Pitch Wars Team Interview with The Mancaruso Sisters and mentor, Melissa Colasanti
Our mentors are mentoring, our mentees are revising, and we hope you’re making progress on your own manuscript! While we’re all working toward the Agent Showcase starting on February 9, 2021, we hope you’ll take a moment during your writing breaks and get to know our 2021 Pitch Wars Mentor and Mentee Teams.
Next up, we have . . .
Kelly Mancaruso and Kristina Mancaruso
aka The Mancaruso Sisters – Mentees
Melissa Colasanti – Mentor
Melissa, why did you choose Kelly and Kristina?
First, I loved I’M SURE SHE’S FINE. The voice, writing, and suspenseful plot grabbed me from the first page and wouldn’t let go. As I read, editorial ideas popped in my head and I was genuinely EXCITED about this manuscript. Then, I spoke with Kelly and Kristina, and I was so impressed with their vision for the book, and their enthusiasm for revisions.
Kelly and Kristina, why did you choose to submit to Melissa?
After reading all the mentors’ wishlists separately, we both had Melissa at the top of our submission lists. Firstly, she specifically mentioned various things in her wishlist that made us super excited to submit to her: female-driven psych thrillers, juicy domestic suspense/family drama, stories that explore relationships between mothers and daughters – all things that feature prominently in our manuscript. We also checked out Melissa’s book, CALL ME ELIZABETH LARK, and fell in love with the premise and the writing. It is SO good. The thought of getting to work with someone as talented as her felt like a far-fetched dream. Moreover, we just got a great vibe from her; we thought we’d get along well and most importantly, would work well together… and we were right (she’s even more amazing than we could have ever imagined though!).
Melissa, summarize Kelly and Kristina’s book in 3 words.
Voicey, suspenseful, character-driven
Kelly and Kristina, summarize your book in 3 words.
Kelly: Personal, unnerving, quirky
Kristina: Dark, humorous, unexpected
Melissa, tell us about yourself. Something we may not already know.
I’m a great kick boxer.
Kelly and Kristina, what do you hope to get out of the Pitch Wars experience?
The reason we applied to Pitch Wars was to hopefully get the opportunity to learn from an experienced author and in turn, make our manuscript as strong as possible. We queried too soon in the past and wanted to make sure we did everything we could with this one. We also heard so many great things about the Pitch Wars community and the event connecting people with trusted CPs and even life-long friends, so we were also excited about the prospect of that. We’ve already made so many friends and both feel like we’ve really found our people – especially in the other thriller writers here. It’s nice to know we’re not the only ones plotting fictional murders or googling oddly specific ways to kill someone before heading off to our normal day jobs…
Kelly and...