ChrisJ

The conference verified what I already hoped:  I want to be a writer.  I received honest and clear feedback on my pitch and manuscript concept.  The professionals are rooting for us to get our work recognized and provided the feedback on what it takes to be commercially successful.  As a relative neophyte, I was prepared to be intimidated and that never happened as Michael created a relaxed and creative environment for us.   While I have my work cut out for me, I am only too happy to commit even more to the craft.  I received concrete and detailed recommendations.   While there was no sugar coating, everyone was nice and professional. 

After 4 days with my writer's group, I was sad to leave.  I have been home for 2 days now and I want to go back!  I highly recommend NY Write to Pitch and would not hesitate to return.  

Upper-Middle Grade Fantasy

Story Statement

A 14 year-old girl from  New York City needs to find out how her foster father disappeared into thin air right before her eyes, while coming to terms with her own unbelievable identity. 

Antagonist

The antagonist is a sinister force that is not well understood by the primary characters in the book as it unfolds and is largely shrouded in obscurity (for now).  He is called Seraphim, which is a self-given moniker for an archangel meaning “burning one.”   Seraphim is the dark force in the Other Place, a separate reality in the far reaches of the Cosmos tethered to Earth by a wormhole (whose other end is in  the basement library at a notoriously oppressive New York City private school, Festermunder Academy).  Seraphim is never seen by his lieutenants, known by some as the Mechanix, yet he possesses untold power.  We find out ( later) that Seraphim is actually a former astronaut named Peter Loren, who intentionally flew his spacecraft into a wormhole near Neptune while on a covert space expedition in the 1970’s.  Loren traveled untold eons through space and time and gained infinite powers through the attainment of Stellar tokens throughout the universe. Over time, Seraphim and the Mechanix abducted people from Earth and beings throughout the Cosmos to colonize/construct a sanctuary planet they discovered called Elysium (also called the Other Place) that mirrors Earth. Throughout his discoveries, Seraphim was said to have glimpsed The Beyond.  Past the edge of the expanding Universe.  There he saw something so dark that it drove him mad.  In his ages of time-dilated travel, he attained Cosmic Immortality.  Tragically, Seraphim only wants to die.  Yet he cannot and lives for countless eons instead.  Full of rage and ironic futility, Seraphim wants to destroy Earth and enslave its inhabitants if he cannot reach his true aim:  finding someone who can help destroy him. He believes it’s our protagonist Beatrix Voght, a 5 foot tall , 14 year old girl with glasses, black curly hair,  confidence issues and a murky past, who lives on Upper West Side and attends Festermunder.

Titles

The Stolen Star

Beatrix and the Unwritten

The Dark Matter of Festermunder

Comps:

Keeper of the Lost Cities, Shannon Messenger

The Golden Compass, Phillip Pullman

Hookline

After seeing  an identical duplicate of herself in the streets, Beatrix, a New York City teenager, must figure out what happened to her foster father who vanished in plain sight right before her eyes and determine why these events are likely connected.  

Conflict(s)

I. Beatrix Voght, a self-proclaimed outcast 14 year-old , is a student at the notorious Festermunder Academy in midtown Manhattan.  Rumors persist that students at Festermunder have gone missing over the years as well as stirrings of something quite strange located in the basement library that is strictly prohibited to students.  Beatrix, after a run in with the decidedly evil Headmistress Grunnion-Paltine, walks home one evening and discovers an exact replica of herself crossing 79th street.  She pursues her doppelganger to the alley where it only whispers “13” and vanishes in a flash of green light.  Beatrix, who has had other encounters with the Unexplained, is still reeling from her foster father Wendell’s “missing time” incident in Scotland 2 years prior that left him mentally incapacitated. She makes it her mission to keep her “replica”  from her- brother-boy-wonder, Ben, and do some investigation on her own to see what it means.  Does it have any relation to her headaches, her visions and the songs she repeatedly hears in her head?  Beatrix will seek to find out who her replica is, as well her own  identity and its connection to the stability of the Universe itself.

II. Beatrix, in addition to having complexes about her height, weight, braces , glasses and complexion, also has another problem.  Her foster father whom she adores, Wendell Voght, has been an incoherent babbling shadow of his former self since he momentarily vanished while on a private tour of a castle in Scotland.  He has taken to obsessing about stars, constellations, maps of the cosmos, and particle accelerators, as well conspiracy theories about missing persons.  Most disturbingly, Wendell has been venturing out into Central Park every night in his pajamas for hours on end.  On a hunch, Beatrix, Ben and their quasi-friend by convenience, Malik Patel, venture into the park to follow him one night, whereupon Wendell disappears into thin air right in front of them - for good this time!  There they also glimpse for the first time a terrifying shadowy figure they refer to only as the Hat Man.  Beatrix, Ben and Malik team up to find out what happened to Wendell and their discoveries portend danger not only to those at Festermunder but to the future of the Cosmos. 

III. The trio of Beatrix, Ben and Malik, assisted by the acerbic Scottish astrophysicist Percival J. Parfleet, Ph.D (who was recently reanimated into human form from that of  Beatrix’s live-in pug…but more on that later) and “it-girl” Alex Thacker, uncover clues that lead them to the doorstep of Parfleet’s former colleague, a crusty old retired astronomer named  Giuseppe Montavani.  Montavani informs Beatrix that her missing foster father, Wendell, had been a long time traveler on terrestrial and celestial space-time portals called Meridians.  The most notable one is in the basement Library at Festermunder where Wendell Voght was once a student.  Through this portal, Seraphim and his Agents have filched students as unwitting test pilots to the Other Place.  It’s made clear that Seraphim, who is likely personally known to the obfuscatory Montanvani, is planning to take precious resources from Earth to siphon them off to the Other Place; some of which are luminaries of the scientific community.  This eventually will lead to the End of the Beginning as Montavani said is prophesied.  It is also foretold that an  unknown one of  ‘The Thirteen' may have the  power that could save them.  This could in fact be Beatrix herself who always suspected she was a tad different from other kids her age.   Beatrix wonders if Wendells’s disappearance had an even darker truth.  Was he taken because of her?  The group of Beatrix, Ben, Malik, Alex and Percival, along with the bumbling Brit Special Agent Fred Hardingham (Alex’s Uncle) tentatively make it their mission to seal and destroy the Prime Meridian in the  Festermunder Basement Library.   There are several problems, such as the vile Headmistress Grunnion-Paltine, who has the school’s security as tight at Fort Knox. They  also need rare and highly volatile antimatter to cast into the Prime Meridian. Having none at the moment, they have to do the unthinkable: sneak into the world’s second largest particle accelerator facility and steal it.  All the while being trailed by the faceless Hat Man and the just as tenacious, albeit diminutive, Mi5 Agent, Libby Soames-Briggs.

Setting:

The story takes place most notably in New York City where Beatrix lives in a 4th floor upscale apartment 2 blocks behind the Museum of Natural History.  Her school, Festermunder Academy, is located in midtown Manhattan in a windowless brown monolith of a building (actually the Long Lines Building in Lower Manhattan as inspiration; some call it “the scariest building they have ever seen.”)  The characters use New York as the backdrop of the story and many of the popular sites and stores are used in the book, especially Central Park and the Museum.  Much time is also spent in the defunct Sovereign Light Theater in Midtown Manhattan, where many of the companions are headquartered in the story.  This is a New York City story, but our characters have very efficient means of travel!

Our characters also are on the move a bit by making use of “unnatural travel” to the U.K.  Additionally, several of the characters are British, as Mi5 is a large part of the story, as Special Agents Libby Soames-Briggs and Fred Hardingham hail from the London suburbs.  There is a distinct British “tilt” to the story with so many characters from the U.K. and London is a major hub. 

We also get an in depth glimpse into Scotland where the pugnacious Percvial J. Parfleet, Beatrix’s personal protector (see also Chewbacca) hails from.  We enter the catacombs of Castle Glamis (Forfar) near Dundee and the Scottish flair is consistently embodied by the academic, yet completely profane Parfleet, who frequently enjoys a pint at his favorite Dundee watering hole, The Green Griffin. 

Could we, at times, be in Space?  Maybe!