#Pitchwars Mentor Bio

Welcome to my blog! Penmad says it all. I'm a mentor for adult PitchWars entries for the second time because it was so much fun last year.

About me:
A New Englander now living in the warm, sunny Peach Belt, I'm in the middle of a three-book cozy mystery contract for Annie's Publishing. I'm also seeking rep (again) for other mystery and YA writing. I recently became an Assistant Editor for Entangled Ignite (formerly Suspense).

What I'm looking for:
Adult mystery, suspense, Gothic, thriller, chick-lit, and women's literature. I have a fondness for great settings, interesting occupations, fine arts, antiques and architecture, food, weather, humor, and secrets of all kinds. My tastes are pretty eclectic so you might find me reading a cozy mystery, a thriller, a literary mystery, and a funny chick-lit domestic all in the same week. Historical is fine, so is contemporary but I'm not the right person for fantasy or paranormal, unless it's light--like a haunted house. I don't usually read military or political thrillers and espionage leaves me cold.

How I work with writers:
I am kind and encouraging and look for ways to improve the flow, pace, and power of your book. To prune so its greatness can blossom. Polish so it shines. Pitch it so it sells.

For submission guidelines, go to www.brenda-drake.com.

Secret Letter: M

Fabulous agents:
    

1.       LouiseFury – Bent Agency

2.       SuzieTownsend – New Leaf Literary

3.       NicoleResciniti - The Seymour Agency

4.       JohnM. Cusick – The Greenhouse Agency

5.       SarahLaPolla – Bradford Literary Agency

6.       VictoriaMarini - Gelfman Schneider Literary Agency

7.       JessicaSinsheimer - Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency

8.       Pamvan Hylckama Vlieg - Foreword Literary

9.       QuinlanLee - Adams Literary

10.     JenUdden – Donald Maass Literary Agency

11.     EmilyKeyes – Foreward Literary

12.     Brianne Johnson – Writers House

13.     CarlyWatters – P.S. Literary

14.     LanaPopovic and Natasha Alexis - Zachary Shuster Harmsworth

15.     MollyJaffa – Folio Literary Management

16.     EvanGregorgy - Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency
17.     Stefanie Lieberman - Janklow & Nesbit Associates  
18.     Rena Rossner - The Deborah Harris Agency

Fantastic mentors:

The Alchemy of Setting

When choosing a book, setting is something that can definitely draw me in. We all have personal favorites but I love gorgeous natural locations, old buildings, rich cultural activity, interesting businesses or hobbies, and atmosphere. One of the pleasures of reading is entering into a fully realized world that you can see, smell, taste, and hear. Feel.

I lived in New England most of my life, in Maine and New Hampshire with frequent visits to Vermont. Now that I live in Georgia, I enjoy excursions to New England through both reading and writing. I have to say I like reading about snow much more than I did living it! New England is a setting rich in history, weather, beauty, and architecture. The resort history of the White Mountains inspired two of my historical works. Other settings are just as fascinating, though. I have a YA set in Hollywood and adult books set in Oregon and Arizona. I also plan to set something in Italy, where my ancestors came from.

Setting influences character and plot, of course, as I like to work within the constraints of the possible. I spend almost as much time researching as writing, finding that I need to be fully grounded in my location before I can write about it. Yet creating effective setting doesn't mean pages of description. Rather, choose details that best evoke your setting, then use them to flavor action and narrative and dialogue.

Here is an excerpt from Blame It on the Aliens, published in the Live Free or Sci Fi anthology.  The characters drive through a depressed mill town to go fishing.

         “Man, this place is depressing,” Matt muttered as we cruised past decaying apartment houses and boarded-up storefronts.  Here and there, yellow tape guarded the charred, collapsed carcasses of those that had burned.

            But I was almost more unsettled by what was missing: the behemoth bulk of the pulp mill with its 300-foot stacks and multi-acre sprawl. All demolished and trucked away. A lone chimney standing in a tidy patch of grass the only testament to more than one hundred years of transforming logs to pulp to paper to prosperity.

            I stepped on the gas. Hopefully the fish hadn’t left as well.

            A couple of hours of drifting on the smooth mercury surface of Success Pond had the tranquilizing effect I’d hoped for. It was dead quiet, the only sounds occasional birdsong or a duck quacking as it flew over. So late in the season, no one else was on the water. The camps lining the shore were already shuttered and tucked in for the winter.

            I cast my line into the water, watching the gold spinner spiral down into the clear shallows of the cove. We’d only caught a couple of smallmouth bass so far, all under the limit, so we tossed them back.

Which settings do you find most compelling--as reader and writer?

Note: The photograph was taken outside the mill town in the story. Those tiny islands are all that remains of boom piers - guides for logs sent down the Androscoggin River.