Katherine Parker Richmond

The Door to Yesterday by Katherine Parker Richmond

I’m Amelia. The year I turned fifteen sucked. Turns out losing our house in Seattle and having to move to Grandpa Gus’ ranch in Ellensburg was only the beginning.

The second week at my new high school, I got pranked by Darcy Malinger. When I refused to let her copy my paper on The Crucible for our honors English class, she switched my conditioner with hair remover during P.E. My hair came out in big clumps, all over the floor of the girls’ locker room. Since then, my mom is homeschooling me—which might as well be death by boredom, chained to the kitchen table all day.

I thought my life would never get better, until I discovered a way to go back and change it. Now I hold the key to the door to yesterday.

Complete at 69,000 words, THE DOOR TO YESTERDAY is a fresh take on the Mel’s Hole urban legend. It stands alone as a YA with strong series potential.

About the author: Katherine has been losing herself in books since second grade, when Mrs. Crawford gave her detention for reading clear through the Pledge of Allegiance. That same year, she started a journal filled with poetry, short stories, and the harrowing confessions of a frizzy-haired word-nerd who’d rather squint at life than wear glasses. More recently, her poems have appeared in the Boston Literary Magazine, Segullah, and Everyday Poets. THE DOOR TO YESTERDAY is her first novel.

 

The Book Doctors: This pitch has a great voice. It’s fun. Describing homeschooling as “death by boredom” is great. It convinces me you are a writer who can write the heck out of this book. And the subject matter is familiar, but it feels like you’ve made it your own. I like the prank, but it feels like it needs a punch line. Something like: “So I had to walk around looking like a hairless Chihuahua.” But there’s not enough here. What’s so cool about your way of going back and changing history? As you see from looking at these pitches, time travel stories are a dime a dozen. What are the fun and unexpected things that happen? What nutty danger is our plucky heroine going to get herself into? What books is this one like? There’s just not enough of a story here for me to invest in yet. I’m sure you have the goods; you just need to show them to me.