@elissadickey.bsky.social
Author of The Speed of Light and Iris in the Dark (out now) Across the Earth and Sky (coming soon) 📚 | MS warrior 🧡 https://linktr.ee/elissagrosselldickey
bsky.app/profile/elis...
31.01.2026 20:28 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Threading my other #questpit posts: bsky.app/profile/elis...
31.01.2026 20:28 — 👍 19 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 0
An agent's guide to love and mud
Familiar tropes in wild places
Reader reviews
An agent's guide to Love and Mud
*Tropes*
*Reader reviews*
*vibes*
#Q currently querying
#R love in wild places
#A medium spiced
#questpit
An #agentsguide to my contemporary romance, DEFINITELY NOT A BUCKET LIST featuring:
🚗Tension-filled road trip
💉Illness rep
🌄Coastal Canadian landscape
⛴️Boat ride in costume
📝(Not) a bucket list
#questpit #Q #A #R
Thread of my #questpit pitches bsky.app/profile/magg...
31.01.2026 14:58 — 👍 62 🔁 19 💬 1 📌 0
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
Pitch: When the chosen Empress is assassinated, her disabled and gutsy ex-girlfriend must triumph over a dysfunctional family of ancient gods or submit to fulfilling the chosen’s grim fate as the gods’ eternal slave and weapon against mortals. 94,000 words Crossover Fantasy Comps: T. Kingfisher’s Nettle & Bone Damsel (2024 film) Hannah Kaner’s Godkiller Margaret Owen’s Little Thieves
Moodboard: Dark fantasy Victorian vibes with purple color composition. Top row, left-to-right: a Byronic handsome man in black, a palace, a dark figure burning in hellfire, a masked female assassin of dark complexion holding a dagger, a serpentine forest trail at night marked with red flowers. At the center, next to a silver plume, is the text: “This world, my dear, is the slaughterhouse of noble ideals.” Bottom row, left-to-right: a dark gaslit street, a gaslit city blanketed in coal smog at night, a young woman in a Victorian gown, wrought-iron gates opened to a foreboding foggy estate in the dark, a trail of red petals leading to a dark stone temple gate.
Themes & Tropes: - Forbidden Love - Hot Banter - Feminine Rage - Anti-Chosen - Found Family - Second Chances - Dark Humor - Identity - Friends-to-lovers - Faustian Bargain - Choosing vs. being chosen - Dual-Timeline Representation: - LGBTQIA+ - BIPOC - Mental Health - Disability - Neurodivergence - Chronic Illness
Excerpt: A gaunt mouse snatched bread crumbs from my lunch tray. I did not have the heart to give her a name, afraid I might lose her, too. The lingering scent of mud and mildew hung in the air, a long-forgotten tomb. The bed’s cast-iron rods dug into my ribs through the thin mattress. I clenched my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering and pulled the threadbare blanket tighter around my body, hugging my knees to my chest. It did little against the chill creeping into my bones. The raging blizzard had transformed the courtyard into a churning white sea, rattling the broken window shutters hanging askew. I was not allowed visitors or to set foot outside. The faded floral pattern of the peeling wallpaper was my only reminder of life beyond these walls. The medications I was forced to swallow left a cotton taste in my mouth and a dull ache in my skull. At least no screams echoed through the halls today.
An empress with disability. A Dragon hoarding romance novels. A dysfunctional family of gods. Not the start of a joke, but Sy's undoing. When her ex, the chosen one, is murdered, feisty Sy fights the gods to escape a fate worse than death: becoming their eternal slave.
#questpit #Q #F #BIPOC #LBGT
Love and Mud, contemporary romance
Love and mud, contemporary romance
Love and mud, contemporary romance
Love and Mud is for those of us who want a little adventure with their romance.
Written with The Novelry, currently querying with 8 full requests out!
#Q #A #R #questpit
Thank you!!
31.01.2026 16:41 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
AMARI x LOKI
Kori, 12, finds herself stuck in a cryfest & painful menty b's after her mom dies
When a meteor opens a portal, doppelgängers chase her. Kori learns their fates are bound & her grief transcends the multiverse
Now, Kori must save herself — from herself!
#QuestPit #MG #S #SF #Q #POC
screenshots of the following pieces of feedback on google docs: this all feels really believable. the setting, the college, gym, classes, all of that feel like I am very firmly there. This is HOT. This is great! Like the best friend already. Soooo cute I love this passage. EEEK, they kissed! Great line! LOL I love this joke, Literally I chuckled out loud. So funny. I chuckled too! I love that they will fall in love while working out together. It's sexy!
Alpha and beta reader feedback for AT YOUR PACE, a new adult contemporary sports romance.
It's made three people other than me laugh aloud so far, and hopefully more one day! If you want an ARC just dm me I just want people to enjoy this thing I wrote :)
#QuestPit #Q #R #NA
Thank you!!
31.01.2026 16:39 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
SAPPHICS GONE GIRL IN SPACE
When grieving widow Amani wakes up half way through a century long space mission, she must uncover the mystery of why she was awoken in the first place, haunted by an android with her dead wife's eyes.
#questpit #SF #Q #D
Book cover of ocean waves crashing against the shore – You have to go back; enemies to lovers; the haunting of maddy clare + the guest list; gothic vibes; murder mystery; pitch: Twenty years after a study abroad trip ended in tragedy, Rosie returns to Ireland to ind the truth and must face her haunted past—and a real haunting—as she teams up with a handsome local man to solve a murder.
A collage of book-related images including a woman in the water, the Irish coast, a cottage, and a couple embracing.
GUEST LIST+HAUNTING OF MADDY CLARE+LEAP YEAR
Haunted by her past, Rosie must team up with a handsome local man to solve a murder—and outrun the monstrous presence stalking them across the Irish countryside.
🖤Gothic
🖤Enemies to lovers
🖤Murder mystery
📚Querying #agents now!
#QuestPit #A #H #Dis #Q
When brainbox amputee Laura befriends a pirate in the supermarket, the new cabin girl must solve clues, defeat villains, placate sulky macaws AND win the day in court to save everyone she cares about.
#Questpit 📖 #Q #MG #M #Adv #DIS #Hu
THE LITTLE MERMAID meets APPALACHIAN HORROR
When Lily, a shadow-demon bound to the underworld, triggers an ancient prophecy, she must navigate a cult devoted to her estranged mother or become the catalyst that destroys her family and the Ozarks
#QuestPit #A #H #F #DF #Q
THE HAAR x SLEWFOOT
In SHEDDING SKIN, two men forced into molds make a deal to fix them both.
🇩🇪 Germanic folklore inspired m/m romance
🩼 Disability rep
❤️🩹 Intimacy through healing
#WIP #HR #FR #lgbtq #questpit
A collage of book-related images including a woman in the water, the Irish coast, a cottage, and a couple embracing.
LEAP YEAR, but haunted
Rosie's travel to-do list:
🇮🇪 Return to Ireland
💀 Solve a murder
💚 Try not to fall for the mysterious local man
🧟♀️ Escape the monstrous presence stalking her
📚 Querying now - #agents, please reach out if you'd like to see it! 📚
#QuestPit #A #H #Horromance #R #Dis #Gothic #Q
This visual is text over character art of the MC’s past and present selves reaching out for each other through a reflective pool. One is in modern clothes with female silhouettes behind him. One is in ancient robes. Red ribbons reminiscent of strings of fate flutter in the air around them. The text reads: YEARS OF RED TEARS 100,000 mord literary historical fantasy David Copperfield meets Asian timeslip dramas and slice-of-life isekai. MAX spontaneously dies and is reborn as a noble in an alternate ancient East Asia. Loveless and accomplishment-deprived in his first life, he now seeks true love and comfort despite familial obligations and supposedly being cursed to harm those he treasures.
THEMES & TROPES - mixed-Asian character and LGBTQIA+ rep - East Asian history and fairytales inspo - sentient nature - family trauma leading to self-doubts - modern day man vs. traditional values - loser then vs. overly popular now - love vs. obligation - undying trust vs. expected betrayal - chance meetings and destined partings - timeless societal and familial pressures - pen pals and soulmates - sentimental and indecisive man surrounded by women who know what they want
![EXCEPTS
(1) Nana shook her head. "You can't live only for me."
"But you're my Hana. That's Eastern Tongue for flower, you know. My flower. I want to go where you go, stay where you stay. There's nowhere else, no one else."
"You too, Young Master, only like the flowers in full bloom and dispose of them when they shrink with age."
"Then I won't let them wilt. I'll find you a bookmark of pressed flowers," he combated in haste. "You haven't seen one yet, have you? Flowers are immortal in the right hands."
(2) Only the celibate priesthood and those in mourning wear pure white outer robes," she lectured. "Don't let others think you're unfortunate like the priest said. They still go around calling you a cursed foreigner."
He bit his lips, chewing on the loose skin salted by his tears.
Wind, if it existed, had dropped him here and nowhere else. Perhaps it thought it was doing him a favor. What were his book learnings and drama binges worth here though? There was nowhere and no one who could claim him, minus [redacted].
"Do you believe so?" he asked to be clothed in reassurance.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:algn3d66vyeu4nb7m3ojzjnc/bafkreigypctivurbqga2lx2srg5wndvlldz6gop335hmysrg3rie5jl2xa@jpeg)
EXCEPTS (1) Nana shook her head. "You can't live only for me." "But you're my Hana. That's Eastern Tongue for flower, you know. My flower. I want to go where you go, stay where you stay. There's nowhere else, no one else." "You too, Young Master, only like the flowers in full bloom and dispose of them when they shrink with age." "Then I won't let them wilt. I'll find you a bookmark of pressed flowers," he combated in haste. "You haven't seen one yet, have you? Flowers are immortal in the right hands." (2) Only the celibate priesthood and those in mourning wear pure white outer robes," she lectured. "Don't let others think you're unfortunate like the priest said. They still go around calling you a cursed foreigner." He bit his lips, chewing on the loose skin salted by his tears. Wind, if it existed, had dropped him here and nowhere else. Perhaps it thought it was doing him a favor. What were his book learnings and drama binges worth here though? There was nowhere and no one who could claim him, minus [redacted]. "Do you believe so?" he asked to be clothed in reassurance.
Comps Martyr! - self-destructive MC - the shadow of parents - legacy of violence & neglect - mythologization of death David Copperfield - turbulent coming of age - overreliance on love & marriage - search for home and found family - the corruption of status and wealth The Names - contemplation of choices not taken - a life cut short - fear of becoming one's parent - the weight of a name/title
DAVID COPPERFIELD × THE NAMES ×
MARTYR! with East Asian inspo
Max wanted to die loved, NOT have others die
because of his affection. But the Wind who reincarnated him will not let him live an effortless life of luxury without inflicting him with new trauma.
#QuestPit #A #Lit #LF #HF #F #agentguide
HAZELTHORN X THE SPIRIT BARES ITS TEETH
Journals of a Familiar
Hawthorne has never left the cathedral. Raised in silence and prepared for a future he doesn't understand, everything changes when he meets Violet, a witch with wild dreams of escape.
#questpit #W #YA #H #LGBT
A green background collage with the name “Clara Bailey” centered in gold text and the line “Every reinvention has a price.” Surrounding the text are overlapping photographs showing ballet shoes, bright city lights at night, a woman stepping from a private jet, a large estate, a luxury pool, an aerial view of a coastal island with waterfront buildings, a vintage car interior, a person holding a smartphone, close-ups of hands adjusting clothing, and a solitary figure in a dimly lit hallway, suggesting themes of ambition, travel, wealth, and reinvention.
THE WHITE LOTUS x SUCCESSION
An ousted Broadway marketing executive takes a job on a Black-owned private island in Miami, where ambition, scandal, and an ultra-wealthy family dynasty force her to decide how far she’s willing to go to restore her reputation and career.
#QuestPit #A #WF #BVM #W
When marauders menace her village, an empath-scholar leads an odyssey across the climate-ravaged former US to retrieve a rumored key to peace, before her people are obliterated.
Clan of the Cave Bear x A Psalm for the Wild-Built
🔮 #EarthMagic #tarot
🌪️ #CliFi
🌷 #Hopepunk
#S #Q
#Questpit #booksky
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
Book cover of ocean waves crashing against the shore – You have to go back; enemies to lovers; the haunting of maddy clare + the guest list; gothic vibes; murder mystery; pitch: Twenty years after a study abroad trip ended in tragedy, Rosie returns to Ireland to ind the truth and must face her haunted past—and a real haunting—as she teams up with a handsome local man to solve a murder.
THE HAUNTING OF MADDY CLARE+THE GUEST LIST
Twenty years after a study abroad trip ended in tragedy, Rosie returns to Ireland and must face her haunted past—and a real haunting—as she teams up with a grumpy-but-handsome local man to solve a murder.
#QuestPit #A #H #Gothic #Horromance #R #Dis #Q
strike poster
‼️IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT‼️
In solidarity with the general strike happening this Friday, we’re postponing this week’s event by ONE day. The event will now take place January 31st on Saturday. This strike is important to the both of us and we would appreciate you joining us.
Some very cool writerly items in this publishing-organized auction to benefit organizations in Minnesota, including Immigrant Law Ctr of Minnesota and Dios Habla Hoy Church food distribution. Auction runs Jan. 28-30 www.32auctions.com/publishingfo...
27.01.2026 19:26 — 👍 42 🔁 23 💬 1 📌 4
Here's a collection of links to support Minnesota in their stand against ICE
www.standwithminnesota.com
I just spoke with the White House after another horrific shooting by federal agents this morning. Minnesota has had it. This is sickening.
The President must end this operation. Pull the thousands of violent, untrained officers out of Minnesota. Now.
Thank you, I really appreciate it!
22.01.2026 01:36 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Thank you! I'm querying a romantic horror, and I have two more horror manuscripts started as well as a time travel romance...so I guess my next question would be, which one should I focus on next?? 😂
22.01.2026 01:24 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
