Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

sydandthepen.bsky.social @sydandthepen.bsky.social · 24d

not to be dramatic but cleaning my apartment has been a full-blown enemies-to-lovers arc

sydandthepen.bsky.social @sydandthepen.bsky.social · Aug 7

#agentsguide to 𝐋𝐄𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐒 ✨

A speculative adult novel with a dark fairy tale twist 🖤

Where a heartbroken writer must decide: be consumed by a toxic love, or accept that her life isn't a perfect romance novel

#questpit #A #F #S #Q

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✨Eliza Mares✨ @elizamaresauthor.bsky.social · Aug 6

#questpit #W #A #H #R

🩸THE HEART YET BLEEDS🩸

A summer storm forces Anne inside Bellflower House, a manor owned by the hauntingly beautiful Sabine. Anne is enchanted by her hostess — but when the rain won’t stop & dark things lurk the halls, she can’t help but wonder if Sabine will ever let her go.

A moody collage on a red brocade background, featuring images of a pale strawberry-blonde woman with a bloodied mouth, a painting of a woman staring into a mirror, a black cat rubbing a woman's slippered foot, lace embroidery, a gothic manor, a candelabra, a hand catching drops of ran, a painted portrait of a woman in a metal ornate frame, and a spilled glass of red wine/blood.

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Jennifer Luce @jenniferluce.bsky.social · Aug 6

Hi #questpit! Here's GUMIHO, an Upmarket Horror Romance that was recently selected as a finalist in the horror/paranormal category for the 2025 PNWA Writers Contest.

Inspired by Korean folklore, it explores the gradual descent into grief, madness, & monstrous transformation.
#A #H #R #Q

Cursed with a vengeful gumiho, Mina has spent centuries feeding it souls to become a god—and now she needs just one. But when she falls for her final target, wicked whispers invade her mind, visions of loved ones haunt her, and her body begins to change. As the gumiho consumes her from the inside out, Mina must face her demons and sever the curse—or achieve godhood and lose herself to become something monstrous.

Based on Korean folklore & mythology

Told through the eyes of an anti-hero gumiho

Set in modern-day PNW

Dark, intimate PROSE

Psychological unraveling

Blends the dread of physical transformation and emotional vulnerability

Laced with a slow-burn romance

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B. van Bodegom 📃is querying & writing @bvbodegom.bsky.social · Aug 6

CABIN IN THE WOODS × JOHN DIES AT THE END × KNIVES OUT

When their detective friend is murdered during their annual gaming retreat, 5 dads must rely on years of #TTRPG experience—and puns—to solve the crime before they're all killed off like NPCs in a badly written campaign.

#QuestPit #A #H #M #Q

The image shows a horror-comedy novel cover titled "DAD BODIES." The top of the cover reads "THE GAME JUST TOOK A DAD TURN" with "DAD" in a different color.

The background features a haunted house with multiple towers and illuminated windows against a dark backdrop. At the center is a 20-sided die (D20) used in tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, with visible numbers including 1, 7, 13, and 19. The die is surrounded by red blood splatter effects.

At the bottom of the cover are six men with expressions of terror and shock. One man is wearing a white shirt over his head. These men are the dads referenced in the title.

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Addy Lopez is revising @addythelopez.bsky.social · Aug 6

🐍 MEDUSA DOESN’T DIE IN THIS VERSION 🐍

May I present this short comic made by my amazing friend @thewaffledraws from a scene in my Speculative retelling of Ovid’s Medusa that I am currently querying. 👀

#questpit #Q #A #S

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Lacy @lacylu42.bsky.social · Aug 6

She just wanted a story. Now she's the headline.

Cursed, crashing (and crushing?) with a half-fae detective, being hunted by vampires & magical union thugs, and possibly unraveling reality.

At least the coffee’s good.

Noir mystery + urban fantasy. October Daye + The Dresden Files. #QuestPit #Q

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Kathy Woods @kathyvwoods.bsky.social · Aug 6

FIREFLY X UNDER UNFORTUNATE STARS

Nyra, a mercenary, lives by only one adage; she will always finish a fight. Her adage is tested when her captain’s and the rebel leader’s mysterious relationship threatens to drag their crew into a revolution.
#questpit #Q #SFF #A

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🕯️✨Taylor Leigh✨🕯️ (is querying) @authortaylorleigh.bsky.social · Aug 6

One Dark Window X Locke Lamora

Con everyone. Dodge dragons. Save her sister at any cost.

💥 Disaster-Bi Visually Impaired FMC
👀 Betrayal & Thievery
🐉 Dragons (who might eat you)
🕯️ Broken Magic
🔥 Burned Desert Palace
🤫 Everyone Has A Secret
🔮 Magic w/ Consequences
🥰 Found Family

#Q #A #F #questpit

Black and grey background of desert sands
Tan overlay that looks like torn paper with the title "The City of Dragon Glass Agent Guide". Upper right corner has an illustration of white jasmine and in the lower left a cream rose

Black and grey background of desert sands
Tan overlay that looks like torn paper with the title "The Pitch" and "#OWNVOICES"
Upper Left corner has an illustration of white jasmine, lower right has an image of green bay leaves
Pitch reads:
Deeply inspired by my experience of going blind, THE CITY OF DRAGON GLASS (98k) is a standalone adult fantasy featuring a disability-normative culture, a burned desert palace, and a morally-grey bisexual protagonist.

Nefeli's gift of sensing magical relics has made her a world-class thief, but tapping into her power comes with a cost: her vision. With every use of her magic, her degenerative eye disorder worsens. But when her sister's fragile health crumbles, Nefeli must choose: her sight or her sister's treatment. To earn the money needed, Nefeli agrees to a dangerous con posing as a noble at a political summit crawling with dragons and other powerful magic. She only has a fortnight to find a missing relic before the palace closes for another century. If she's going to succeed, she must rely on a former fling's help, despite the risk of him blowing her cover at any moment. And with her vision tunneling in, completing the job will force Nefeli to confront her biggest fear: without her sight, who is she?

Black and grey background of desert sands
Tan overlay that looks like torn paper with the title "Comps"
Upper Left corner has an illustration of white jasmine, lower right has an image of green bay leaves
Left Image: Cover of One Dark Window with text that reads "Broken Magic with Consequences"
Middle Image: Cover for A Dance of Lies with text that reads Everyone Has A Secret
Right Image: Cover fro Godkiller with text that reads Queer & Disability Rep

Black and grey background of desert sands
Tan overlay that looks like torn paper with the title "Snippet"
Upper Left corner has an illustration of white jasmine, lower right has an image of green bay leaves
Snippet reads: It would be a lie to say it was purely for that reason, though, that she memorized everything she saw. Every chance she got, she carved images into her mind—the way the port flags fluttered in the ocean breeze, the foamy white caps of waves, even the tiny footprints in the sand left by seabirds. She paid attention to the most mundane of images—the way someone's knuckles swelled from arthritis, the crescent curve of a smile, the way dirt looked when smudged across a forehead. Since she'd realized that one day her vision would go dark, she'd etched moments into her memory as deeply as she could, in hopes that they would never be stolen from her, even when she could no longer see.

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krista is writing like a maniac ❦ @kristaskrooked.bsky.social · Aug 6

#questpit #W #A #MY #H #T #blackbooksky

THEM x DON’T WORRY DARLING x LOVECRAFT COUNTRY

🍷unreliable narrator
🍷set in mid-50s
🍷out of body experiences with a side of body horror
🍷did you just eat glass?
🍷a mobster husband but at least he cute
🍷being black in white dominated areas
🍷do not blink

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Sophie Pinkoski @sophiemlpink.bsky.social · Aug 6

UMBRELLA ACADEMY x HILL HOUSE
For rockstar Aster Maddox, dying is as easy as breathing.Staying dead is the hard part.Eager to uncover the truth behind his divine intervention, he crashes an artists retreat.But the demon queen who has his answers is about to rock his every belief. #QuestPit #A #Q #H

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sydandthepen.bsky.social @sydandthepen.bsky.social · Aug 6

HOW TO BE EATEN x ADELAIDE

I can’t forget you. What you were to me. I can’t pretend everything didn’t happen.

🖋️ writers wish on a star comes true
💔 obsession, temptation, depression, oh my
🔥 toxic relationship
🌌 healing isn't pretty—but it is possible

#QuestPit #A #F #S #Q

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Kanani O’Kelly @kananiokelly.bsky.social · Aug 6

MOANA x SHADOW AND BONE

A refreshed introduction to WHISPERS OF THE SEA, a YA Fantasy that will embark soon on its query journey.

Featuring:
🌊 Native Hawaiian Rep
🌊 Cultural Identity
🌊 Setting as a Character

#QuestPit #YA #F #W #OwnVoices #AgentsGuide

A refreshed introduction to WHISPERS OF THE SEA, a YA Fantasy that will embark soon on its query journey.

Featuring:
Native Hawaiian Rep
Cultural Identity
Setting as a Character

The second slide showcases the pitch:

WHISPERS OF THE SEA follows the story of a teenage girl who embarks on a journey to rescue her uncle after he was mysteriously captured by a group of uniformed men sailing under the royal flags of a faraway kingdom.

Keahi must voyage across the seas to this distant isle where she’ll team up with a boy to track her uncle’s whereabouts. But in order to understand the dangers that lurk ahead, she’ll be forced to uncover a lifetime worth of secrets—and she must do so before it’s too late.

The third slide indicates that WHISPERS OF THE SEA might appeal to fans of: Disney’s Moana, Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo, and Curious Tides by Pascale Lacelle.

The book includes the following tropes/themes: found family, self-discovery within cultural identity, Hawaiian-inspired mythology, and adventure.

The final slide includes a snippet from the book that reads:

“Keahi’s legs were immobilized as her body tried to make the decision her mind could not. The feeling was strange for she had dreamt countless of times about leaving the island, only to seize the opportunity and awaken to find that she had been sold a nightmare instead.”

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Sara Duran ✨is querying✨ @saraduran.bsky.social · Aug 6

I’m excited to share this #pitchcard for THE PIRATE, THE PRINCESS, and JOHN, the YA fantasy novel I #amquerying, feat:

🏴‍☠️ LGBTQIA+ rep
👑 non-western setting
🌸 anti-colonial lens
🏴‍☠️ girls w/ swords
👑 besties-to-lovers
🌸 friendship > everything

#QuestPit #YA #F #LGBT #Q

A pitch card for YA fantasy The Pirate, The Princess, and John by @saraduranauthor, marked “Now Querying” with a gold star noting “5 full requests and counting.” The book is a standalone, complete at 82,000 words.

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Women Writers Network @womenwritersnet.bsky.social · Jul 23

New skies! We’ll be leaving Twitter/X and calling Bluesky our main home starting 1 September. Looking forward to thoughtful conversations - including monthly Bluesky chats! Thanks for finding us! #WritingCommunity

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K Matar @krystlematar.bsky.social · Jul 23

Surely if I move all of my furniture and rearrange all of my books, that will fix me. Right? Right??

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sydandthepen.bsky.social @sydandthepen.bsky.social · Jul 24

Sometimes I reread something I wrote and go: Who wrote this. She’s unwell. She’s a genius. I love her. I’m afraid of her. It’s me. Go me. 😅

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kitaki cinematic universe @attorneytrash.bsky.social · Feb 26

"pitch events are for pitching" false. they are for making cool new writer mutuals and wishing you could read their novels right this second

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Karen (they/them) is ✨querying✨ @karenaparker.com · Jul 13

CIRCE x THE SUN AND THE VOID

🌐POC-coded worldbuilding
💕queer-normative romance
⚔️enemies to lovers to enemies
💀creepy ancestral catacombs
🐍wise old snake spirit mentor
🧘‍♂️wrathful Buddhist energy
👑overburdened prince energy
🐦 feral bird woman doing feral things

#bluepit📖 #A #NA #F #Q #LGBT #POC #ND

Karen (they/them) is ✨querying✨ @karenaparker.com · Jul 13

N.K. JEMISIN x AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

A grieving witch, a righteous killer, and a conflicted prince must embrace their monstrosities in the coming war between their world’s old gods, or else they’ll never reach their destined collective enlightenment.

#bluepit📖 #A #NA #F #Q #LGBT #POC #ND

A mood board for #FeatherWIP featuring from left to right: The Taj Mahal, a dagger on an elaborately designed carpet, ripples of desert sand, black feathers, ocean waters, a rope with a knot, and Petra, Jordan mountain carvings. In the center box reads "Introducing #FeatherWIP, now querying @karenaparker.com".

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Cheyne & Sarah are querying 📜🖊️ @goodrenwrites.bsky.social · Jul 14

PRETTY LITTLE LIARS X GRAVITY FALLS

2012, Avira's Jr Year: The Apocalypse

Avira's trying to hold onto her crush & place in an art competition for a full ride scholarship. The catch? Her bff, competing for both her attention, and the scholarship.

#BluePit #BluePit 📖 #Q #YA #LGBT #PN #SP

A corkboard with multiple photos pinned up, some of them linked by red thread. In the top left is a photo of a rusted silo. A small sapling is inside, and has a lens flare glow off it. This photo has thread to a right hand photo of a snowy creek. The thread then veers back left to two photos of an ocher skinned girl on a motorbike. In the top center is a photo of two girls kissing. It is overlapped by a small blue heart with the words "I love you" and a photo of a rainbow obsidian arrowhead. A new thread comes off this photo, linking to a photo of three hands meeting for a first bump on a table. The other end of the thread links to a photo going out of frame of obsidian shards. In the top right there is a grayscale photo of a blurry girl with a bob cut. She is covering her face with a hand. In the very center a hand is holding up a photo of a smiling blonde and brunette. The photo is burned, with the largest burn rising between the two.

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💫Meagan Thompson-Mann is zhushing up her manuscript 🌿 @thecrumpet.bsky.social · Jul 14

THE RACHEL INCIDENT × GREEN DOT

SURFACE TENSION: As Jenny analyzes literary heroines who trade freedom for security, her professor's seductive brilliance lures her into the same trap. Academic theory turns to nightmarish praxis as her thesis begins reading like her diary. #UP #W #A #bluepit 📖

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Diamond Fore is ✨querying✨ @diamondf.bsky.social · Jul 13

ATLA x WICKED

Calypso must steal 12 divine amulets in order to regain her powers and seek revenge against her enemies.

Villain FMC
Hero MMC
Elemental Magic
Destroy the world, dont save it
Hate at first sight

#BluePit 📖 #Q #YA #F

A vilain rises pitched as ATLA x Wicked
Ya fantasy, 106k words the background is our solar system planets aligned in a straight line with starts on the outer edges

The pitch: Calypso must steak 12 divine amulets in order to regain her powers and seek revenge against her enemies. Pictures of four books: Heartless Hunter, One dark window, the prison healer, poweless the background is our solar system planets aligned in a straight line with starts on the outer edges

Themes: villain fmc, elemental magic, destroy the world, dont save it
Tropes: secret identity, forbidden love, hate at first sightthe background is our solar system planets aligned in a straight line with starts on the outer edges

First lines: Calypso Morana was five when her world burned.
Later that cruel night, with tears and ash staining her face, she vowed every person involved in the destruction of her realm would die by her hands.
Thirteen years later, that time has come.

The night is still as Calypso plunges her dagger into the bark of a Red Tree, carving deeper as the trunk squirms with each cut. Thick branches above her shake, dropping a crop of crimson leaves in protest. A low warning echoes from the depths beneath the soil as the ground shifts. Slowly a root snaps up, lifting itself to freedom, slithering toward her like an eyeless serpent.

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R. A. Ruhl is Querying🌙 @raruhl.bsky.social · Jul 14

#BluePit 📖 #A #Q #H #DIS #LGBT
HALF SICK OF SHADOWS: Gothic horror, 19th cent setting w modern diversity. Inspired by Dracula w Lovecraftian tone. 2 friends working at a remote manor must uncover bloody secrets and resist seductive nightmares to oppose robber barons that physically drain the people.

A moodboard with 9 pictures. In order from left to right, top to bottom: a frozen white flower, a first quarter moon, a drinking glass with drops of blood, a golden mask, iron gates that lead to a mansion, a violin, a broken mirror with the reflection of a hand, a foggy evergreen forest, and a yellow flower on a striking dark background.

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Ji 🪚 @sawduhst.bsky.social · Jul 14

while i have one story pitch left…

“A scientist and a painter set out to bring color back to their black and white world.”

#Bluepit #Bluepit💥 #NA #SF #W #LGBT #TR

(i’ve had yet to post these pages publicly until now, surprise!!)

the cover image presenting the story pitch of “Color Theory.” it has the logline and working synopsis. There is an illustration of a potential cover on the right. the logline and synopsis will be pasted below:

“A scientist and a painter set out to bring color back to their black-and-white world.”

This story explores how we observe the world; how we examine it, experience it, and finding the value in doing both. Artist’s and scientists alike try to explain the unexplainable, Color Theory examines where these two schools of thought differ and align.

Dr. Key and Robin are transported to a world made purely of color, tasked with repairing a broken glass prism in order to return home & bring color back to earth. They must encounter every hue on the color wheel and adhere to their demands in order to acquire each prism piece.

the second page of the Color Theory story pitch, containing 3 sample pages. these pages depict scenic views of prehistoric earth, showing how nature manages to enact illusions (venus flytraps, tree ocelots, walking leaves, possums, and poisonous elderberries looking similar to blueberries). We then follow a group of dinosaurs, focusing on two brontosaurus’ while the dialogue talks about how the most powerful illusion nature enacts is continuity. The last panel follows a group of pterodactyls.

page 3 of the story pitch for Color Theory containing 3 more sample pages. the dialogue within these pages talk about how prehistoric creatures are used to the idea of balance and being at equilibrium with nature. At this point, color was still around. Color is then explained to have been a driving force for evolution back then. Scientists today weren’t certain if it was meant for communication, protection, or both/more. The last page follows two orange butterflies flying towards an incoming asteroid. The dialogue says that color is far beyond humanity’s comprehension now.

The 4th and last set of sample pages for Color Theory’s story pitch. The first page shows the impact of the asteroid depicted in the last page. The dialogue explains that after the asteroid hit earth and the smoke had dissipated over a matter of years, color was no longer visible. The following page zooms out from a tv on top of a bookshelf, suggesting that the previous exposition was told through a nature documentary. The remaining pages are now in complete greyscale. The remaining page shows a wide shot of our main characters bedroom, dialogue from the television continuing to explain that humans are in a similar place to the dinosaurs back then— under the assumption that the world is at balance with us, despite not knowing if something life changing or world bending can happen the next day.

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