WriteOnCon online kidlit writers' conference

I searched for both agents for the Twitter Pitch at 5 to see if I queried either one of them and I can't believe I totally forgot Mackenzie read my full and requested revisions, but I didn't get around to it till months later and several revisions later, I honestly forgot to ask if she'd like to see it again. She did mention to me that she'd like to see it if I choose to revise. That was a YEAR ago.

But there's the other agent too Duvall Osteen? (I don't know if I'm spelling that right....anyway) She's looking for contemporary issue driven YA (like you mentioned Trom) which mine is exactly that.

I'm torn if I should do it or not. Then again, what do I have to lose at this point?

ALL RIGHT, is 'contemporary fantasy' the new 'urban fantasy'?

I got ninja'd yesterday for my WIP (I did specify that it was a WIP in all the threads). So that was exciting!

Yeah, I don't see why not. And shoot her an email saying you did end up revising if she's still interested. Worth a shot

missesdash said:

ALL RIGHT, is 'contemporary fantasy' the new 'urban fantasy'?

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Yes, except that it's not necessarily (and often not) in an urban setting. I think it's the new term for (and maybe a newer trend in) that genre, since urban fantasy is a harder sell now? It also seems to be used instead of paranormal a lot.

Ahhh I forgot this was going on. I need to revise my query letter ASAP, then post it in the forums there. Am I terribly late?

missesdash said:

ALL RIGHT, is 'contemporary fantasy' the new 'urban fantasy'?

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Uh, not really? Contemporary fantasy is just kind of an umbrella term for fantasy set n the modern day "real world". Urban fantasy's kind of a sub-sub-genre. But contemporary fantasy's been a thing since 18-late-something iirc.

Let me guess, people are trying to relabel their UF and PNR, right?

KateSmash said:

Uh, not really? Contemporary fantasy is just kind of an umbrella term for fantasy set n the modern day "real world". Urban fantasy's kind of a sub-sub-genre. But contemporary fantasy's been a thing since 18-late-something iirc.

Let me guess, people are trying to relabel their UF and PNR, right?

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Yeah, that's what I meant. I saw a lot of people labeling things 'contemporary fantasy' that definitely would have been called UF or PNR a few years ago.

Kayley said:

Ahhh I forgot this was going on. I need to revise my query letter ASAP, then post it in the forums there. Am I terribly late?

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Since it's still going on, I can't see why not. If you do it, do it really soon! Good luck.

Is the video for the first pages thing working for anyone? Mine is still saying to stand by

ETA: nevermind. It's up now.

I made it into this afternoon's pitch program and my pitch was read - Agent Tamar Rydzinski said to send her a query! I'm so thrilled. My first sort-of request.

Now to polish that query and first 10 pages.

I would just send the query since that's all she asked for. I'm sure if she's interested she'll ask for the rest. Good luck!!! How exciting!


I'm trying the 5pm pitch. I sincerely hope I can get them to see it this time.

Niiicola said:

I got ninja'd yesterday for my WIP (I did specify that it was a WIP in all the threads). So that was exciting!

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That's so awesome, congrats!!!

MartinaMay said:

I made it into this afternoon's pitch program and my pitch was read - Agent Tamar Rydzinski said to send her a query! I'm so thrilled. My first sort-of request.

Now to polish that query and first 10 pages.

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Yays!!!

Netz said:

Also, my MC has been sketched by OceanWaves and I've written a blogpost in honour of the occasion.

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That was so beyond awesome of her do that!

Love your new avatar, TB!

I loves my new avatar
She is so talented, I'm interested in checking out her other work. Thanks for the link on your blog Netz!

I got one too! *twirls*

Hey, I want one too!

missesdash said:

Yeah, that's what I meant. I saw a lot of people labeling things 'contemporary fantasy' that definitely would have been called UF or PNR a few years ago.

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UGH. I don't like that my contemporary fantasy might be glossed over because of the above.... I first had it listed as "Magical Realism" because both my CP and I felt it has that quality... and the magic is in the contemporary world - it's just secret. However, the characters are also transported to alternate worlds, so to me that nixes it from the MR genre. It's definitely not urban fantasy so CF fit best.

Oh well. I really came over here to say hello and that I decided to enter WOC after all. I'm a newbie! I go by "SurrealMe" over there and a few of you kindly commented on my previous threads when my manuscript was listed as magical realism. Thanks for that! I've enjoyed many of yours, too.

Finally got a chance to watch the video of the last pitch event... still wasn't on it. Pitched for 3 events, never made it on (but others were on 2 and 3 times)

Pretty disappointed by that.

Tromboli said:

Finally got a chance to watch the video of the last pitch event... still wasn't on it. Pitched for 3 events, never made it on (but others were on 2 and 3 times)

Pretty disappointed by that.

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Trom, I got the shaft too. Totally disappointed. And that aggravated me too how they were doubling up on them. Some of those pitches were on the last pitch too. Then they got to the point when they were looking over the ones they had over a few times.

And I have NO idea how they skipped over mine when I sent them my tweet exactly how I was supposed to, even a minute early in the hopes they would get to it, and still no go.

They never mentioned anything like sorry to the ones we didn't get there were so many type of thing. Nothing like that. For all we know they could have just picked a batch of a few selected ones and worked with them and chucked the rest. I don't think we're the only ones that that happened to either.

I mean, I know twitter is tough. It's not exactly exact, especially if they weren't going in order to begin with, if you jump around of course you're going to miss some things. But yeah, I know of more than one pitch that made it into all three of the live events I watched. And a lot didn't make it into any.

Clearly, they need a new process. Have people submit pitches before the event and keep a list. The way they did it wasn't working.

That being said, I did get a ninja agent look. One agent asked for any PB or MG writers to link their posts to her on twitter if she hadn't seen already. I did, and she loved it! Yay! It's still in revisions but she wants the full when it's ready. So I do have some good news out of Writeoncon.