My new novel, REAL GIRL, just became a finalist in the 2020 Launch Pad Manuscript Competition.

The Launch Pad Competitions have led to more than 450 signings, 164 projects set up, 68 writers staffed, seven bidding wars, and 156 appearances on annual “best of” lists. That includes the Black List, Blood List, Hit List, and the Young & Hungry List.

Now in its third year, this specific manuscript competition searches for the most impressive, cinematic and captivating prose from emerging writers. It has resulted in over 40 projects set up and 12 books published in collaboration with Inkshares.

With dozens of titles in bookstores since their launch just a few years ago, Inkshares has become a powerful force in the publishing world and a major hub for Hollywood to discover new talent as well. Past successes include the sale of Tal M. Klein’s THE PUNCH ESCROW to Lionsgate and also J.F. Dubeau’s A GOD IN THE SHED, which is being developed for television with Skydance and Akiva Goldsman.

This is now the second competition REAL GIRL has placed in. My new novel also beat out more than 1,000 other books to become a quarterfinalist in the ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Competition. That literary contest seeks book manuscripts with cinematic adaptation potential. Literary agents from The Gersh Agency, United Talent Agency and 3 Arts Entertainment selected 100 quarterfinalists from over 1,200 submissions.

While REAL GIRL did not advance to the next round, I was encouraged that my still unpublished science fiction thriller even made it into their top 10 percent of books. It also reiterates this feedback I received last year from a professional developmental editor through Writer’s Digest:

“This is one of the best unpublished manuscripts I have ever read,” the editor wrote. “It also has strong movie/tv potential and should be pitched to movie agents as well as book agents. The strong vision of a coherent future world that is interesting and unique, coupled with enormous heart and emotional impact, could make this an attractive media project.”