes before the first pitch of the season, willing to give up my whole life savings (four dollars) if I could just find my mitt.

           

I heard Grandma calling my name from the front door. It was past time to go, and she hated to be late. I dumped out my junk drawer. No mitt. I heard her footsteps coming down the stairs as I chucked the shoes from my closet floor. No mitt. She opened the door without even knocking and stared down at me as I scooped an armload of dirty clothes and second-hand comic books from underneath my bed. No mitt.

           

Grandma frowned at my mess.

           

“No mitt,” I said, holding out my empty hands. A little hope rose in my chest. “We could just skip it.”

CAGI Entry #12

Title: THE DIVIDE

Genre: Literary

Word Count: 86,000

Query:

  

In THE DIVIDE, eight and nine-year-old Allie and Orson escape their abusive past when they move in with their weekend dad, but a tragic misstep leaves them alone in the wild with only each other to face the violence. Allie and Orson hike through the Colorado wilderness with their father. They do well in the mountains; fewer bugs crawl over them than in their mother's apartment, and leg cramps are nothing compared to the braided bruises Mom's live-in boyfriend doles out with his belt. On the trail, the kids don’t think about what they left behind—at least until sunset, when they relive the terror in their dreams. Despite an auspicious beginning, Orson wakes on the second day with a soaked sleeping bag, and the ire of his dad and sister. Orson sinks under the weight of his insecurities, and a sneaking resentment penetrates Allie's interactions with her brother.

Back on the trail, the kids stumble upon a black bear den, and disturb the rotting goat it cached beneath the soil. The bear wakes from its midday slumber, and Dad moves his children up the steep switchbacks away from its lair. The children struggle to keep step as daylight wanes, and in the rush, Orson stumbles. Dad comes between his son and the vertiginous edge, but disappears over the mountainside and into the abyss. Two days from help, Allie and Orson descend to the bottom of the mountain valley in search of their father. They go off the trail, and into the primeval forest. All the while, the black bear is coming.

THE DIVIDE combines the drama of the fractured family with the journey of the epic hero in the same vein as The Story of Edgar Sawtelle and Swamplandia!

I am an educator with an MA in Studies in Literature. My family knows first hand the effects of physical abuse and neglect, and THE DIVIDE is informed by my experiences working with young victims, both in school and in my home.

First 250:

The train left the station, and cruised through historic downtown, past the strip of ski gear outfitters, microbreweries, and Colorado tourist shops that bisected Earnaness. As the line of cars cut through the city streets, bicycle commuters took their hands off their handlebars, children hung atop backyard fences, jeeps idled at the crossing, and drivers peered over their steering wheels, watching the tourists embark on the leisurely journey through the mountains.

Alison met every eye, and as they left behind the last few motor courts and entered the lush green of the country, she tried to grab the attention of tractor drivers in the fields, and catch the eyes of cows staring at the long yellow line sweeping past the barbwire. The tracks rose, and the pastoral homes slipped over the edge of the world. Stretches ranchland replaced the golf courses and summer cabins, and then the river joined their climb, keeping pace with roiling whitecaps interspersed between stretches of icy blue.

Alison imagined pursing her lips at the water’s edge like a deer, feeling the water splash across her mouth as she sipped from the current. Dad said they'd have to pump the water through a little black and red cylinder before they could drink, otherwise they would risk giardia. Hearing giardia, she envisioned water with slimy green ovals speckled throughout, but Dad said the bacteria were too small to see. She suggested a microscope; examine the water and drink straight from the bank! Dad said it didn’t work that way.

CAGI Entry #11

Title: THE CURSE

Genre: NA Paranormal

Word Count: 100K

Query:

Practical Magic collides with Romeo and Juliet in THE CURSE, a modern love story where witches time travel, jaded ghosts misbehave, and young love is tested with the ultimate sacrifice.

Execution for the crime of witchcraft is a thing of the past.  Still, in these modern times, Ophelia and her family shroud their identity.  A silence that has held Ophelia safe, until now.

Ophelia’s family has done well to hide their secret.  So well, they’ve lost touch with the ways of the witch, Ophelia’s lack of powers a testament to their detachment.  But their past pursues them.  A dead relative is tracking Ophelia, the same witch who, by cursing another coven, forced Ophelia’s family go into hiding centuries prior.  The spirit visits with a purpose: to protect Ophelia from a killer.

When Ophelia falls in love with Elwyn, she has no idea that he too is a witch or that their families share a dark history; the curse is slaying the men in Elwyn’s coven, leaving him the last of his line.  Knowing death pursues him, Elwyn has come to town on a mission – the remedy to the hex lies in the killing of a witch. Ophelia is that witch.  

When the truth is divulged, Ophelia faces a curse of her own: a choice that risks condemning a dead woman, murdering Elwyn, and ending her own life. 

First 250:

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” Exodus 22:18

                                                                               

I was born into this life a witch – naked and pink as nature intended. And it was because of my birthright I was taken out of this world, naked just the same. Less pink. Less pure.

Hartford, Connecticut. 1652.

At the bow I sit, unclothed, not a thread of dignity left. Hunched and mortified, hands and ankles trussed with rope, all eyes are on my back. Storm clouds tumbling over head, a chill in the air, I look down at my body. My skin is gray and brown with filth, sickly and goose-fleshed, bruised and cut. My hair too is in a miserable state: matted and dangling, the red mesh of curls concealing my bare breasts.

The boat, a shallop large enough to support myself and seven others, rocks with the wind.

Along with the rocking, I receive a taste of what is to come. Beneath my bare feet washes the river water. The cold of it trickles from my toes up my spine, cursing me with a grievous shiver.

Swooped up by gloved hands, I am no longer sitting. Worn leather fingers pinch the undersides of my arms as I am hoisted off my feet and placed on the splintered edge of the shallop. Sharp wooden picks poke at my backside, sticking into my most sensitive of skin, purging a yelp from my mouth.

In an instant I am face to face with my accusers: acquaintances, the minister, fellow townspeople.