Friday, January 29, 2010

Contests! Contests! Contests!

**This is a long post so you may want to look this over a bit more on the weekend, you know, when you can sit back & relax (I hope!) with a cup of coffee (or tea or hot chocolate), and read at your leisure . . .

Are you in the mood for a contest or two (or three)?

Now, practically everyone knows about the Annual Writer’s Digest Competition (their 79th is now underway). If you don’t, you can click here for more information. The Grand Prize is $3,000 plus a trip to New York City to meet with editors & agents. There are also 1st through 10th place winners as well as Honorable Mentions (11th through 100th place). It ends May 14, 2010 (late entry deadline is June 1, 2010).

BUT . . . do you also know about these contests?

1) 2010 PNWA (Pacific Northwest Writers Association) Literary Contest
There are 12 contest categories including YA (submission is first 28 pages & synopsis), Children’s PB or chapter book (first 14 pages), as well as Adult Fiction & Non-Fiction. According to the guidelines, there will be 8 finalists in each category.
Awards:
First place winners receive $600
2nd place: $300
3rd place: $150
The entry fee, though, is a bit steep: $35 for PNWA members & $50 for non-members. The good news is that every entry accepted in the contest will receive 2 critiques.

The entry deadline is February 19, 2010.
Click here for complete information & guidelines.


2) 2010 Sandy Writing Contest
This contest, sponsored by the Crested Butte Writers Conference, also includes Children’s (no PB’s) & YA as well as Adult Fiction, Fantasy/Sci-Fi, Romance, & Suspense/Mystery. It is open to all authors unpublished in novel length fiction.
Submission requirements are the first 20 pages of a novel & up to a 2-page synopsis.

Final round judges include:
Christine Pride, editor, Random House (mainstream adult fiction)
Ginger Clark, agent, Curtis Brown (fantasy/science fiction)
Julie Scheina, assistant editor, Little, Brown BFYR (children’s/YA)

Awards:
1st place: $50 & a certificate
2nd place: $25 & a certificate
3rd place: certificate
The entry fee is $25 for Crested Butte Writer members & $30 for non-members.
All entries must be received by midnight, February 15, 2010
Click here for complete information & guidelines.


3) 2010 Writers-Editors Network 27th Annual International Writing Competition
(Formerly CNW/FFWA Florida State Writing Competition)


For children’s writers, this contest has a Children’s Literature Division that includes submission of either an unpublished short story, non-fiction article, book chapter, or poem. For all other writers, there is a Non-fiction Division, a Fiction Division, & a Poetry Division.

Awards:
1st place, each category: $100 + certificate
2nd place, each category: $75 + certificate
3rd place, each category: $50 + certificate
Honorable Mentons are also awarded certificates

The entry fees seem pretty reasonable:
For a fiction/non-fiction entry under 3,000 words, the entry fee is $5 (members) or $10 (non-members)
For entries of 3,000-5,000 words, the fee is $10 (members) or $20 (non-members)
For poems, the fee is $3 (members) or $5 (non-members)

Click here for complete information & guidelines.

Click here for their 10 Tips on Winning Writing Contests.

And you can click here to see their past winners. Interesting note: aspiring author/blogger, Suzette Saxton won 10th place honorable mention last year in the Children’s Literature division.
The entry deadline for this contest is March 15, 2010.


4) Willamette Writers 2010 Kay Snow Writing Contest

Folks, for this contest, both adults AND children can enter in their respective divisions. So if any of you know or have any budding writers . . .

This contest accepts adult fiction, adult non-fiction, poetry, juvenile short story, novel excerpt or article, and complete or partial scripts (for the screenwriting category).

Students enter under grade divisions (grades 1-5, grades 6-8, grades 9-12) and are limited to 1 entry. Also, there is no entry fee for students.

For us adults, though, there is a $10 entry fee for members and a $15 entry fee for non-members
Awards:
Adult categories: 1st place, $300
2nd place, $150
3rd place, $50
Students: 1st place, $50, 2nd place, $20, an 3rd place, $10

The entry deadline is April 23, 2010.
Click here for complete guidelines

Click here to read a Kay Snow Award success story by Rosanne Parry, author of Heart of a Shepherd (Random House, 2009).


5) Houston Writers Guild Spring 2010 Writers Contest

This contest is open to novels and screenplays, any genre. You must submit the first 10 pages of your novel, book, or screenplay, plus synopsis.

The entry fee is $20 for members and non-members.
The deadline is February 28, 2010.

Click here for complete contest rules & guidelines, and here for the entry blank.


Lastly, don’t forget it’s just a few more days to enter Andrea Brown literary agent Mary Kole’s Kidlit Contest. Entry has to be for a FINISHED children’s novel (only MG or YA), and must be under 500 words.
Awards:
Grand Prize: a 15 page critique
1st prize: a 10 page critique
2nd prize: a 5 page critique
3rd prize: a 2 page critique
Honorable Mentions: critique of 1st page of your novel
ENTRY DEADLINE is January 31, 2010 at 11:59 p.m., Pacific Time
Click here for her complete guidelines.

GOOD LUCK, EVERYONE!! :)

25 comments:

Tabitha Bird said...

Oh cool! thanks for the links. I will be back for sure to check some of these out.

Emily Conrad said...

Wow! Thanks so much for posting all of this. :)

Caroline Starr Rose said...

Thanks for going to all this trouble. Contests/grants DO make a difference.

Crystal said...

Tabitha, Emily--You're welcome! I like sharing this kind of news. Like Disney's High School Musical sings, "We're all in this together . . ."

Caroline--You're welcome! One of my New Year's resolutions is to enter at least one contest this year. I LOVE getting feedback on my work.

Tamika: said...

Thanks Crytal! I certainly want to take more time with this one- there is so much good stuff to mull over. I'll be lurking around this evening with a pen and paper!

Cindy R. Wilson said...

Thanks so much for the links. There are several of these that I'd like to check out. Have a great weekend!

Shannon O'Donnell said...

Wow. You're right - I will need to take more time with this over the weekend. Once again, thanks for doing all the work on this. You make it a lot easier on the rest of us. :-)

Crystal said...

Hey, Tamika!--You're welcome, also! Glad to share the information. Enjoy!

Cindy--Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the links and have a great weekend!

Shannon--You're welcome! Enjoy your weekend!

Corey Schwartz said...

Wow, Crystal, thanks1 i did NOT know about all of these! I'm going to twitter the link!

Crystal said...

Sure, go ahead, Corey . . . spread the word! :)

Chandrika Shubham said...

Nice profile flowers. :) Informative post for the aspiring writers. :)

Best wishes.:)

Sharon K. Mayhew said...

Thanks, Crystal! I'm going to check out the CNW contest. I haven't heard of them. Have a good weekend!

Crystal said...

Hi Chandrika! Thanks for stopping by! Hope the links are helpful to you! :)

Sharon--You're quite welcome! Have a great weekend! :)

Jill Kemerer said...

Sounds like quite a few great contests! Thanks for sharing!

Crystal said...

You're welcome, Jill! Nice to see you . . . thanks for stopping by! :)

MG Higgins said...

Another extremely informative post. I'm going to bookmark it. Thank you!

Crystal said...

Hi MG! You're welcome! Nice to see you . . . hope this is useful! :)

Robyn Campbell said...

I wonder what happened to my comment that I left last week? Maybe it didn't go through. Because I was here and bookmarked it so I could enter the contests.

This is a great page of links Crystal. I really appreciate it and know the work that went into it. Thank you my friend. I have entered most of them. How about you? (^_^)

Good luck to us. =)

Unknown said...

I'm glad I stopped by your blog! I love contests and will be checking out the links for sure!!

Crystal said...

Robyn--So sorry your comment didn't stick last week! Don't know what happened . . . maybe Blogger ate it? Which contests have you entered, btw? And were any of the critiques helpful? I've only entered the Houston Writers Guild Contest (Fall 2009) and received 2 scored sheets, one of which had a few helpful comments at the bottom.
I've known about the Writer's Digest contest for years, but the others I found out about too late last year to enter. This year, though, I'd like to enter at least 2 or 3.

Good luck t all of us! :)


Jen--Always nice to meet fellow writers! Glad you could stop by! :)

Tee Brown said...

You do such a great job at relaying information. Thanks, Crystal!

Tess said...

Holy Mother of Zorg! You're amazing. What a great service this is..thanks!

Crystal said...

You're quite welcome, Tee & Tess! :)

Stasia said...

Wow. Amazing research and great information. Thanks for your congrats on AUDITION. I'm so happy to have discovered your blog. Stasia

Crystal said...

Thanks for stopping by, Stasia! :)