✨ Joy Shaw | Author ✨

A trafficking survivor turned vigilante stalks Manhattan’s ruins with a sentient flaming machete to rescue girls from a grief-harvesting regime. When she joins a subterranean rebel, her trauma-made-visible glyphs mutate, threatening to remake her into the predator she hunts.🔥 #QuestPit #Q #A #DF

Guess what? I’ve decided to delay querying until next year. My manuscript needs a little more feedback, distance, and polish, and I need time to feel emotionally ready. Am I okay with that? Absolutely. Sometimes the best thing you can give your manuscript, and yourself, is time and space. 📚❤️

I didn’t think I could do it. But I did! 💪 One final revision pass to get under 101K before querying. A month of interrogating every paragraph, sentence, and word. Final result: 99K, baby! 🔥📚 My book is refined, ready, and rocking. If you’re cutting too, I have faith in you. #WritingCommunity

Five years ago, I stopped writing. Not because I wanted to, because life happened. One year ago, I returned. Today, after 19 revision passes, my manuscript is preparing to enter the querying trenches late this fall. I wrote about my journey here: joy-shaw.com/2026/09/05/t...

Five ’90s movies to get to know me, because I couldn’t pick three: 1. The Fifth Element: Sci-fi rules 🚀 2. The Matrix: Twisty plot + Keanu 😍 3. Titanic: Still makes me cry. 😭 He should’ve lived too! 4. Ever After: Probably my most-watched 5. The Secret Garden: Watched it a dozen times #writers

So yeah, the algorithm is fickle. In case my pitch got buried in yesterday’s #QuestPit chaos, click through and meet my adult cyberpunk fantasy, SCARELLA—THE MACHETE MARAUDERESS. 🔥 Thanks to everyone who liked, commented, reposted, or followed along. You made the event feel incredibly special.

THE STARDUST GRAIL x MOSS’D IN SPACE ☀️The Sun is dying ahead of schedule. 🏺Roan, an expert in dead coding languages, finally has a chance to go to Earth and excavate artifacts before the Sun swallows anything of value. 👀 But is she truly alone on the doomed planet? #QuestPit #A #SF #R #Q #LGBT

Kazmera's grandfather murders her parents & orders her, a shadow witch, to marry light witch Edan for a false peace. To save her kingdom from her grandfather’s totalitarian regime & impending war, Kazmera & Edan form a fragile alliance while facing their inner struggles. #A #Q #FR #OWN #QuestPit

BRIDGERTON x AGNES AUBERT'S MYSTICAL CAT SHELTER with a magical butterfly twist 🦋 magical butterfly rescue 🤭 hate to love ✨ fake courtship 🤍 #ownvoices scoliosis rep 📰 The Press make or break reputations 🫦 banter starts in CH 1 #questpit #Q#A #F

NETTLE & BONE x STAR DAUGHTER 💰 Cheating a suitor out of his money to help her family was easy. 🌌 Falling in love with the night sky trapped in a mortal body is harder. 💔 And helping them return to the sky at the expense of her heart might just be impossible. #QuestPit #A #F #RF #Q #LGBT

🗝️ sapphic princess x thief 🗡️ impossible heist ⚔️ only one horse 🌙 found family ☀️ sunshine x gremlin 🐦‍⬛ morally gray heroine ✨ disability rep 🤫 everyone has secrets 🏹 touch her and die 🧭 ragtag crew 💀 sprinkles of horror #QuestPit #W #YA #F #R #MY #H

KING ARTHUR X SAILOR MOON Once and Future King’ were words Morgan McArthur often heard in her childhood and academic career, but she never thought they might apply to her. Reincarnation pulls no punches, and neither so the armies of the Aesir when Mordred’s at the helm. #QueerPit #NA #UF #F

Utterly Unprepared for QuestPit, but here's a quick moodboard of my #RoyalsWIP #A #F #questpit

Jack Frost (1998) x Sweet Home Alabama YULE ALWAYS FIND ME is a holiday paranormal romance with: 🤍second chance romance 💀murd.er 🤍fake dating ❄️frosty magic 👯‍♀️sister bonds 🐶a cute pet sidekick 🎄Christmas festivities 🔼love triangle Would you read it? Art by @mknzgmbn #questpit #wip #P #R #A

Anxious Letyf has no place on a world-saving quest, but when his elf-supremacist cousin declares war, Letyf joins the world's champions to protect their only hope—a child who can quell magic. In their way? World-hopping demon Lia, unwilling servant to the enemy. #Q #A #F #SFF #QuestPit #AgentsGuide

You know what? Let's do a silly one. Wanna read a fairly neurodivergent and even queer fantasy book about a trans nobleman, his autstic alchemist boyfriend, and the moon taking down the government in a way that boils down to this meme? Watch this space. #questpit #Q #A #RF #HF #LGBT #OwnVoices

WITNESSERS OF THE UNKNOWN: HELL FOLLOWED WITH US X OLD WOUNDS X INTO THE LIGHT: 💥trans coming-of-rage 👽cults, aliens, the paranormal, and pain as weapon 🔮a chosen one who refuses to be chosen 🛸different just like me 🏳️‍⚧️trans men in love #Q #Questpit #SF #YA #lgbt #amquerying #agentguide

THE FIFTH ELEMENT x HOT FUZZ After a job gone wrong, data thief Enmity and space cop Mirek end up handcuffed together, at the center of a political coup, and on the run from space thugs, disco-dancing assassins...and catching feelings for one another. #questpit #OS #AG #A #SF #R

BRIDGERTON X PRACTICAL MAGIC with the mystery and amateur sleuth vibes of ENOLA HOLMES When witches start disappearing from the Ton, Seraphina must unravel the mystery before she looses her reputation, her magical tea parlour and her missing best friend Primrose, forever. #SFF #W #MY #A #questpit

CABIN IN THE WOODS × JOHN DIES AT THE END × JUMANJI 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 #AG

ECHOES OF YOU | 62K YA Speculative Romance A boy dies. His spirit wakes up in someone else’s body. And the girl who loved him has no idea she’s falling for him twice. #Q #YA #S #RF #R @questpit.bsky.social #questpit

#questpit #q #a #df

♣️♦️ PHANTASMA X SINNERS ♥️♠️ This New Adult Fantasy Features: 🃏 Multiple POVs 🎲 A Bisexual Love Triangle 🃏 Deadly Bargains 🎲 Sinful Behavior 🃏 Poisons & Playing Cards 🎲 Black Social Commentary #QuestPit #NA #F #BVM #POC

In an alternate, magical Regency era, Lucy Korvas must hide her "improper" wings from high society while finding a cure for her curse, or she will be transformed into a crow forever. 📖 Pride & Prejudice x 🐦‍⬛ Howl's Moving Castle x 🪷 Graceling #Questpit #Q #YA #HFR #F #RF #HF #R #HR

💫 Light After the Fall 💫 a tarot-themed odyssey across the climate-ravaged former US to retrieve a key to peace coming this October 🧙 Feedback requested: Which cover/what elements of each cover do you prefer? All feedback welcome & appreciated! #W #YA #S #hopepunk #CliFi #Questpit

Aaryana is winning the contest that decides who will be the next Queen/King but her enemies at Court—which may include her sisters—are determined to change that 👸ambitious FMC with a soft❤️ 🫅brooding LI who’s protective of his siblings 💕slow🔥hate-to-love 🧜‍♀️ books2read.com/Aaryana1 #booksky #f #ya

The UK government frames an intelligence agent for a temporal disaster, putting him in the crosshairs of ruthless state assassins. To save his skin he must seal a lethal time rift, before a Russian spy from the future uses its secrets to start a war that will destroy everything. #QuestPit #Q #A #SF

BEAUTY & THE BEAST x STAR TREK Roan, part of the last team of archaeologists sent to Earth, stumbles into an ancient bunker haunted by the synthetic mind of a trillionaire. She’s the only one who can fix his tech, but can she save him before Earth is swallowed by the Sun? #QuestPit #A #SF #R #Q

#Q #A #F #Questpit ASHMARKED: Feminine rage, social commentary, dangerous power... "They made obedience feel holy and used it as permission." Querying now!

Hello! I'm Kat Devitt, and I'm an 🖤Author of Gothic Things🖤 Currently, I’m querying my queer gothic horror set in the Scottish Highlands, ONLY MONSTERS LIVE HERE. When I’m not writing, I’m ghost-hunting and reading dark (mostly) books. #querytrenches #amquerying #meettheauthor

Am I Black?
 A biracial adopted kid has no idea if he's Black. What actually bothers him? The borrrring questions everyone asks the second they meet him.
 #PB #Q #questpit

STARLING HOUSE x ADDIE LARUE X MY COUSIN RACHEL A Gothic Fantasy Romance 📰 marriage of desperation 🏚️a secluded New Orleans estate 🥀mysterious, reclusive MMC 🕯️suspicious, determined FMC 🖤slow burn, forbidden obsession 🗝️a dark secret locked away #QuestPit #Q #A #F #H #R #Gothic #AmQuerying

THE SHADOWS (WIP in 3rd Draft) #W #F #A #QuestPit A middle-aged shopkeeper & retired magical con artist takes one last job to save store & family. She could end the corrupt power of the Skyborn mages. She could end up losing herself, her magic & all she holds dear. Talk about a midlife crisis.

Part of my month-long writing break is spending time here. Quiet water. Fresh air. No deadlines. Just a chance to refill the creative well. 🌿📚✨ #WritingCommunity #Writers

If anyone would like to see a short video of a baby Armadillo having a drink of milk, this is your lucky day.

#QuestPit anyone? Is that a thing people are doing on Friday? Perfect timing to take my new genre positioning for a spin. 🔥 I’d love to support you!

Guess what? I’m taking a month-long break from writing. After a year of rewriting and revising, it feels like the right time to let my story breathe and my mind create in other ways for a while. 🖋️ 🌿 What do you do after a writing sprint? #WritingCommunity #Writers

Exactly one year ago, I started my ground-up rewrite. Seventeen revision passes and twelve months of intense work later, I’m happy to report my story is hitting the query trenches this fall. I’m proud of the book it became. I’m even prouder that I didn’t give up on it. 📚✨ #WritingCommunity

Four weeks ago, I paused social media and vanished into my editing cave. One deep revision later, my book is stronger than ever. 💪📚✨ Huge thanks to the editor whose feedback inspired this final revision. #WritingCommunity #AmEditing

✨ Every writer builds in shadows before they share their #stories. I’ve recently returned to my #book after giving myself a month-long break. This is my 17th revision pass, and I’m finally ready to tackle this last polish. 💪🔥 #Writers, how do you know when a book is truly done? #WritingCommunity

One week until the #revpit 2026 Showcase goes live!! Bookmark www.reviseresub.com and return to it on Monday, June 8! #booksky #amquerying

Walked through a field of peonies yesterday. The newly opened flowers reminded me that this world can still be breathtaking. 🌸 #Peonies #NatureLover #Photography #WritingCommunity