Former Walters Art Museum director Gary Vikan might not appear to have much in common with Sawyer Fredericks, who just won Season 8 of "The Voice" on NBC.
But Vikan has been selected as one of six contestants nationwide who will compete in June during "Pitch Week" at the When Words Count Writers' Retreat http://whenwordscountretreat.com/ in Rochester, Vermont, in the hopes of landing a book deal for their unpublished manuscripts.
The six contestants will compete in several categories, from manuscript quality to the author's marketing plan to book cover design.
Each contestant will be scored on a secret ballot by a panel of three industry experts, according to a news release sent out by the writers' retreat. Then, at an awards ceremony scheduled for June 13, the ballots will be tallied and the winner revealed.
He or she will collect a prize that includes a book deal, the services of a literary agent and a national book launch by a top publicist.
Vikan will battle for his memoir: "Stolen: Byzantine Back Stories From My Life in Art Museums."
His competition includes five novels:
* "Harlem Hit and Run," by Angela Dews, who is fictionalizing her experience of growing up in Harlem and as a newspaper reporter in a series of novels;
* "Death by Perfection" a crime novel about a school shooting by Chicago attorney Katherine Haennicke;
* "The Shock of Fate," a young adult novel by the Rhode Island writer Donna Armillei about a world in which plague attacks only children;
* 'The Unfinished Animal" a thriller by Kelly Tait set in Reno, Nevada in which a judge is targeted by a killer seeking revenge; and
* "I've Never Lived Here" by Peg Moran, a novel narrated by a troubled teenage boy.
While the capsule descriptions make it sound as though the novels have the most mass appeal, it would be a mistake to count Vikan out. He is a colorful guy, who is equally authoritative when talking about Elvis Presley or the Shroud of Turin, and he has a knack for making the most esoteric topics sound like simple common sense.
So, you just never know.
mary.mccauley@baltsun.com