No, Hubby needn’t worry. I’m blind speed dating with LITERARY AGENTS. Yep! Real, live, in the flesh agents. Top notch agents. Woo-hoo!
I didn’t discover her until last month, but it seems in November of last year a new undercover sleuth, code name, Cupid, joined the blogosphere with Cupid’s Literary Connection. Miss Cupid specializes in bringing talented writers together with astounding literary agents in not so romantical but magical ways. It says so right on her website.
She hosted her first event, Love Triangle, in January.
I discovered her site when one of the agents, whose blog I follow, was a judge for the inaugural contest and couldn’t resist trash talking with the other agent judge. Of course I hopped on over there (before I read another blog) and saw this Cupid chick was hosting an even bigger, better, badder contest in February. Yep! Cupid’s Blind Speed Dating. Be still my heart!
I have to tell you this is too cute for words. She took 100 entries during two extremely competitive windows of opportunity. I was sitting at my computer with my finger on enter waiting for the computer clock to change to get my query and first 250 words in as fast as possible. It wasn’t long before I got an e-mail telling me to sit back and relax, I’d made the cut-off. Whew. One hurdle.
The next round was judged by Cupid’s Bouncers. Four authors (Gennifer Albin, Anne Brown, Gabriela Lessa, and Marissa Burt) choose who makes it to the agent round by leaving a comment that contains the words, “You’re in.” The authors were given super-duper bouncer-code names so I don’t know which one passed me through, but a great big hug to the undercover judge Iheartbooks. The other code names are Blue Nimbus, Bookish Handygirl and Dorothy. Dorothy? That’s an undercover name? I can’t wait to hear the thought process on that one.
Fifty entries went up this week and 50 more will go up next week, then the agents will get involved after that. In the meantime, anyone is welcome to comment. My entry is #27, but read lots of them and comment often. You’ll find some good writing in the bunch.
After the two weeks of comments, judging and #TTT (Twitter Trash Talk), the AGENTS get will involved. Miss Cupid has a heart attack (her words) line up of twelve awesome agents: Laura Bradford, Vickie Motter, Sarah LaPolla, Meredith Barnes, Sara Crowe, Sara Sciuto, Weronika Janczuk, Halli MeInitsky, Molly Ker Hawn, Brooks Sherman, and Victoria Marini. All have websites and are on twitter and several have blogs.
Cupid hasn’t announced them yet, but the agents will also get undercover names (well, duh!), and won’t know who’s who. (That cupid has a wicked sense of humor.) Then, they’ll each get ten arrows — but not all at once. On Monday, February 20th, they’ll start with four and get two a day after that through Thursday for a total of ten each.
At this point, the agents will begin to reveal their archery skills. They may request a partial with one arrow, but no entry is allowed to have no more than two partial requests. If they want to request a full, they deplete their arrow supply by three. Of course, there is a twist: full requests can’t be be made until the last day (Thursday) and on that day partials go up to two arrows. By the way, a full request trumps any partial requests so those arrows will have been wasted.
Then on Friday, all will be revealed–winners, author and agent identities (but not Cupid’s) and Cupid will prepare for March Madness.
I guess I better wipe the dust off the manuscript and get out the polish in case I get an arrow or (wouldn’t it be wonderful?) three. See you Friday. Don’t forget you can check out all of the entries at Cupid’s Literary Connection.
~ Kay
