Amanda Stuermer

Write to Pitch Pre-Event Assignments: A Murder of Crows by Amanda Stuermer Assignment #1: Story Statement Reveal the secrets of the past to expose the injustice of the present. A Murder of Crows is set during the 1980s, a time when women in the Deep South would have heard of the Equal Rights Amendment and Ms. Magazine but were still expected to uphold traditional family values and subscribe to Better Homes & Gardens. Ginny Calhoun is a single mom who works at the local Piggly Wiggly and dreams of becoming a journalist. When she develops an unlikely friendship with her co-worker Ronda, a former Miss Teen Louisiana, and Claire, the middle-aged debutante whose husband Ronda has been sleeping with, Ginny finds the article she’s been looking to write, but publishing it will force her to expose closely held secrets from her past as well as confront the broader social injustice of the present. Assignment #2: Antagonist(s) The antagonists are a series of men who represent male privilege in the Deep South in the 1980s. Trey Montogomery is a mean drunk. He moves through his teenage years with the swagger of a young man born into a world unapologetically tilted in his favor. He takes what he wants when he wants it. Sex is just one more thing he doesn’t feel he has to ask permission for. Johnny Jespers is an angry, abusive man who doesn’t have much use for his daughter Ronda. He wanted sons. The fact that he only got one was a deep wound to his pride. It is one of the many ways his wife has let him down — something he reminds her of regularly. As Ronda gets older, she learns to avoid her father when he comes home with whiskey on his breath and a glazed, hungry look in his eyes. Dickie Rowlings is approaching the deep end of middle age but behaves like a perpetual fraternity boy. He carelessly toys with women’s lives while publicly campaigning for ‘family value’ politicians. His wife Claire has long been aware of his sexual escapades. Dickie likes to have things other people covet; she used to be one of those things. Assignment #3: Breakout Title + Runner Up A Murder of Crows Justification: I wove in the folktale that says crows gather to judge the fate of another crow. If the verdict goes against the defendant that bird will be killed by the rest of the flock. It ties in with the judgment each of the women in my novel faces in their efforts to become free. In the end, my readers will decide the fate of one of the women. I have also included other avian imagery throughout the novel. Murmuration Justification: Murmuration occurs 1) to provide birds safety in numbers as predators find it hard to target one bird amongst a hypnotizing flock of thousands and 2) to keep warm at night and exchange useful information. This speaks to the way my main female characters come together to push back against the societal expectations and limitations of the time. Assignment #4: Genre + Comps Genre: Women’s Fiction, Upmarket Fiction Comp 1: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng Both novels feature mothers running away from their pasts and raising their daughters on their own. They also each explore class and societal divisions, expectations, and limitations. Comp 2: Lesson in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus Both novels feature strong female protagonists who push back against the sexist societal norms of their times. Each novel also serves as both a time capsule and current social commentary. Assignment #5: Hook Line A single mom and aspiring journalist decides to expose the social inequities impacting women in the Deep South during the 1980s, but doing so means revealing the closely held secrets of her past and confronting the man who raped her. A single mom, who works at the Piggly Wiggly and writes horoscopes on the side, finally gets her shot at becoming a journalist, but she must reveal the closely held secrets of her past before confronting the broader social injustice of the 1980s in the Deep South. Assignment #6: Conflict Primary Conflict: Judgment + Shame. The humid air of 1980s Louisiana is thick with judgment and shame. It wafts off women like heat waves on hot asphalt. We first meet our protagonist, Ginny, when she is twelve and notices the way women judge her mother for not wearing nylon stockings as they walk down the center aisle to take communion at church. This is continuously woven through the novel. Ginny loses both of her parents in a tragic car accident and grows up hearing her name whispered behind cupped hands. When she becomes pregnant in high school, she decides to move further down the interstate to outrun the whispers and seek out a tabula rasa but finds she still must live with the shame of being raped and the judgment of being a single mom in a small southern town. When she develops an unlikely friendship with her co-worker Ronda, a former Miss Teen Louisiana, and Claire, the middle-aged debutante whose husband Ronda has been sleeping with, Ginny realizes she is not the only woman being held captive by social stigmas of the time. An opportunity arises for her to realize her dream of becoming a journalist by sharing these women’s stories, but she must decide whether she is ready to reveal the closely held secrets of her own story and expose the man who raped her and his politically powerful father. Secondary Conflicts: Each of the secondary female characters in the novel has a conflict they are confronting: 1) Paula, Ginny’s best friend, is a divorced mother attempting to get her pilot license and pushing back against her mother’s judgment around her failed marriage, 2) Ronda, Ginny’s hard-luck co-worker, finds herself pregnant after an affair with a married man falls apart and facing the shame of abortion, 3) Claire, the elegant debutant whose husband Ronda was having an affair with, is preparing to leave her husband and become a social outcast, 4) Beth, Ginny’s aunt who raised her after her parents died, is processing a dire cancer diagnosis and must decide how best to live with her ‘use by date,’ and 5) Joy, Ginny’s daughter, has to come to terms with her choices when she learns the secrets her mother has been keeping. Inner Conflicts: Each woman in the novel must decide how far she is willing to go to push back against the judgment and shame heaped upon women in the Deep South during that time. Several male characters serve as their antagonists. The main question is: will each woman find a way to set herself free? Ginny is the through thread that binds them all together and it is she who has the power to tell their stories and expose the injustice women face. Will she do so – or will her desire to keep her past a secret force her to remain silent? Assignment #7: Setting My novel is set in a small town in Louisiana during the 1980s, a time when women in the Deep South would have heard of the Equal Rights Amendment and Ms Magazine but were still expected to uphold traditional family values and subscribe to Better Homes & Gardens. Ginny is a single mom working at the local Piggly Wiggly. Ringing up groceries allows her to gather useful information, intimate details about other people’s lives — who is trying to lose weight, who is losing sleep, who is losing to the bottle — while diverting attention from her own. On work breaks, when the rest of the lady checkers sit around the break room swapping gossip and smoking menthol cigarettes, Ginny jots notes into the little blue notepad she keeps in the front apron pocket of her uniform. There are stories on every aisle of that store. She collects them like seashells on the beach: she spots one, presses it gently to her ear, and listens. She’s been losing herself in other people’s stories for so long it has become more than a habit; it has become survival. The novel is part time capsule and part current social commentary. The atmosphere of the American South in the 1980s provides the necessary broader social context for the inner conflicts the characters are experiencing as they navigate their complex lives against a backdrop of hardship, prejudice, and dynastic politics.