Do you have an idea for a book? A manuscript you’re trying to publish? This is your chance to put your creativity to the test! Come give a one-minute elevator pitch to a panel of experienced editors and agents for real-time Shark Tank-style feedback, or come to watch how it’s done. Book pitching has never been this fun!

$15 or FREE for Paragraph Members*

IMPORTANT: This event is in-person and virtual. If you are pitching your book virtually, you must email your pitch by Noon on June 5th to info@paragraphny.com. Here’s a handy guide for pitching your book at Pitch Wars (and in general).

Our judges: 

RENÉE ZUCKERBROT (literary agent) of Massie & McQuilkin became an agent after working as an editor at Doubleday. She is a member of the AAR and Authors Guild. She serves on PEN‘s Membership Committee, and is a Board member of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) and Slice Magazine. You can read an interview with Renée and her colleagues at Poets & Writers and see her top ten list of short stories at Storyville. Authors represented by Renée have won or been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, the PEN Jacqueline Bograd Weld Prize for Biography, the National Magazine Award, the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award, B&N’s Discover Great New Writers Award, the Story Prize, the PEN/O. Henry Prize, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Locus, the Hugo, the Nebula, the Pushcart, and others.

BRENDA COPELAND (editor) is an editor with more than twenty years’ experience at the big five publishers and over ten years’ experience as an adjunct professor in the graduate publishing program at NYU. She has published a robust list of fiction and non-fiction, quality books with strong commercial appeal, including The Good House by Ann Leary,  Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks, and A Big Little Life, Dean Koontz’s first non-fiction book. Now an independent editor, she works closely with authors through all stages of the writing and publication process, helping them reach their creative potential. 

DANA ISAACSON (editor) works with major publishers, literary agents, published writers and debut writers. In addition to conceptual editing and line-by-line edits, he has book-doctored numerous projects and ghost-written novels. Most recently at Penguin Random House, Dana has also worked at Pocket Books/Simon and Schuster and ReganBooks/HarperCollins. His experience in New York City book publishing includes editing both fiction and non-fiction. He has abridged books and worked as a literary agent. Dana’s writing has appeared in The New York Observer, the New York Times (syndicated in Palm Beach Post, Seattle Times and Fort Worth Star-Telegram), and the Racine Journal Times. Dana also blogs on the website CareerAuthors.com—named by Writer’s Digest in 2020 as the #2 “Best Writing Advice Website.” He has a BA from the University of Wisconsin and lives in New York City’s East Village.

*Paragraph Members: look for Zoom link in your inbox (check spam/promotions) a few days ahead of this event.