CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT

I’ve never spent an entire blog post talking about a specific contest, but I stumbled across this yesterday, and thought some of you might want to know about it:

Young Adult Novel Discovery Contest 2010—Entry period, November 1-30, 2010

What you submit: Title and first 250 words of your YA novel (sorry middle-grade writers)

Normally I wouldn’t endorse a contest with an entry fee (because I’m poor and cheap and suspicious of contests that cost money…always check out the source and the judges before considering the investment), but it’s only 15 bucks and the first 100 people to enter are shipped a free copy of Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks.

Regina Brooks is a cool agent who was nice enough to do a WriteOnCon Live Workshop in August, and the list price for her book on Barnes & Noble is $14.99. So, if you have your trigger finger on the send button, it’s pretty much free. If you decide to enter, you’ve got about 10 days to polish your first page.

Please note that you can send her a query letter for free whenever you want; the only reason this might be a good opportunity is if you think your first page is stellar. The top five get commentaries from editors at Candlewick, Viking (Penguin), etc., which is pretty cool.

Here’s a breakdown of the prizes (click on the contest link above for more details):

The Grand Prize Winner will have the opportunity to submit an entire manuscript to YA literary agent Regina Brooks and receive a free, 10-week writing course, courtesy of Gotham Writers' Workshop.

The Top Five Entrants (including the Grand Prize winner) will receive a 15-minute, one-on-one pitch session with Regina Brooks, one of New York’s premier literary agents for young adult books. They will also receive commentary on their submissions by editors at Candlewick, Scholastic, Harlequin, MacMillan, Viking, Roaring Brook Press, and Sourcebooks and receive a one-year subscription to The Writer magazine.The First 100 Entrants will receive a copy of Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks. (Shipped only to addresses in US and Canada.)

JUDGING YA literary agent Regina Brooks and a select group of readers will read all of the entries and determine the top 20 submissions. These submissions will then be read by Nancy Mercado, Executive Editor at Roaring Brooks Press (MacMillan); Nicole Raymond, Editor at Candlewick; Cheryl Klein, Senior Editor at Arthur Levine Books (Scholastic); Leila Sales, Editor at Viking (Penguin); Evette Porter, Editor at Harlequin; and Leah Hultenschmidt, Executive Editor at Sourcebooks. These judges will whittle the top 20 down to five, and each of the five winners will be provided commentary on their submissions.

That’s it for today.

***Middle grade writers, don’t despair. Click HERE for a mouthwatering announcement from Authoress of Miss Snark’s First Victim. She’s got something special lined up for December that will involve both MG and YA!!!