#PitMad on Twitter — first experience

Georgia NeSmith
3 min readMar 9, 2020

#PitMad on Twitter — first experience

[Please scroll all the way down to In other news: for more on where things are with my memoir.]

Recently I took an online course on finding an agent and/or publisher, in preparation for the #PitMad challenge on Twitter this weekend [March 5/6/2020]. The challenge happens quarterly. Hundreds of agents & a few publishers use these 280 character tweets in search of potential new clients.

The #PitMad hashtag identifies the entries. Supposedly they will at least skim your pitches. You get up to three pitches for one book. Other hashtags like #NF, #Mem, etc., identify genre.

If they are interested in receiving a formal query, they give you a heart.

I used only two hashtags — #PitMad and #Mem [for memoir] — mostly because I needed 280 characters for my pitches!

My three:

1] My favorite:

She thought it was a dream. She remembered the dream all her life. She was locked in a dungeon by a wicked witch, and forced to eat baby alligators.

After her mother died, she realized it wasn’t a dream.

It was the only way she could remember the truth.

#PitMad #Mem

2] Second Favorite [actually a tie with others]

Deep inside my chest, a scream took hold. I shook uncontrollably. My lungs felt flooded, & I coughed so hard it seemed my lungs would explode. It lasted 15 mins.

At 45 I finally understood why I tried to kill myself. At 65 I remembered my mother’s role in it.

3] Second favorite favorite [tie]

Sexually abused at 5, narcissist hubby at 20, nearly strangled by boyfriend post divorce, nearly raped again at 35. Sigh. Another #meToo story.

But this one is about finding my own power.

Post traumatic GROWTH, as my therapist calls it.

Georgia NeSmith

Retired professor, feminist, writer, photographer, activist, grandmother of 5, overall Wise Woman. Phd UIA School of Journalism & Mass Communication, 1994.