Submission Miriam

Name: Miriam Caldwell

Email: miriam.caldwell (at) gmail.com

Title DREAMING ISIS YA Contemporary Fantasy

Pitch:17-year-old Isis must choose between her mom’s acceptance or embracing who she truly is as she learns to control her newfound magical powers

First 250 words: It’s often been said that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but in the world I live in, a straight line is hard to find. I’ve never seen a road go straight into the distance disappearing into the horizon. Here, they twist and curve seemingly miles out of the way before they lead you where you want to go, which is home.

My mom fled her small southern town shedding the stigma of growing up in a trailer park. Ashamed of her mother who, though coming from money, was cast out after marrying my grandfather. She had been warned and when he up and left her with three small kids, her parents did not welcome her back in with loving arms.
In lots of ways my mom is still running, even though she’s settled down, married a lawyer and got a fancy house of her own.

Appearance is everything, whispers about our family should NOT happen, and any mention of the past is unacceptable as though she is afraid that someday the nightmares she’s been running from are going to find her again.

Which leaves me her only child with a bit of problem. An obsessive mother constantly breathing down my neck. Afraid to let me go, even though, thank God, it’s my senior year. My straight line is moving away to college. Running from my family the way my mom ran from hers.