#PitchMadness - I want you to woo me!

There is no doubt about it - I love pitch contests. And my two favourite are definitely Pitch Wars and Pitch Madness, which I am both involved in.

And Pitch Madness is about to start! You'll find me as the leader of Team Liquorice Castle, waiting impatiently for your pitches, along with my cohost, Jeyn Roberts, and our readers Heather Bryant and Laura Brown.

What would I love to have on my team this year? Well, at the moment it's totally up for grabs! Woo me with your wonderful words.

There is no doubt I'm a fan of weird. I adore unusual stories, especially those that come under the speculative fiction umbrella. SciFi and Fantasy are my jam. I love underrepresented voices in fiction, and there's bonus points for Own Voices. Geek is a family past-time so anything to go with gaming, cosplay, comic lovers and the like could make me swoon. Topics that are dear to my heart at the moment include women's rights, refugees, mental health, hidden conditions (such as epilepsy) and family. I'd also like to see some non-conventional settings (outside of the US/UK).

Here's some #MSWL inspired topics that also tickle my fancy:

• A villain MC. 
• Space Opera
• Activists/protest kids - in YA or MG
• YA Mystery
• Gender-flipped League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Historical female superheroes...time travel optional). 
• Spies
• Anything with dialogue that rivals Buffy!
• Cowboys from a wild west that isn't in the US.
• YA X-Files
• Under utilised historical figures in retellings/reimaginings
• Bookstore romance
• Literary Horror (Think Stranger Things)
• Intergalactic refugees (Think Titan A.E.)
• Ancient underused folklore

If you're thinking about entering, you can find deets here, and the agents participating here. 

I hope you see you in the slush. Make me fall in love with your pitch and your opening words, and you just might end up on my team.