ALT Title: “The Love In Your Words” Genre: YA Romance Word Count: 70,000 words A picture of Lena and Alistair walking underneath an umbrella together, wearing blue and grey school uniforms. The Royal Liver Building is in the background as red paper lanterns float in the sky.

ALT Pitch Sixteen-year-old Lena Mei has always felt like an outsider — too “Western” to be Chinese, too “weird” for everyone else — until Alistair Wong, an autistic polyglot, helps her reclaim her heritage by teaching her to read a Mandarin poem her late mother left behind. As their connection deepens, a devastating family secret threatens to uproot their budding love, forcing Lena to choose between family loyalty and a future with the boy who accepts her for who she is.

ALT Comps “Something More” by Jackie Khalilieh (Autism & Neurodivergence) “Never Thought I’d End Up Here” by Ann Liang (Language, Heritage & Chinese Diaspora) “Komi Can’t Communicate” (Overcoming Loneliness & Communication Difficulties)

ALT Opening Words don't come easily to me. Before they reach my lips, they fade like the smoke rising from a joss stick in front of my mum's shrine. My lighter brightens her portrait's uncanny youthful beauty, gazing out as if she's still alive, inviting me to speak. But when I extinguish the flame, the image slips back into shadow, a reminder that she's gone. I kneel and clasp my hands, wanting to say what I should've said before she passed almost a year ago. Words that weren't, "I wish I had more friends." But my teeth close like gates, keeping my thoughts captive, even when I'm alone in my tiny, brick garden, surrounded only by a bin and a rusty barbecue. For now, all I can do is wish, so I bow and whisper a message in my mind. I want Mum back, as impossible as it may seem. If I can't have that, then I want someone like her to enter my life—someone to sweep away the loneliness and help me speak... or even accept me when I'm silent.

ALT My Experience with the 2026 Undiscovered Voices Competition Ivylinwrites.substack.com

ALT Testimonial by Rian Lynch: Ivy was one of the beta readers for my queer adult sci-fi romance. Her feedback was thoughtful and deeply respectful of both the story and its characters. She identified nuanced details about my neurodivergent protagonist and offered practical suggestions to make the character more authentic. Her feedback was encouraging from start to finish, and I know my manuscript is stronger as a result.

ALT Testimonial by Chezza Lee: Ivy did a wonderful sensitivity and beta read on my manuscript! Her suggestions were thoughtful and insightful, and she truly understood what I was trying to do with the book. Her feedback gave me the confidence that I was portraying Chinese culture and mythological elements in an authentic and considerate way. Also, all her reaction comments were such a pleasure to read! I highly recommend Ivy as a beta reader and truly think your manuscript would be in good hands.

ALT Title: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Writing Why I started writing my weird, quirky stories about autistic girls and romance. And everything in-between. ivylinwrites.substack.com

ALT An Agent's guide to GODCAT, by Azi Ossman. 81k Adult Dark Fantasy/Horror with Big 5 Editor interest The Word's 2026 Editor-Writer Mentorship Finalist

ALT Pitch: Marsh, a black cat, is drowned by her owner. Reborn as a human-shaped godling, she compets to ascend to godhood in limbo for revenge--until she meets another godling who reveals things only her owner could've known. For fans of: Piranesi, Someone you can build a nest in, H.P. Lovecraft, Severance, The Eyes are the Best Part, Chainsaw Man.

ALT A moodboard with different black cats with glowing eyes in creepy settings, plus tropes including body horror, liminal spaces, revenge plot, unreliable narrator, cat/monster pov, hard magic system, deadly competition, narrative whiplash, messy friendship, depression rep.

ALT First 250 words: I am six months old when my owner drowns me. I think. It’s what the godservant explains to me. That I, a female juvenile black shorthair cat, die of asphyxiation by drowning at 2:53A.M. on Sunday, May 31st, 2015, in Poppyfield, Michigan, in a puddle formed in my owner’s front lawn by a recent flash flood. But it’s not what I remember. I remember shaking, thrashing, screaming for the hands forcing me down to stop until the muddy water flooding into my lungs buys him my silence. That I have no strength anyway, a sack of bones in fur and some cracked keratin for claws grazing hairy, damp skin. That I’m going to die, and that as my life slips from me, so too does my pain. Until I wake up again. I lie on the lawn once more, my neck still raw. The sun’s beams bleach everything around me, from the short dry grass to the house’s peeling white paint. Except there is no peeling. Why do I know what peeling is? The house stands as new as an office shirt before morning coffee.

ALT Question 1: How many official UN languages are there? A. 4 B. 5 C. 6 D. 7

ALT Macbook Air screen showing the homepage of Ivy Lin's website