Katie Collan

BABEL ON CALLISTO Querying February 2025 @saraduranauthor sara.duran@bsky.social COMPS The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, labeled “isolated research station” and “philosophical alien threat.” The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw, labeled “queer, visceral horror” and “love as a consuming force.” The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei, labeled “psychological unraveling” and “fracture under mission pressure.” PITCH “On a lunar prison outpost, two exiled men uncover a cosmic presence waking beneath the ice. As their uneasy alliance against it twists into something tender and terrifying, they are confronted with the one thing they never expected to find on a dead moon: a reason to live. But the ice is thinning.” TASTE “Neither spoke as Elias bypassed the security protocol on the keypad. The metal hatch shuddered as it unlocked, slinking back to hidden panels in the wall. They cleared the first few floors with carrion precision, methodical as Dermestidae stripping a carcass to bone. In Elias’s imagination, the gore thinned into something vaster—the time-lapse unraveling the ruin from above. Wordlessly, corridors were scoured to nothing as he and Jack moved like insects beneath an overhead lens. As the hours dissolved, their work became abstracted into a cold anatomy, intimacy pared away as cleanly as flesh from the frame until only the architecture of survival remained. When Jack hacked into the collapsed doorway to the next stairwell, Elias marveled at the contradiction: how those same brutal hands had, only that morning, traced him with the delicacy of a scalpel.”

Coming soon to agent inboxes!

• • •

ANNIHILATION x BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

💫two exiled men (and their secrets)
💫one lunar prison (and its horrors)
💫a cosmic entity that wants them dead
💫the love they’ll lose if they don’t survive

#SF #H #R #LGBT #amquerying #QuestPit

An Agent Guide to GUMIHO 86,000 word adult folklore fantasy blended with horror and romance By Jennifer Luce

The pitch: Cursed with a vengeful gumiho, Mina has spent centuries feeding it souls to become a god—and now she needs just one more, but when she falls for her final target, she must choose: face her demons and sever the curse before the gumiho consumes her from the inside out, or achieve godhood and lose herself to become something truly monstrous.

For fans of... SUCH SHARP TEETH by Rachel Harrison - physical transformation & emotional vulnerability THE FOX WIFE by Yangsze Choo - East Asian Folklore MY DEMON - Redemption through connection THE GLORY - Morally gray anti-hero

First Lines Bright droplets of red bloomed against the crisp, white snow. A trail, unbeknownst to my victim, that would lead to his demise.

Hi #Questpit! Nearly done w/ SmoochPit revisions, here's GUMIHO, my Korean folklore-inspired adult fantasy blended w/ horror & romance!

✨️ Selected for the 2025 Smoochpit Mentorship Program
✨️ Big 5 Editor Interest
✨️ Won 3rd in the horror category of the 2025 PNWA Writing Contest

#A #F #H #R

The image, made with free non-AI stock pictures, 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.

CABIN IN THE WOODS × JOHN DIES AT THE END

When their detective friend is murdered at 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 supernatural campaign.

#QuestPit #A #H #MY #Q

Here's my second-chance, forced proximity, slowburn, autumnal Edinburgh, with the bet trope romance novel, DON'T FORGET ME.

💻 she's a hispanic tortured writer & poet
🎥 he's a producer offering her a movie deal
💔 but he's a ghost from her past
#Q #R #NA #amquerying #questpit

PACIFIC RIM X THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES
Caden Fitzgerald is drawn into a world of Fairies and Giant Robots all connecting to his estranged mother. He'll need the help of a fairy named Pease Blossom to clear his name when accused of stealing the giant robot Gnome.
#MG #F #Q #QuestPit

Clover’s stretched thin before the dreams start. Her family’s faking prosperity to save their hamlet & her empathic ability wear her down as the town’s superstition stirs. When a wraith invades her sleep, she must face a century of lies before it claims more.
#questpit #YA #H #DF

Clockwise from top left: a girl dancing in the woods, a creepy house, a fire monster, creepy forest, a black bird and an abandoned factory.

IT X THE WEIGHT OF BLOOD: Max finds 2 photos, taken years apart & quests to unravel the mystery of the girl in the pics & her link to 7 missing girls while tangling w/ the eldritch horror their crazed cult leader murderer unleashed on the world. #questpit #YA #H #T #MY #Q

Poster for Sea Curser (Speculative Adult Fiction, 76,000 words) Themes and Tropes: Closed-Setting, Folklore, Contemporary, Mythical Creatures, Loss & Reconciliation, Remote Island, Maine, Women's Retreat, Ancient Curses Summary: What ancient evil resides within Rose Bluff Island’s iconic pink granite? Hoping to decompress after the death of her mother, Nan attends a retreat at an idyllic Maine Inn. But nothing has prepared her for the arrival of Faye, who claims she is Nan’s half-sister. As she struggles to navigate her relationship with Faye—and the back-stabbing women at the retreat—a series of dramatic events occurs. Connectivity is severed. The island’s causeway disappears. And the island drifts out to sea. When guests vanish, and Faye is attacked by a beast, Nan is warned of a cursed Creature of the sea. But the Creature is not the only one on the island who is cursed…

It's #QuestPit Day! 🖊️

Ready to query.. SEA CURSER (Adult Speculative)

What ancient evil waits off Maine's iconic coastline... 🌊

⏺️Closed-Setting
🌲Remote Island
🤬Ancient Curses
🧜‍♀️Folklore & Coastal Mythology
🙏Loss & Reconciliation

#A #S #Q #agentsguide #amquerying #writesky #writingcommunity

An underprivileged girl must overcome long-held biases to prove herself as a Lily Maid, perfume magic ambassadors, but her predecessor’s death threatens all that she desires, and she fails to outdo the former Lily’s loveliness. #Questpit #Q #YA #SFF

🧴Perfume magic
🏠 Sentient house
💃Masquerade ball

THE DARK CURSE

What would you do if you found yourself in the world of your favourite game? It’s a dream come true for Miles Porter, whose reality has been shattered.

The only problem with dreams is that you have to wake up some time.

#questpit #q #mg #fantasy

Meet the Main Characters of SIRENSONG

ELLIE Art of a woman with short, wavy brunette hair wearing a black leather jacket, a tshirt and jeans, with silver glowing eyes. Sharp-tongued and disillusioned, hating the system and her job within it, she stumbled into her mind control powers by accident - but now they might be the only way to find the man who tore her family apart. Only, vigilantism is harder than it looks, and as the crime and corruption of Emerald City threatens her most steadfast relationships, she's also got to contend with her all-consuming need for revenge and those pesky unexpected feelings for a vigilante with plenty of secrets of his own. Fun Facts: Full name: Eleanor Diana Montgomery Lives on a diet of caffeine and inner rage Can play guitar Her short temper often gets her in trouble Song: Sympathy Magic, Florence and the Machine

THE SHADOW OF EMERALD CITY Art of a muscular, blond man wearing intricate black armor. His face is half covered by a black, fanged mask. His mission is simple: end the corruption rotting at the top of Emerald City, one greedy billionaire at a time. Bring justice for the disadvantaged and the unheard. Make sure nothing gets in his way - not even himself. But then he meets a stubborn, fearless new superhero who slowly begins to get past his broody exterior, sparring match by sparring match. Problem is, his identity is a massive secret lurking beneath the surface, and uncovering it may threaten the very mission he's dedicated his life to. Fun facts: Full name: scratched out, says NO. Looks like he could kill you, could actually kill you Mostly fluent in half a dozen languages Has a soft spot for cats (and girls who aren't afraid of him) Song: Dust Bowl Dance, Mumford and Sons

THEO Art of a man with shaggy brunette hair, gold eyes, and a humorous smile. He is wearing a blue windbreaker with gold buttons, a button down shirt, and khaki pants. Full of sunshine, optimism, and deeply repressed trauma, he tries to live life on the brighter side - he has to, or else. Filled with a need to help people, he wants to keep everyone safe while bringing the man who tore his own family apart to justice. Not even his teleportation is enough to keep her from leaping into danger on his behalf, and he can't do anything but watch as new relationships put her in a brand new kind of danger. Between his morals, his goals, and his family, something has to give eventually - something not even he can outrun. Fun Facts: Full name: Theodore Apollo Montgomery Just as chaotic as his sister, but better at hiding it Can play drums Inner core of steel Song: I'm Still Here (Jim's Version) by John Rzeznik

Meet the main characters of SIRENSONG (114k), which follows Ellie, a traumatized rookie superhero takes her accidental powers on a quest for vengeance alongside her optimistic twin Theo and the Shadow of Emerald City, the dark-yet-alluring vigilante who's agreed to train her.

#questpit #SF #NA #Q

Clockwise from top left: Led Zeppelin, the kids from Bobs Burgers,the suburbs, vinyl records and Thanksgiving.

COOP KNOWS THE SCOOP X BOB’S BURGERS: #MG kids on bikes adventure i. 2 timelines:

1995: Friends find out their parents were in a band together & search for their hit album.

2025: Their kids hear about said album & go on a quest to find the lost recordings. #questpit #W

A collage of ocean, coastal academic images with droplets of fantasy and mystery.

BENEATH THE WHISPERING COVE is a gothic coastal fantasy about a young woman’s quest to uncover a missing book of folktales and secure her research funding.

The misty water-logged mystery of A STUDY IN DROWNING with the folkloric richness of A DARK AND DROWNING TIDE

#questpit #YA #F

Sammy is running from his mother's ghost, but there's only so many places to hide in his small town. When a charismatic newcomer shows up, he finds the escape he's been looking for – but the further Sammy's drawn from his family, the more the edges of reality begin to blur.
#Questpit #Agentguide #YA

A moodboard for The Slow Burn, featuring side profiles of a man and woman individually and together, as well as atmospheric images including a Christmas tree farm, an event tablescape, a Christmas tree, and sparks from a fire.

THE SLOW BURN (80k words)

She’s an event planner up for a promotion. He’s a firefighter and her dad is his chief. They’re planning the fire dept’s holiday gala and agree to a no-strings fling 👀🚒🎄

Small town
Holiday romance
Found family
MMC in uniform
Slow burn

#amquerying #questpit #a #r #q

Hopeful rebel and charismatic sailor race to save the cosmos from climate disaster. Optimistic politics, ancient swords, easy romances, and unlikely friendships form a thoughtful romp through the “Veins of the Ether”. What’s more important: a revolution, or what comes after?

#questpit #sff #f #sf

A 9 by 9 grid of pictures including a Los Angeles skyline with a plane over it, a multiracial lesbian couple, a meteor shower over Joshua Tree, a star on the Walk of Fame, and a faded polaroid of a married straight couple.

MARGO'S GOT MONEY TROUBLES meets THE ANIMATORS in this #Upmarket #LGBTQ #A #LF novel about a failed actor, her successful girlfriend, an estranged family, and a life-changing audition. #Q #POC #questpit

MARK OF A MAGPIE is #OnSubmission! 🐦‍⬛📖

🐦‍⬛ Romantic Fantasy with Politics
📖 Assassin x Thief
🐦‍⬛ Unlikely Allies to Lovers
📖 Women’s Wrongs
🐦‍⬛ LGBTQ+ and Mental Health Rep
📖 Forced Proximity
🐦‍⬛ Class Differences
📖 Secret Codes
🐦‍⬛ Murders at Court

#QuestPit #EditorsGuide
#OS #Editors

Conversations with Readers #1; Reader: “I am very emotionally invested in the Ava/Cole relationship already (insert crying emoji) Ima need them to work things out or I might actually cry” insert three crying emojis. Me: “Maybe they do, maybe they don’t?” insert girl shrugging emoji. Reader: “I will be reading tonight until I have to go to sleep,” insert nervous emoji. Conversations with Readers #2; Reader: “Also sorry it’s taken me a minute, today I’ve been able to sit down and actually read read and I cannot put it down!” Conversation with Readers #3; Reader: “Not you booping the goddess of memories” insert laughing emoji, crying emoji, laughing emoji, “I may or may not have laughed out loud in a very quiet room when I read that part” insert three laughing emojis Conversation with Readers #4; Reader: “I’ve been resisting the urge to text you so many times because I didn’t want to blow up your phone,” insert laughing emoji, “I’ve been out here laughing, crying, all the things.” Conversation with Readers #5; Reader: “The consequences were so perfect considering the (expletive) they did to get themselves there in the first place” insert OK gesture, “And I really did love it so much for real,” insert crying emoji x3 and 3 heart emojis, “I couldn’t put it down, I had to know what was happening!” Conversation with Readers #6; Reader: “I love Waffles so much,” insert crying emoji x3, “I just picture Oakley with two heads, growing fifteen feet tall with spikes and scary teeth,” nervous emoji, crying emoji. Me: “Rawr” insert laughing emoji Reader: Also (expletive) Katarina and creepy (expletive) Jeff. And Demeter for that matter.” Me: insert laughing emojis, “Yeah they’re awful.” Reader: “I have so many things to talk to you about, so many emotions,” (insert crying and nervous emojis).

PERCY JACKSON w/ the daughter of Hades X 🧠health = GIRL, INTERRUPTED X THE NOTEBOOK😵🐉💋

Fighting inner demons, lost memories & actual monsters, can Ava unlock her past to save the realms?

✍️82K #A #F #DF w/ #RF #R #PR & #H
📖Retelling myths
🎶Vibes m.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
📸Readers👇
#questpit #Q

Early Magic; images: images of young women, a magical book, a coastline, bottles on a shelf, a dark forest

🧹 EARLY MAGIC 🧹

🏄‍♀️ California vibes
😡 Frenemies to enemies
🎭 Opening night drama
❣️ Romantic debacles

#QuestPit #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #Q #F #YA #Querying #witch

If the king of Adarlan had raised Aelin Galathynius

Katerina's shadow magic has thrust her into the heart of a war, where she must decide between absolute power at a nation's expense or destroying the king who made her.

#QuestPit #Q #F #YA

Introducing an updated #agentsguide for A KINGDOM TO DROWN ME

✨Arab folklore & exploration of the myth of djinn
💎Unique magic system & world
🪞Explores inner demons & mental health
⚖️Corruption & greed as central to conflict
🧿23 full requests

#questpit #Q #RF #agentguide

Moodboard for ALL ABOARD: a shadowed knife, a train with headlights on in the snow, a screaming, indistinct face, a skull in a palm, mist-capped mountains

Features: forced proximity, unreliable narration, f/f enemies to lovers, power and influence, survival, identity and paranoia. Pitch: When Sam Hambrook, heir to the Hambrook potato chip fortune, is found poisoned and stabbed aboard his family's snowed-in train, his ex-fiancee, Poppy, scrambles to solve the crime despite interference from her brother, Lars—whose desperation to cover up that he stabbed Sam is merging with a haunting only he can see.

Snippet for ALL ABOARD: The lamp flickers and a strange energy thrums through the train. Panic claws at my insides. I sense it before I see it: a hooded figure gliding through the closed gangway door. It leeches the forest green from the wallpaper and the gleam from the mahogany hardwoods as it drifts toward me, leaving a drab gray in its wake, and why oh why is no one else so much as flinching? Why is Poppy still asking investigative questions over Sam’s dead body? I’m the only one who can see it. The only one it can terrorize.

Comp books: "We Used to Live Here," "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Train from Platform 2," "Hamlet"

TRAIN FROM PLATFORM 2 X WE USED TO LIVE HERE X TELL-TALE HEART

Hamlet, flipped on its head
Dual POV (sibs Ophelia & Laertes)
A private train to a will reading
2 snowed-in murders & a haunting
F/F enemies to lovers to—

❄️Querying soon❄️

#questpit #agentsguide #A #T #H #W

When Gio’s BFF Sky falls down a sinkhole into another world, Gio follows to save her, but after becoming stuck herself, Gio must rely on her wit and D&D knowledge to survive, rescue Sky, and get them both back home. #QuestPit #YA #Q portal #F #agentsguide

Mood board for the book The Final Chapter: Halloween candy, white and black cat, blonde girl in flannel with a pumpkin, crime scene tape, murder board, Harley Quinn, police car, books with a single light bulb hanging down.

QUEER NANCY DREW
17-yr-old Emmie has the coolest job at an indie bookstore with her sapphic crush, but when her archenemy dies during her mom’s book event, all eyes are turned towards her. She needs to get her life back & not get killed in the process.
#Questpit #Q #YA #MY #LGBT

many women dressed identically standing in rows behind a man giving a speech behind a podium decorated with the female reproductive organs. In the foreground, a woman with a mark on her neck also dressed identically to the others.

In a nation where every woman must bear children, serve as a state surrogate, or worse, one young clerk begins to question the only truth she’s ever known: her body was never her own. #questpit #S #H #W

A moodboard for the dark fantasy, GODCAT, featuring liminal spaces, black cats, and a magpie's eye.

SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN x PIRANESI

A cat is drowned by her owner. Reborn as a human-shaped godling, she competes to ascend to godhood for revenge—until she meets a godling who knows things about her only her owner could've known.
#Questpit #A #F #H #DF #W #DIS #POC

Clockwise from upper left: a Jeep Wrangler, skier doing a trick, skiers, skiers relaxing, an indigo prom dress and a ski slope.

HALLMARK by Kevin Smith x NEVER EVERS: Framed as a mix tape & set in a 90s ski town, two teens from rival schools fall in love amid their friends’ shenanigans all while working to fulfill their dreams: he as a writer, she as an Olympic skier. Male fat positive. #YA #R #Q #questpit

75k YA Satirical Dystopian Fantasy 99 WAYS TO GET EX-SPELLED (WITHOUT COMMITTING MURDER By Victoria Jayne 星星亚

The Pitch Anarchocommunist, OCD-ridden Posey Peabody has been drafted into the American Army Academy for Powerful Witches. By entry stats she's the Winner--First Rank of her class. All is well as can be until Amelia Appleton takes her Rank with reckless, dangerous, wrong magic. And then Appleton doesn't get expelled. Competitive streak activated, Posey and Appleton engage in reckless, rule-breaking acts of magic and mischief. While trading First Rank between each other, Posey realizes that Appleton might not be such a weirdo after all. In fact, she's annoyingly pretty. That said, Appleton's got her eye on that government position through all this, and Posey would rather die than work for the fascists in charge. Posey's intention is to truly get expelled. She wants to be the first one to do it. Meanwhile, an underground betting ring rises up, classmates betting on whether or not Posey will have to kill someone to get expelled. Posey hopes it's not true, but whether or not she finds out is entirely up to her.

FIRST LINE SNIPPET Somewhere behind the stage, Headmaster Josephus Crimble is puking his guts out. I remind myself that it's okay if I start to count and stop myself after the limit, so long as I don't make it to ten. If you make it to ten, the limit goes down by one, Posey. Don't forget. I started at five hundred. Drifting through the rest of the day in this half-there state, I sit with my feelings locked tight in a jar of my own design. Ґ1l preserve my emotions like lemons, until they're laden with salt and mellowed in their sourness. That feeling, or lack thereof, feels warm as home to me, and my deep yearning for Nukeville ebbs into a soft ache that gently rubs my heart into a smoother, steadier rhythm. There will be no need for counting when there's no feeling to (dis)regulate.

#questpit here’s my #agentsguide to 99 WAYS TO GET EXSPELLED (WITHOUT COMMITTING MURDER), a sapphic ya satirical dystopian fantasy that dares to ask the question:

What if The Bomb gave people nuclear magic?

#w #d #f #lgbt #ya #ownvoices