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Interview | Tiffany Hoffman – FicFest writer’s contest

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Greetings all,

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Tiffany Hoffman, a writerly friend of mine, who is running a new writer’s contest called #FicFest. The aim is to bring manuscripts and literary agents together with writing submissions from five categories: Children’s Books, Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult.

Manuscripts will go through a few rounds of voting and be filtered down to an equal number of finalists in each category (so there isn’t a glut of YA for example). From the finalists, a pool of (I think the last count was nineteen) literary agents will be requesting partials and/or fulls.

The contest is looking for complete manuscripts (not manuscripts in need of editing / polish). Think of it like submitting your work to an agent directly, only with a wider net of a contest instead of the single fishing line of a query.

From the details, it looks like forty-five manuscripts will be considered finalists (nine of each category). Agents will be requesting partials/fulls for any of the finalist manuscripts that pique their interest.

This seems to be a great opportunity to get your work in front of agents looking for writing in your genre. Entries aren’t open yet, but keep your eye on this site for more details:

https://writersnook87.wordpress.com/

Interview

 

  • Tell us a little about how FicFest got started. What inspired you to put this together?

For the New Year, I posted a blog with my 2016 goals. One of those goals was to start my own writing contest. I’ve been entering contests such as PitchWars and such for the last fews years, but I really wanted to design the type of contest I knew I’d enter myself.

  • Up and coming authors are no doubt going to be quite grateful for this opportunity. Who or what convinced you to deal with the burden of managing something like this?

I remember my first contest, which was Brenda Drake’s Pitch Wars in 2014. Through the process of submission, a fellow writer and I launch a webshow called ‘Whiskey, Wine, and Writing’. We interviewed the PitchWars mentors and the creator of the contest, and one of the underlying reasons they all participated each year was because of the joy in helping another writer realize their dream of signing with an agent and moving to publication.

In late 2015, I opened my own freelance editing business called Deep Water Editorial Services, and as I worked with clients, I realized how much I really loved helping other writers better their work and move toward their dreams. #FicFest is a fun way to keep doing that. To give other writers feedback and help get their manuscripts in front of the agents who can help make their publishing dreams come true.

  • If FicFest had a “mission statement,” what would it be?

I think our mission is to provide a fair and equal contest to all writers were one category does not over power another, giving every finalists an equal chance to get request from agents, and giving agents a real diverse spread to request from.

  • How did you get the interest of agents to participate in something like this?

When we started looking for agents, I thought it was going to be hard getting them to participate. We wrote a letter to request agent participation which not only invited the agent to join but explained to them what #FicFest was, when the agent round was, and why this contest would be a good one for them to participate in. Then we waited. Within a week the confirmations started coming in.

The agents were just as eager to join as we were to host this contest. As of right now, we have 19 literary agents confirmed to participate in our agent round, and I’m thinking that number may very well go up before July.

  • Who is FicFest for? (Who should be looking to submit entries?)

This is the beautiful thing about #FicFest. The only category we are NOT accepting is non-fiction. Every other category and genre is welcome. We accept Picture Books, Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult and Adult. EVERY genre is welcome as well. From contemporary to erotica. Our goal is to host a contest that gives a fair chance to each of the five categories, and every genre.

  • Can you shed a little light on how the vetting process works? I.e. how does a story go from being submitted to advancing to the next round and eventually to finalist status?

The submission process is fairly easy. While, I can’t lay out what material must be submitting at this time, (The official submission guidelines will go live on my blog on March 20th), I can say that to submit, each person will have to send in a submission email with all the required material during the submission window, which is 12:00 AM EST on April 24th until 11:59 PM EST on April 25th.

Once the submission window closes; the #FicFest mentor teams will spend the next week reading through submissions and choosing their finalists and alternates. There are three teams for each category. Each team will be choosing three finalists to advance to the agent round, and one alternate. This means that there will be a total of 15 alternates and 45 manuscripts that move to the agent round. On May 4, 2016, we will announce the finalists and alternates via my blog and they will then begin working with their mentor teams to get their manuscripts ready for the agent round in July!

  • Is there anything that authors should not send in for this contest?

Unfinished manuscripts. Our mentor teams will be working with a total of 4 manuscripts (3 finalists and one alternate) and they only have 8 weeks for revisions before the agent round. If the manuscript isn’t as polished and query ready as the author can get it, there is just no way it will be ready in the 8 weeks before the agent round. So, before submitting, writers should make sure that they are submitting a polished manuscript.

Do not submit a first draft, and do not submit a manuscript that you’re not finished writing. We also will not take any manuscript that has already been a finalist in another 2016 contest. If you were a finalist for Sun vs Snow this year, for example, do not submit the same manuscript to #FicFest. And lastly, we won’t accept any manuscript that has previously been slef-published.

  • I noticed one of the categories is “Children’s Books.” Are you looking for books with completed illustrations or the manuscript itself in this category?

Both. Many Picture Book writers already work with illustrators, or are illustrators. We will accept those that have illustrations and those that do not.

  • When the time comes, how do authors send in manuscripts? Is there an email address or a website they should be looking for?

All submissions for the contest will be emailed to us at ficfest (at) gmail (dot) com.

 

FicFest Schedule:

March 20, 2016 @ 12:00 PM EST

Guidelines & Theme Reveal

 

March 27, 2016 @ 7:00 PM EST

Meet the Team Leads & Their Members!

 

April 3, 2016 @ 6:00 PM EST

Agent List Announced

 

April 17, 2016 @ 7:00 PM EST – 10:00 PM EST

Q & A with Team Leads & Host

 

April 24, 2016 @ 12:00 AM EST – April 25, 2016 @ 11:59 PM EST

SUBMISSION

 

April 26, 2016 – May 3, 2016

Teams will choose their finalists/alternate

 

May 4, 2016 @ 10:00 AM EST

Finalists/Alternate Reveal

 

May 5, 2016 – June 30, 2016

Revisions

 

July 8, 2016 @ 12:00 AM EST – July 14, 2014 @ 11:59 PM EST

Agent Round

News | Prophet Sale

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Greetings!

My publisher, Curiosity Quills Press, has decided to put the ebook of Prophet of the Badlands (book 1 of the Awakened series) on sale for the next two days for .99.

Althea, the main character, is still my favorite of all the characters I’ve yet created. The first novel I finished writing, Virtual Immortality, was a bit too long to query out to agents and publishers, so I decided to set it aside. At the time I had two other ideas, Prophet, and Division Zero. Since I knew Prophet would be the start of a longer series with five prominent characters, I decided to write Division Zero first.

All the while I was writing Division Zero #1, it felt like Althea was standing behind me, bouncing on her toes, asking “is it my turn yet” every few minutes. After I had finished Division Zero to the point I started the querying process, I got going on Prophet. As I expected it would, the story exploded out of my brain. I remember having the week off from the day job, and I managed 126,000 words in about 11 days. The story wanted out.

A little more than halfway along, Althea decided to take issue with the direction I had planned for the story. It was as though she were beside me, shaking her head and tapping her foot. She had a rather firm idea of something she would not allow to happen, and I wound up listening to her and changing the outline in a way that rippled through the remainder of the series in a major way.

Anyway, with the sale on, I hope you take a .99 chance on entering the world of the Awakened… See the Earth in 2418, after a corporate war has ruined the interior of North America. See the Badlands, and the world around it through the eyes of a young girl struggling to find the courage to stand up for herself against those who would exploit her powers.

Happy reading!

-Matt

AmazonSml

Site Update – Preview Chapters

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Greetings!

I’ve collected the available sample chapters onto one convenient page, which is also accessible from the primary menu. (Figure that’s a bit easier than chasing down each individual book’s page to see which ones have sample chapters up right now.) I’ve also added new ones:

Prophet Chapter 2, Archon’s Queen Chapter 2, and The Summer the World Ended Chapter 1 are now readable on the site.

I’m still holding off on Division Zero 2 and 3 since even reading chapter one of these will be a spoiler to book 1 in that series. I suppose I could add a warning or spoiler alert…. Maybe I shouldn’t be the gatekeeper of reader experience, and let people who don’t care about that sort of thing merrily ruin their own fun. This is something I need to mull some more.

The preview page should see somewhat routine updates as titles age. I might even sneak some pre-release chapter ones on there as soon as covers exist. (and CQ’s attack goats aren’t on the prowl.)

Happy reading!

-Matt

Edit: Okay – Considering the first chapters of Division Zero 2 and 3 are preview-able on Amazon already, I decided to put them up here as well. Spoil at thine own risk.

Emma and the Banderwigh | October 12 2015

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EmmaAndTheBanderwigh_final

In early 2014, Curiosity Quills (my publisher) put out a call for short story submissions to their [at the time] upcoming Chronology anthology. I figured I’d send something in, but I had too many ideas to decide on one. As those who know me will likely attest, I often have trouble making up my mind on multiple choice situations. So, I did the nuclear option: I wrote them all.

I wound up sending in about eight different stories for consideration, one of which was a short-story version of Emma and the Banderwigh. While waiting to hear back, I wound up sharing it with some people as Emma was my first attempt at middle grade fantasy (middle grade being intended for readers around 8-12 and up). One early reader, Tiffany, more or less grumbled at me that the story was too short and she wanted more.

The idea seemed to resonate with CQ, so I set about expanding the story. Originally, I got the idea for the Banderwigh while thinking up creatures to populate a fantasy roleplaying game I designed back in the 1990s. As luck would have it, the creature didn’t lend itself to the sort of stories that my group tended to play – being more of a story monster than a critter amenable to a party fond of combat. It existed, with all its lore, but didn’t much do anything until I got the idea for doing a middle grade story. The Banderwigh is a creature that preys upon the sadness of children and it offered a perfect ‘bad guy’ for a fantasy story aimed at that age group.

Meanwhile, due to the number of short stories I sent them, they got the idea to do an anthology of my short stories separately from theirs (Far Side of Promise, due out next year). The original short story form of Emma & the Banderwigh was in an early draft of this book. However, once I had a full-length novel, it bothered me to maintain two separate versions of the story.

I spent about a week mulling over if I wanted to come up with a replacement short story for the anthology or leave two versions of Emma. I tried to think of a replacement story, and kept circling back to an idea that would become the short Innocent Deception. (That one, I sent in to CQ as a ‘I want to replace the Emma short with this in the antho, what do you think’ situation – and they wound up choosing that one for their Chronology anthology too.

It felt a bit like coming within four inches of getting run over by a bus. I almost didn’t write it (to replace the Emma short) at all, and having that be the one they choose for their anthology was a O_o moment. (Granted, a thrilling O_o moment.)

Once I’d finished the Emma novel, I sent it to Tiffany as a beta reader. (Expanding the short to a novel was her suggestion after all). She shared it with her kids. A few days later, I hear that her then-four-year-old kept insisting that she check under the bed for “emery creepies” (emerald creepers). That made me smile for damn near a month, and I still think of that whenever I think of this book.

Emma & the Banderwigh is due out on October 12th, and I am quite excited for this book to finally become available to the public!

Please join me on Facebook on Monday 10/12 from 5-9pm Eastern time: here.

There are prizes to win including signed copies, ebooks, swag, and a few stuffed plush wolves. Feel free to share / invite anyone you like.

Also, enjoy a sneak peek of Chapter One: here.

Please add Emma & the Banderwigh to WTR on Goodreads

Click to enter the Goodreads giveaway for a paperback here

Charity Anthology | When Disasters Strike

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Disaster

Some months ago, Stephanie Lunsford approached me and asked if I could contribute a short story to an anthology she was putting together to benefit a critically ill little girl (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1601289636786971) and help out with her medical expenses.

She’d read Division Zero, and asked me to go back in Kirsten (the main character’s) past a bit for a peek into her earlier life. I wound up writing Into the Beneath, which happens twelve years prior to the events of Division Zero 1 (when Kirsten is only ten years old).

Curiosity Quills was gracious enough to let me send this over, and so I am one of thirteen authors in this collection of disaster, survival, and horror stories. (Truth be told, cyberpunk with ghosts struck me as a little out of the theme – but they wanted it… so, anyway.)

If you’re a fan of horror stories, post apocalyptic tales, and tales of people dealing with harrowing situations (and you don’t mind helping out a child in need), check out this anthology, now available on Amazon (http://amzn.com/B015TT5BH8). All proceeds from the sale of this anthology are going to benefit Emily.

 

Happy reading!

News and Updates

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Exciting news !

Curiosity Quills​ has signed three more of my novels: the cyberpunk / espionage thriller Daughter of Mars 2 – Araphel, and Daughter of Mars 3 – Ghost Black. (This series is set in the same world as Virtual Immortality, Division Zero, and the Awakened series take place [only on Mars instead of Earth]. Book 1 in Daughter of Mars has a crossover with book 3 in the Awakened series.)

More info Here

Also signed is One More Run, a post-nuclear apocalypse story of cynicism and love – with a dash of zombie.

Pardon the slowness of the site lately. I’ve been absorbed in another new project, a YA witchy horror novel. While I was at the Barnes & Noble of Cherry Hill last Saturday, a title hit me out of the blue that I /had/ to use. I haven’t the faintest idea what inspired it but… yeah. Writing. Anyway, back to working on: Nine Candles of Deepest Black.

 

-matt