Krista Van Dolzer's Blog, page 4

Thoughts on #PitchMe Submissions

 I've now read all 251--or all 249, as there were several duplicates--of your amazing #PitchMe entries. *collapses on sofa* And my goodness, you guys didn't make it easy on me! Of the 249 submissions, I probably flagged at least a third and maybe up to half of them to consider for our spots. As I narrow down the list, here's a little food for thought:
Overall Impressions
If you have a connection to your plot or characters--say, if you and your MC are both retired detectives or Chinese Americans--m...

Now Accepting #PitchMe Submissions

UPDATE: And that's a wrap! We received 251 submissions in the first hour, so the submission window is now closed. Keep an eye on this space--and on my Twitter feed--for more #PitchMe tidbits!
Welcome to #PitchMe! To enter, your manuscript must meet two conditions. First, it must be COMPLETE, NEVER-PUBLISHED, AND READY TO QUERY, and second, it must be in one of the following genres:
PB fiction* (all genres)
MG fiction (all genres)
YA fiction (all genres)
Adult fiction (all genres, including commercial...

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About #PitchMe

After taking a long break from "The Writer's Voice," I'm back with another multi-agent query contest--this time on Twitter! If you take what I loved most about "The Writer's Voice"--mentoring great writers at wherever they happen to be on their publishing journey--and mash it up with a pitch fest, then you've basically got #PitchMe. Are you interested? Read on!
Here’s the timeline:
September 8: The submission window opensSeptember 22: Selected submissions announcedSeptember 22-October 19: Mentorin...

Q&A with Victor Pineiro, MG Author of TIME VILLAINS

Absolutely thrilled to welcome author Victor Piñeiro, whose MG debut, TIME VILLAINS, came out earlier this month. Victor's wide-ranging career has taken lots of twists and turns, but I love how writing books was always Victor's number one. Read on for how all that turned out! 
KV: TIME VILLAINS sounds like a fun fantasy adventure. How did you first come up with the idea?
VP: Fifteen years ago my brother and I stumbled on a magical forest. We took a wrong turn while exploring Western France and end...

Book Recommendation and ARC Giveaway on Twitter: YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN DELAYED by Michelle I. Mason

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Michelle and I have been writing friends for a long, long time, so when her manuscript landed an agent, then a book deal, within a matter of weeks, I couldn't have been more thrilled. The fact that her manuscript sold to my editor at Bloomsbury was just the icing on the cake and a fun coincidence--until it occurred to me that I could probably beg an ARC of YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN DELAYED off our mutual editor.

Which, of course, was what I did:)

YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN DELAYED has a hugely commercial premise...

How I Found My Birth Mom

This is a Very Long Story, one I haven't blogged about because I genuinely thought it would make a better book. I still plan to write that book, but after trying--and failing--to get a single chapter down, I decided it might help to write a single blog post first.

Almost two years ago now, I convinced my little sister to audition for a genealogy-based reality TV show with me. Very long first half of this Very Long Story short, we didn't make the final cut, but we did spit in the tubes, so we ulti...

A New Query/A New Hope

I know, I know, long time, no blog. What can I say? It's 2020. But one of the many things I've been working on this year is an MG contemporary that I'm rather in love with and that I intend to query. ("Oh, no!" you're probably thinking if you've been around the blog for any length of time. "What happened with you and Brent?" Nothing really, and therein lay the problem. I think we both knew it was time to move on.) As such, I'd love to get your feedback on the first query I've written in...

An Open Letter to My Birth Mom

Dear Birth Mom,
You don't know me. We met exactly once, on the day that I was born, but by then, you'd been in labor for, like, forty-eight hours, so you must have been exhausted. (I'm so sorry about that.) I hope they let you hold me for at least a little while, but they probably didn't. I'm sorry about that, too.
I should probably back up. Last year, I spit into a tube as part of the audition process for a reality TV show. I didn't make the show because my sister and her husband decided to have ...

EARTH TO DAD’s Cover Three Ways

EARTH TO DAD was my first book to sell in more than one territory, and what added to my delight was that each publisher developed their own unique cover. I thought it would be fun to take a look at these covers and and discuss what each one adds to EARTH TO DADs world.


The American cover was the first one to take shape, and I fell instantly in love with Jen Brickings interpretation of the two central characters and the overall world. Both Jameson and Astra look exactly as I pictured them, and...

Please Join Me in a Worldwide Day of Fasting and Prayer

Tomorrow, I'll be participating in a worldwide day of fasting and prayer to bring needed relief from the effects of the novel coronavirus. Because I've experienced the blessings of fasting and prayer in my own life, I wanted to invite you to participate and experience those blessings, too.

How do I fast and pray?

To fast, you purposely refrain from eating and drinking for a set period of time. I plan to fast for approximately twenty-four hours, so after eating dinner tonight, I won't eat again...