1.  What is your name/pen name?
​Lora Palmer

2.  What do you write? Genre?
I write Young Adult science fiction and fantasy.

3.  Tell us about yourself?
I was writing little stories—even in crayon—from the time I learned to read, or so I’m told =). I got back into writing as an adult by starting out doing role play, first based on the TV show Roswell and then on Harry Potter. It was a fun, creative outlet, and my muse kept nudging me to get back to writing original stuff. I’m from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where my wonderful husband and I share our home with our mischievous cat. I’ve earned a graduate degree in Psychology and work at a local residential facility serving autistic children and teens. In my spare time, I also sing in a praise band, Chalice Sounds. THE MIRRORMASTERS, my debut novel, is now available. On October 25th,  2016, my short story, "First Wife"--a YA retelling of the biblical story of Leah, Jacob, and Rachel--is slated for publication in Month9Books' upcoming IN THE BEGINNING charity anthology.

4.  What prompted you to pitch your book in #Pit2Pub?While querying, I’d been taking part in twitter pitching opportunities for about a year or so, and when I discovered #Pit2Pub, I couldn’t resist trying one more time to connect with the right publishing home for The MirrorMasters.

5.  Tell about your #Pit2Pub experience.
It was a blast! It’s always fun to check out everyone’s pitches and support others by retweeting, so it made for an exciting, fast-paced event. I received favorites from several publishers during the day and was especially thrilled when the owner and Editor-In-Chief of Clean Reads, Stephanie Taylor, favorited two of my tweets. I had previously submitted THE MIRRORMASTERS to her back in 2013 (when Clean Reads was known as Astraea Press) following an online pitching event, though it didn’t work out at the time. As I’d done quite a bit of editing on the novel since then, I resubmitted right away, noting that I had made significant revisions. A few weeks later, I woke up to a lovely email offering a contract.

6.  Which publisher did you sign with?
Clean Reads, and it’s been such a wonderful experience! The Clean Reads team is so friendly and responsive, and their covers are AMAZING. I absolutely love my cover design for MIRRORMASTERS. My fellow authors are truly helpful and supportive of each other, so it’s been fantastic!

7.  Tell us about your upcoming book.
Leah Ellis never knew why she was found abandoned on the beach at two years old. Content with her adoptive family and small town life, she hadn't thought much about it over the years. That is, until her life takes a bizarre turn when she begins seeing images in mirrors she can’t explain--cloaked figures using powers that manifest like lightning bolts, or flash-frozen beaches on another world beneath a purple sky.

She practices mirror-gazing, driven to understand these images and their possible connection to her forgotten past, and discovers that it’s kind of addictive with its wild, boundless power coursing through her veins. Soon, she learns to control what the mirror shows her.

When new neighbors move in, Leah is shocked that they're dead ringers for the people in her visions. According to Brian, with the gorgeous ice-blue eyes, and his father, she is a MirrorMaster--an alien with a gift that lets her travel through mirrors, even to worlds light years away. Her birth parents sent them to take her from Earth back to her homeworld of Jantyr, a planet she doesn’t remember. They’ve searched for her ever since she disappeared.  

But Leah’s long-lost birth sister, a sorceress, activated an ancient device to trigger a cataclysm on Jantyr as a bid to consolidate her own power. Leah must return to Jantyr, master her newfound ability in order to locate and wield crystals that will disable the device, and thwart her sister’s plans. Otherwise, the destruction will consume the entire galaxy, including Earth and everyone she loves.

8.  When is your book scheduled to be released?
It’s available now! It was published 4.20.16 and is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, and ITunes.

9.  What is at the top of your bucket list?Wow, I hadn’t really yet given much thought to coming up with a bucket list, but since my husband and I both love cruises, it would be great to one day achieve as many sea miles as my grandparents did. They loved going on cruises, too, and they had at least 250,000 miles at sea with their favorite cruise line.

10.  Parting words for other authors?
Perseverance does pay off. Keep writing, keep editing, keep querying, and find a really good critique partner and betas to help you get your manuscript in shape. Once your manuscript is ready, Twitter pitch parties like #Pit2Pub can be a great way to connect  with industry professionals interested in your work.

Website: http://lorapalmer.weebly.com
Blog: http://lorarpfictionblog.blogspot.com
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14888699.Lora_Palmer
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LoraReedPalmer 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lorareedpalmer/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Lora-Palmer-YA-Writer-14417228893…/

1. What is your name/pen name?
Jennifer Derrick

2. What do you write? Genre?
YA Fantasy

3. Tell us about yourself?
I became a writer at the age of six when my parents bought me a child’s typewriter for Christmas and agreed to pay me a penny per page for any stories I churned out. When I got older, I realized that I needed to make (much) more money from my writing so I first turned to the corporate world (where I learned that I am spectacularly unsuited to cubicle life) and ultimately to freelancing where I now write everything from technical manuals to articles on personal finance and European-style board games. 

I live in North Carolina and can often be found reading anything I can get my hands on, playing board games, watching sports, camping, running marathons, and playing with my dog. 

4. What prompted you to pitch your book in #Pit2Pub?
I really wish I had a better answer to this question, but the honest truth is that I did it on a lark. 

I’d only been on Twitter for about two months before #Pit2Pub. That I found #Pit2Pub was more of an accident than a plan. I saw it trending one day and said, “What’s this?” and took a look. I’d never even heard of pitch parties. I looked into it, read the rules at the official website, and watched a few tweets go by. It looked like fun and I figured if nothing else, maybe I could get a sense of where I stood. If I received zero likes, then maybe something was wrong with the project. But if I received some feedback, then that would be a bonus and far more valuable than the form responses I’d been receiving up to that point through the traditional submission process.  

5. Tell about your #Pit2Pub experience.
Again, I wish I had a better answer, but since I honestly had no expectations, no clue what I was doing, and I still harbored some doubts as to the legitimacy or usefulness of the whole thing, everything seemed great to me! I was like the Oscar nominee running around saying, “It was an honor just to be nominated,” every time someone liked my pitch because I never expected anything to come of it. 

That I got any favorites at all was something of a miracle. I didn’t craft my tweet in advance. I went through maybe three drafts of a tweet and hit Tweet, thinking nothing would happen. It was supposed to be an experiment, not a serious effort. I figured I’d try this one pitch party, see what happened, observe how it all worked, and then make a serious plan to really work the next party. 

Instead, in the end, I had three serious likes on my tweet. Clean Teen Publishing was one of them. They asked for the full manuscript and after that everything moved incredibly fast. I had an offer by the end of July and by mid-August the contract was signed. Broken Fate was released this spring and I’ve just delivered the second book in the series. As they say in the Lego Movie, “Everything is awesome!”

In other words, I did everything wrong and still got a publishing offer. I think that either speaks to fate or to the capricious nature of a universe that just likes to mess with your head sometimes. 

6. Which publisher did you sign with?
Clean Teen Publishing

7. Tell us about your upcoming book.
Broken Fate is a modern twist on the Greek myth of the Three Fates, but it specifically focuses on the story of Atropos, the Fate who cuts human lifelines:

Zeus gave her one simple job: Kill every human. Atropos―daughter of Zeus and the third goddess of Fate from Greek mythology ―spends her eternal life snipping human lifelines when their mortal lives are over. As if being a killer doesn't make life miserable enough, she and her Fate-wielding sisters must live amongst the humans on Earth thanks to a long-running feud between their mother and Zeus. Living on Earth means they must mingle with the mortals, attend the local high school, and attempt to fit in―or at least not stand out too much.

Killing and mingling don't mix, which is why Atropos' number-one rule is to avoid all relationships with the humans. Caring for the people she has to kill is a fast track to insanity. However, when Alex Morgan walks into her first-period English class, she knows she's in for trouble. He's the worst kind of human for her to like―one with a rapidly approaching expiration date. And he makes Atropos want to break all the rules. 

8. When is your book scheduled to be released?
It was released on April 18th, 2016. 

9. What is at the top of your bucket list?
I really want to go to Bhutan. The Tiger’s Nest Monastery is something I’ve always wanted to see. How they built it into the mountain the way they did is amazing and beautiful. The rest of the country looks awesome, too, but I’d be happy if I could just see the monastery.
​
10. Parting words for other authors?
If you want to participate in #Pit2Pub, here’s my advice:

1. Craft your pitch in advance so you have time to get it right. Don’t be a bonehead like me and just blunder into it. 

2. Follow the rules (and learn them in advance). Make sure you tweet according to the rules, use the correct hashtags, and that you understand what to do if you are contacted. Figure all this out in advance so that your party experience goes smoothly and you’re not like me, trying to figure out what is going on while simultaneously trying to participate in the party. 

3. #Pit2Pub does work, it is legitimate, and there really are people on the other side reading and responding to your tweets. It’s not a joke! It’s a fantastic opportunity for writers (and you really should take it more seriously than I did). 

If nothing else, #Pit2Pub can be a great way to get some feedback on your project and do a little networking. It’s fun, too. I can lose a whole day watching other people’s tweets scroll by. The creativity on display is amazing. It certainly can’t hurt anything to submit and you may even end up published. 

Website: http://www.JenniferDerrick.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BluEyedReindeer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenderrickauthor/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennifer_derrick/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/jenderric

Why KaPow? It's my name's first letter, Ann's first letter and power. It just flowed better and made me think of a superhero!

If you are planning to participate in the next #Pit2Pub on JULY 13, 2016, please be aware that we are implementing the SAME rule as the February event. To help the publishers sort all the authors tweeting, we are only allowing 1 pitch per manuscript every 2 hours during the the #Pit2Pub party the 12-hour time period, between the hours of 8AM and 8PM (CST or CDT, which is Chicago time).

The publishers will favorite (HEART) pitches they would like to see more of. Some publishers will tweet their requirements the day of the event, while others will direct you to their website for the submission details.

Authors can Retweet (RT) other authors' pitches to show their support.

​Reminder: The pitch must include the hashtag #Pit2Pub, the Age Group, and the Genre (#YA, #MG, #A, etc. see chart below) in the tweet. It's important to include the hashtag(s).