March Madness

my pitch for Survivor Guilt, a YA manuscript for the

The 2011 Breakthrough Novel Award Contest

has advanced to the second round

not sure how many sent in their stuff, but 1,000 were selected and on March 22 I'll find out if my pitch is one of 500 selected for the quarter finals

here and scroll down:

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/books/abna/2011/ABNA_Young_Adult_Fiction_Second_Round.pdf

Here is my pitch:

Survivor Guilt Query

After the high school principal finds his truck on the roof of the school, prankster James Tiller is sentenced to sixty-six hours of community service. Between punking people on Facebook and giving the check-out clerks at Wal-mart hell, his life is seemingly one big practical joke—until James’ mother is killed when a truck slams into their car. Life suddenly gets very serious. All at once he has to cope with his mother’s death and adjust to living with his father, who moves back into the house after the funeral. It is only through community service at LuLu’s Place, a homeless shelter, that James can come face-to-face with who he is and begin to sort out his feelings for his best friend Mindy Baxter and a fellow classmate, the high school quarterback. Told in first-person, James’ story is both humorous and poignant, full of piss and Monster Energy drinks and dirt under the fingernails. Readers will readily identify with James and his ambiguity—or is it ambivalence? Even he doesn’t know the difference.