I’m detouring from my normal flash fiction this week, mostly because I spent all week catching up on beta reading, critiques, and other important writing “stuff”. Call me crazy, but if my to-do pile gets too high, I panic until I cut it down or complete it and get it off my desk. Thus, it’s Friday afternoon, and while my desk is clear, I have 2 loads of laundry to fold, another to dry, and just realized I failed to take my migraine preventer. Welcome to the glorious life of an author.

Don’t fret, I do have a story for you. Kind of. A couple of weeks ago, I participated in a writing weekend where we workshopped our opening pages, had back to back classes, and then a surprise pitch slam. If you’re wondering, a pitch slam is where, one by one, writers pitch their book.

This was a completely unexpected part of the weekend, and after I stopped panicking, I pulled up my pitch for the book I’m currently writing and found my trusty stress bear — always kept in the drawer of my desk — and squeezed the poor thing for the next ninety minutes.

After everyone delivered their pitches, the judges disappeared to decide on a winner, and then came back to announce it. Imagine my shock and delight at learning I’d won! So, instead of a story, I present to you the pitch I used. Enjoy.

Meg Chamberlain believes any chaos can be tamed with a perfectly color-coded calendar — until she’s trapped in a time loop reliving the worst Monday of her life and racing to keep her husband alive. 

Hi, I’m Kendra J. Cooke, not to be confused with the already published Kendra Cooke.

JUST ONE MORE DAY is upmarket women’s fiction with speculative elements. Complete at 92,000 words, it blends the relentless time loop of Cesca Major’s Maybe Next Time with the bittersweet grief in Emma Straub’s This Time Tomorrow.

Perfectionist Meg Chamberlain knows any problem can be solved with the right plan. That is, until her husband, Jax, suffers a fatal heart attack. Shattered, she wishes for just one more day, certain she can save him. The next morning she wakes, prepared to tell their grown sons the devastating news, but finds Jax alive and well beside her, as if yesterday were only a nightmare.

Convinced the dream is a warning, she drags him to the hospital, demanding tests for his heart, which come back normal. When they step outside, a car speeding through the crosswalk kills Jax. In the morning, he’s alive again. By nightfall he’s not. Determined to protect her husband, Meg creates one plan after another, but they all fail. 

Each loop reshapes the Chamberlains as Jax’s death ripples outward into her marriage and her sons’ lives. For the first time, highlighters and Post-it notes can’t prepare Meg for what’s coming. And when one loop steals their youngest’s life in a plane crash, she faces the impossible: save Jax, or risk it all on a reset that could bring her son back — or cost her everyone.

This novel exists within a shared world — characters from this story appear in my other completed works, giving readers a fictional community to return to. 

I’m an active member of several writing groups, including WFWA, SUAW, and WAR, and am a regular contributor to the Write Like A Girl Substack. This book was inspired by the death of my father and my wish for another day with him. When not writing, you can find me watching Aussie Rules, T20 cricket, or trying to convince the family cockatiel she’s not a dog.

Thank you for your time and consideration.