It’s that time again, time to stress over the perfection of three paragraphs, three paragraphs that can make or break my the publication of my novel. Here’s draft #1 (I’m submitting it to Daniel Pinkwater’s agent):
Ann, a teenage girl, is kidnapped by molepeople. They live right under our feet, stealing our power and cable TV. Faced with a shotgun marriage to their neurotic prince, Ann fights a desperate battle to escape from the crazy world of Molemania. Prisoner of the Molepeople is an urban fantasy / romantic comedy for a middle grade audience.
Ann is full of inhibitions, always feeling dwarfed by her adventurous would-be boyfriend, Lenny. One day, after studying Henry David Thoreau in school, Ann gets the idea to have a transcendental experience in the mountains, hoping to one-up Lenny through the adventure. To her astonishment, she appears to have actually transcended when a quirky moleman pops out of the ground and invites her into a whole, new world. Then finding herself trapped in a conspiracy, Ann is faced with the difficult choice of confronting the impossible and rescuing herself or swallowing her pride and allowing Lenny to save the day, a tale of girl versus boy.
I am the author and illustrator of the Whitney Award nomination The Bent Sword, a middle grade fantasy published by Cedar Fort Inc in 2010. I’m also an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and children’s entertainer. As one of the biggest fan’s of Daniel Pinkwater (the only guy who can make me giggle like a schoolgirl), I think this imaginative, off-the-wall comedy will be up your alley. In a silly world where down is up, light is dark, and nothing is as it appears, the characters and setting will stand out from the competition as anything but cliche.