Chase Baldwin: Spectacle (YA contemporary)
Elli Woollard: Princess Petunia's Pet (children's picture book)
Summer Heacock: With a Shake of her Hair (women's fiction)
Margie Senechal: Son of a Hired Gun (YA contemporary)
Tonja Drecker: Music Boxes (MG fantasy)
Linda McLaren: The Sound Catchers (YA ghostly mystery/thriller)
Lois Brown: Disobediance (YA historical)
Elain Vickers: Discovering Isaac (MG contemporary)
Ben Gammell: The Quiet City (adult commercial)
Leatrice McKinney: Coveted (YA urban fantasy)
Heather Hawke: A Legacy of Frost and Fire (MG SFF)
Jaye Robin Brown: Sing to the Wind (YA contemporary)
Morgan Shamy: Blisters (YA contemporary)
Jenna Nelson: The Snow Globe (YA fantasy)
You guys also asked for an honourable mention list, so here it is! Bear with me, it's long. It's long because I saw merit in ALL of these entries. I know it drives some people nuts when agents says 'unfortunately I just didn't love this enough', but that's genuinely how it is in many cases. I don't know if it helps but I want all the people on the list to know that I wavered A LOT over this first set of mentions:
Laura Renegar, Emily Skrutskie, Jessica Lawson, Derrick Camardo, Erica Chapman, Valerie Lawson, Jamie Grey, Kip Wilson, Artemis Grey and Rena Rockford.
Here are some other people whose stories appealed to me and stuck in my mind:
Ella Schwartz, Caitlyn Young, Emily Cushing, Kimberly Miller, Raluca Balasa, MaryKate Connelly, Joshua Legg, Rebecca Sutton, Jemi Fraser, Lori Tussey, Mandi Silberstein, Jenn Brisendine, Katie Slivensky, Sarah Nelson, Gail Nall, Triona Murphy and Rachel Russell.
I liked all of these entries. Please keep writing!
OTHER IMPORTANT STUFF: When the winners go live on the 18th, could we ask you to save your comments, if you have any, until the end of the week until after the agents have made their requests. After that you can go cheerleader nuts if you want to.
And now for some stats!
Total entries: 351
Adult: 96 (of which 2 were NA)
YA: 201
MG: 38
PB: 16
Never before have I found a practical application for a block graph, but MAN I wish I could make one right now. Ooh, no a pie chart would be better! I can't believe I'm excited about maths. THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE.
K, this is one long ass post now, so congrats to the winners! Emails are on the way to you! If you want to
I am copy pasting this from Michelle's blog, but its essentially the same. (Although I am heartbroken not to garner any mentions at all, I will return stronger than ever!)
ReplyDeleteCongrats to everyone who won and same for the honourable mentions!
I am almost jealous enough to swap my manuscript with a winner (Not Really). But I would read all of these though!
And kudos to Ruth and Michelle for burning the midnight oil to get this done this quick!
Thank you :) It was a very difficult decision! Sleep was lost!
DeleteFlabbergasted. Elated. Trembling in my boots. I got it? Whoa.....so excited Ruth - Thank you!
ReplyDeleteA worthy winner! :D Can't wait for next week!!
DeleteI just keep staring at my name in blue. I like the color blue. Blue helps with creativity, I just learned that yesterday. This is so exciting.
DeleteCongratulations to all the winners and the honourable mentions. Now, role on those agents!!
ReplyDeleteRuth, you deserve a fine bottle of of the red stuff after working your way through all those entries. May I recommend my favourite, McWilliam's Sharaz. http://www.mcwilliamswine.com/our-wine/shiraz.html You won't be disappointed.
I think you might be right, I've done nothing but read slush since Monday. Nothing! Sadly, I only do dry white. I haven't grown into red yet :P
DeleteMcWilliam's do a great white wine, too!!
DeleteI'll check it out :)
DeleteWoohoo! Congrats to the winners and honorable mentions! Lots of peeps I know here too :D
ReplyDeleteI am seriously still pinching myself!!! This is so crazy exciting!!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm so happy to see all those names up there!!!!
SQUEEEEEEE!!!!
Congratulations to all the winners! Especially to my fellow Middle Grade authors! Can't wait to check these books out in the future.
ReplyDeleteCongrats to the winners! Thanks, Ruth, so much for the opportunity. xx
ReplyDeleteCongrats to everyone - it's so nice to hear that they all sounded appealing on some level!
ReplyDeleteI looked at this post with my eyes all squinty as when I expect bad news. But....they're wide and happy now! Congratulations to all the other winners and near misses! And thank you Ruth and Michelle for all your efforts - this must be fun and heart-wrenching both. I'm looking forward to all the entries on the 18th!
ReplyDeleteCONGRATS to all the winners!!! And to the honorable mentions! I'm happy just to have made that list, considering how many people entered! Can't wait to see how things go for those who are moving to the next stage!
ReplyDeleteCongrats and best of luck to the winners~ thank you ladies for working so hard on this! Can't wait to see the entries get snatched up :)
ReplyDeleteCongrats to the winners!!!
ReplyDeleteCongrats to the winners!!!
ReplyDeleteCongrats to the winners!!!
ReplyDeleteCongrats to the winners!!!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations, winners! Looking forward to seeing the entries and final results from the contest! ^_^
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to all the winners!
ReplyDeleteWow! I was very excited to see my name on the list. Thanks so much for the opportunity.
ReplyDeleteCongrats to the winners and honorable mentions! What a fun contest :)
ReplyDeleteWow. I am awed. Thank you so much.
ReplyDeleteRuth, thanks so much for an awesome contest. I can't imagine how much work this must have been for you. Just to have my name on that list made me SQUUUEEEE! I'm elated that my query was good enough to get me a mention among so many entries. I'm looking forward to reading more from the winners!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to the winners! And thank you for the honorable mention. It made my day. :) Such a great contest! Thanks for all the hard work you've put into it. Can't wait until the 18th to read the winners' entries!
ReplyDeleteOh Ruth, thank you so much for choosing my entry! Means so much. I'm delighted at the chance! What a fun thing... and so much hype... your time and energy and everything you and Michelle have put into this means a lot. :D
ReplyDeleteCongrats to all! And a special YAY for Morgan Shamy!!!! Wahooo!!!!
ReplyDeleteCongrats to all the winners and honorable mentions! Know it had to be soooo tough. Thanks again for this great opportunity!
ReplyDeleteYay, winners! And YAY Morgan!!!!
ReplyDeleteCongrats to all the winners! (And YAY to Morgan!!) Ruth and Michelle - you guys are amazing for all the work you put into this!
ReplyDeleteCongrats winners! Thanks for the fun!
ReplyDeleteI'm still scratching my head over how you managed to get through so many submissions in such a short period of time. I'd love some insight into your process. Did you first read the query and if it piqued your interest, did you then read the first 500 words? Or did you read each and every query along with first 500 words.
ReplyDeleteYep... I'm still glowing over my mention. YIPPPEEE!!!!Thanks again!!
We started reading when the window opened on Monday morning. We made final decisions on Thursday night. In between, we did nothing but read. And discuss. And deliberate. And agonise!
DeleteI read the query and the 500. Sometimes I didn't make it to the end of the 500. That meant it went into the NO folder. Reasons for this might have been poor writing (grammar, coherance) or a sample that included nothing but telling or backstory or leaping about telling me unrelated things that led to a jumbled story.
There were a lot of good quality entries that I felt simply wouldn't work for what our ten agents represent though. Simple as that.
CONGRATS to the winners!!! Awesome job! GOOD LUCK!! And thanks so much, Ruth for the honorable mention <3
ReplyDeleteThanks once again for putting in the time to do this. I hope you're relaxing with a HUGE glass of wine (or three) tonight, and with your feet up on the sofa watching trashy telly.
ReplyDeleteCongrats to all the winners! I still can't quite believe that my name is up there!
It was The Vampire Diaries :D
DeleteThank you again Ruth for running this wonderful competition. Congratulations to all those chose and to the honourable mentions - you all deserve to feel proud. Bravo to all!
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry I missed this, but congratulations to the winners and runners-up. It's going to be fun to follow the critiquing of all the outstanding entries.
ReplyDeleteThis was great for me. I'm new to query letters, so when I didn't win (big surprise :) I went and found a few of the winners entries posted on line. I learned one very valuable thing - the one I wrote missed being good by about a thousand miles. Really bad. Lengthy. Analytical. Boring. So much to learn, but that's the process. I'm really grateful that you guys ran this contest. Any chance to learn...Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThe Orb, right? It wasn't so bad. Go and read Query Shark from start to finish. That's where I learned how to write a decent query letter.
DeleteThey're really tricky things!
Congrats to all the lucky & talented winners. I hope to hear good things in the very near future!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the mention - made my day :)
Thanks as well to you and Michelle and the agents for putting on this event. What a great opportunity for us all. Thanks!!! :)
You're welcome :)
DeleteCongratulations to everyone! I'm still so bummed I found this blog too late. Next time! :)
ReplyDeleteI didnt win, but thanks for hosting a great contest. You both worked really hard picking the winners. Good luck to the winners for next week :-)
ReplyDeleteCongrats to the winners - here's hoping good things come your way!
ReplyDeletei just realized i never said congrats to the winners on this actual post, just on twitter. so, congratulations to all who made the final cut. you damn well deserve it! thanks again to ruth and michelle for calling out their honorable mentions. it did take a bit of the sting out of not winning a spot. we'll just strive to try harder and we'll be watching this great contest to see how everyone does. GOOD LUCK ALL!
ReplyDeleteOh man, to be on the honorable mentions list for this, with such an awesome field, is incredibly exciting! Thank you so much for doing this, and congrats to the winners!
ReplyDelete