Hello! It’s us, your favorites (shh, we’re totally your favorites, right?), R.K. and Victoria.

We’re very excited to be Pitch Wars mentors this year. And because we know you want to get down to the good part, we’ll skip the rest of the niceties and just list what we’re looking for this year.

To start off, we are mentoring Adult and New Adult Fiction. Also, if your adult book could conceivably also appeal to YA readers, send it to us, because Victoria in particular loves books with crossover appeal.

(Please note: if you submit New Adult fiction, we will very very likely ask you to ultimately revise and query it as either Adult or Young Adult, depending on which is a better fit for your book. This isn’t because we don’t adore books with college-aged protagonists, but because New Adult doesn’t exist in speculative fiction.)

Fantasy

• Science fantasy
• Epic fantasy
• Historical fantasy (and alternate history fantasy)
• Military fantasy
• Contemporary fantasy
• Grimdark (But without the fridging and gratuitous rape. And also with women. And gays who don’t die.)

Soft sci-fi

Magical realism and contemporary with speculative elements

Thrillers (Especially speculative thrillers with elements of fantasy or SF)

Literary Fiction (Particularly speculative literary fiction)

• Political subversion
• Revolution stories
  • That don’t center around white saviors
• High concept stories
• Non-western settings and characters
• Enemies-to-lovers, and especially villain love interests
  • Note: in enemies-to-lovers, we especially love it when they’re enemies over something actually important, like drastically different political ideologies or one of them tried to kill the other one
• Subverting common tropes (like “the chosen one” and “the wise mentor”)
• Morally gray everything
• Murder
  • In general, as a plot point
• Military and political strategy
  • Just, pages and pages of it
    • It’s okay if it’s boring
      • We have advanced degrees
• Unlikable characters, especially women
• Anything faintly reminiscent of Les Mis or Hamilton
• If there’s a romance (and there doesn’t have to be), we love a slow sloooow burn
• Gender and racebent and now-with-more-gay retellings of common narratives
• Retellings from the villain’s perspective
• Intense mentor relationships
• Rival student relationships
• Act One enemies turned into allies
• Parallel worlds
• Psychopaths
  • In particular: characters you think are psychopaths, but actually the trinket they carry around is their one last reminder of someone they loved and lost
  • Victoria studies psychopaths professionally, so only if done w e l l and not just as an excuse for a cardboard cutout villain
• Crossover appeal for both YA and adult markets
• Doomed friendships/romances because one of them is a communist and the other works for the state police
  • Listen we know this is very specific
    • But for real
      • “Javert…we see each other plain….”

This is a non-exhaustive list, though, so if you don’t see your trope listed here, don’t assume we aren’t interested! Sometimes we don’t know what we want until we read it. (Victoria recently had this exact experience while reading The Traitor Baru Cormorant and it was religious.)

As long as it’s on our genre list and we don’t list it as an anti-want, assume we’re open to it. (And feel free to ask clarification questions on Twitter.)

We’re particularly excited by #ownvoices stories, and also for stories by marginalized creators (whether #ownvoices or not).

• Hard sci-fi
• Urban fantasy (note: not the same as contemporary fantasy!)
• Time travel
• White medieval fantasy
• Paranormal romance
• Portal fantasy

• Our own books
  • We wrote them
  • We also like each other’s books
    • At least that’s what we tell each other…. 😉
• TRAIL OF LIGHTNING by Rebecca Roanhorse
• THE BLACK PRISM by Brent Weeks
• THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT by Seth Dickinson
• The BROKEN EARTH trilogy by N.K. Jemison
• The adult version of THE CRUEL PRINCE by Holly Black or SIX OF CROWS by Leigh Bardugo or NOW I DARKEN by Kiersten White
• JADE CITY by Fonda Lee
• HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES by Carmen Maria Machado
• THE SECRET HISTORY by Donna Tartt
  • We have strong feelings about this book
  • Send us this book, but with magic
• THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA by Scott Lynch
  • But gayer, and with more women
• SPINNING SILVER and UPROOTED by Naomi Novik
• THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern
• THE PAPER MAGICIAN by Charlie N Holmberg
• A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC and VICIOUS by VE Schwab
• CHILDREN OF BLOOD AND BONE by Tomi Adeyemi
• DEATHLESS by Catherynne Valente
• SABRIEL and LIRAEL by Garth Nix

• We are Ravenclaws
  • As such, we are plotters
    • We will make you a plotter as well. You cannot escape it.
• I (RK) write very thematically and look for big issues/motifs/high literary academic shit
  • And I (Victoria) write super character-focused almost literary fiction stuff, so I’ll be paying attention to your character arcs. I also like prose and line edits.
• We will be straightforward in our criticism, and occasionally blunt. However, we also won’t shy away from telling you all about the things we LOVE in your book! You can expect a healthy mix of constructive feedback and cheerleading.
• We’re happy to answer questions over email pretty much whenever…about your book and editing, about the industry and querying, whatever.
  • We will also do at least two Skype or Facetime calls–one at the beginning, and one later on when preparing for the agent round.
• We will do at least two reads through your book–the initial edit letter and then a subsequent round of revision and comments. More (and line edits) if time allows!
• We might ask you to do a LOT of work. You should be prepared for this if you submit to us.

V i c t o r i a   L e e

Author of The Fever King 

website | twitter | insta

I grew up in Durham, North Carolina, where I spent twelve ascetic years as a vegetarian before discovering spicy chicken wings are, in fact, a delicacy. I’ve been a state finalist competitive pianist, a hitchhiker, a pizza connoisseur, an EMT, an expat in China and Sweden, and a science doctoral student. I’m also a bit of a snob about fancy whisky.

I write early in the morning, then spend the rest of the day trying to impress my border collie puppy and make my experiments work.

I’m represented by Holly Root and Taylor Haggerty at Root Literary, and live in Pennsylvania.

 

R.  F.   K u a n g

Author of The Poppy War

website | twitter | insta

I immigrated to the US from Guangzhou, China in 2000. I have a BA in International History from Georgetown, where my research focused on Chinese military strategy, collective trauma, and war memorials. I’m a 2018 Marshall Scholar, and I’ll be heading to the University of Cambridge this fall to do my MPhil in Chinese Studies.

Writing-wise, I graduated from Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2016 and attended the CSSF Novel Writing Workshop in 2017. I really love corgis, drinking nice wines I know nothing about, and rewatching The Office! When I’m not writing, I co-run the review blog Journey to the BEST! with Farah Naz Rishi.

 

If you’re excited about Team Gay Commie Mommies, we’d love it if you added our books on Goodreads! The Fever King  &  The Poppy War

We can’t wait to read your words!

xo, RK & Victoria

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