Pitch Madness!

Yowza. It's Pitch Madness today.

Writers started Tweeting their book pitches to agents and editors at 8 AM. By 8:20, I had a message that Twitter was lagging due to traffic.

What is Pitch Madness, you ask? All questions will be answered here: http://brenleedrake.blogspot.com/2013/08/after-madness-twitter-pitch-party-912.html

Zoltar predicts you will be Tweeting in the near future.

I'll be Tweeting my middle grade novel-in-verse pitch for THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY throughout the day. Want to read a sample? There's a poem from the novel at my post on the life-sucking misery that is high school summer reading with a dyslexic child.

What does a 140 character book pitch look like? Here is one of mine:

Popular Ashlie Hawk loses 5^th grade election to lame Save Our School campaign. Her secret: Dad is behind plans to demolish school #pitmad

Don't pitch more than once an hour, though -- that's against Pitch Madness etiquette.

Stop by and check my pitches out. I'm @LauraShovan. Liked my pitch? Here's a synopsis of the novel.

THE LAST FIFTH GRADE OF EMERSON ELEMENTARY

By Laura Shovan

Fifth grader George Furst must be the only kid in Columbia, Maryland who can’t wait to go back to school. His parents are divorcing and school is the only place that feels normal. But the first day at Emerson Elementary brings news. The building is slated to be torn down in June. Worse still, his teacher, Miss Hill, wants “the last fifth grade” to record their entire year in poems for the school-wide time capsule.

George runs for class president on a “Save Our School” campaign. When Renata (Rennie) Rawlins, the smartest girl in class, and not-quite-a-U.S.-citizen Norah Hassan join George’s ticket, his main opponent is not happy.  Ashlie Hawk thought she’d intimidated all the girls into voting for her. It’s easy to make campaign promises, George learns, but how is the new class president actually going to save Emerson? When George, Rennie, and Norah pass a petition around, Ashlie refuses to sign. “My father is on the Board of Education,” she informs them. “He’s designing the new school.” If Ashlie is playing Board of Ed spy, George’s plan to save Emerson is doomed. Then, on a field trip to D.C.’s Newseum, George’s friends spot a familiar face in a Civil Rights era photograph.  That protestor looks exactly like a picture of Miss Hill, one she keeps on her desk. Their teacher was willing to get arrested for a cause forty years ago, but will she help save their school now?

            With Miss Hill’s guidance, George stages a sit-in at the Board of Education. If the kids in Room 5-H have learned anything this year, it’s that you have to use your voice if you want to be heard. George and his friends refuse to leave unless the Board gives them the floor. Even Ashlie shows up to plead their case to her father. However, the contracts are already signed. It’s too late to save Emerson. George and the fifth grade protestors come up with a compromise. Leave one wall of the old school standing. There, they can store the time capsule, and paint a mural telling future students the story of Emerson’s last fifth grade.

See you tomorrow for Poetry Friday. I'll have an interview with YA novel-in-verse author Holly Thompson. And, AND... I have a copy of her beautiful new book, The Language Inside, to give away!