Entering Children's Writing Contests and More

This February has been a very busy time for me and my online critique group. The five members have many submissions out to publishing professionals. Two members have had books published recently, have agents now and others like myself have been entering various contests.

I participated in Susanna Leonard Hill's Valentiny Contest on February 12th, the #PBPitch on X (Twitter) on February 22nd and then entered the 2024 #PBParty Contest run by Mindy Alyse Weiss that same day. One other member, our author/illustrator member entered the author/illustrator part of the #PBParty Contest. Then on March 2nd, I entered Vivian Kirkfield's  #50 Precious Words Contest.  

Our small group has had much success in the # 50 Precious Words Contest since 2021. We have had four different members place in it and a number of honorable mentions too. I was one of the winners in 2021 and received honorable mentions in 2022 and 2023.

As I wait for the results for the #PBParty and #50 Precious Words Contests, I continue to write new picture book manuscripts and tweak existing ones.

Ken

Susanna Leonard Hill's 9th Annual Valentiny Writing Contest-February 14, 2024

After a short break from entering Susanna's holiday contests, I'm back to participating. As usual for this Valentine's Day Contest, entrants must enter a story of 214 or less words between February 12th at 12:01 am and 11:59 pm, February 14th, all EST.  The judging criteria includes things like kid-friendly, creativity showing enthusiasm, be about Valentine's Day, have at least a basic story arc, be good quality writing, have originality, and, of course, follow the guidelines. The prizes look really good too, with authors agreeing to do Zoom chats, critiques and give books out to winners.

My entry this year has a family touch to it. I intend to place an audio file of me reading my entry so that anyone can listen, rather than read it.

Good luck to all entrants and a big thank you to Susanna and all her helpers!

Ken

Committing to Writing

 

Since retiring from my environmental engineering job in 2015, I have been writing intermittently while tutoring locally for two school systems and occasionally doing private tutoring. 

Over the past year, I stopped doing tutoring entirely and have thrown myself into writing. I continue to moderate a online children's picture book critique group composed of five writers. Two of those writers now have agents and a third is close to acquiring one. The group has two recently published picture books with several others in the works. This particular group has been together for three years and our collaboration has no doubt lead to some of this success.

I am hopeful that Writers For Kids will build upon this success and that 2024 will bring the group continued success.

 

Ken

2023 # 50 PRECIOUS WORDS CONTEST

 It's that time of year for Vivian Kirkfield's popular children's writing contest, # 50 Precious Words. Each entrant must write a story with a basic story arc using only 50 words or less, not an easy task. Over the past several years, my small critique group has had quite a bit of success in this contest. We have had at least one winner in each of the last three contests and two winners in 2021. This year's winner is Callie Dean, who was also a winner in Mindy Alyse Weiss's 2022 PBParty contest. I hope this trend continues!

 

Ken

New England SCBWI AGENT EDITOR DAY-April 3, 2022

If you are familiar with the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI) organization, you know that they do many great things to help writers and illustrators of all levels with their craft.  In March of this year, I applied for the NESCBWI Agent Editor Day, a mentoring/training day with writing and illustrating professionals. Because of the overwhelming interest in this event, SCBWI selects a limited number of people by random lottery. I was one of the lucky ones this year. I also applied last year, but didn't get picked.  My message to all those writers interested in such an event is to keep applying each year.

The application process has you selecting a particular mentor who you would like to work with. Each mentor is assigned 6 people to work with in their group. I was fortunate to get Kate Meltzer as a mentor. She is an editor with Roaring Brook Press, a division of the Macmillan Children's Publishing Group. Before choosing Kate, I did a little research to find out more about her and the writers and books she has worked with. She has worked with Newbury Medal winner, Matt de la Pena as well as many other well published writers. Her husband, Brian Geffen is also in the publishing business. He is an editor with Henry Holt Books for Young Readers.

Being able to participate in such an event opens up doors that are normally closed for writers without agents. For instance, both Roaring Brook and Henry Holt do not presently accept unsolicited manuscripts. I recently made submissions to Kate and several other professionals as part of this SCBWI event. I'm hopeful that such participation will benefit my writing.

Ken

 

WRITERS FOR KIDS SUCCESS STORIES: 2022 # 50 PRECIOUS WORDS AND MORE

 I again entered the #50 Precious Words contest run by Vivian Kirkfield last month. Myself and one other critique group member was fortunate to place last year. For my prize, I was able to get a critique from Vivian! This year I didn't place, but did get an honorable mention along with another group member in the contest. The great thing this year was that one of my other critique partners did place high up in the contest!

Writers For Kids, the small online critique group I run is doing quite well. One member has an agent already, two members are presently in discussions with an agent/editor on manuscripts. To add to that, one member just placed in the very competitive PB Party contest and got over ten agent /editor requests!

This year I applied to the Agent/Editor Day run by SCBWI, which uses a lottery to select attendees. I was surprised and super happy to get picked this year. I along with five other writers attended a session with mentor Kate Meltzer, an editor with Roaring Brook Press. It was conducted online using Zoom. Each writer got feedback from Kate and the other writers on one manuscript after sharing it with the group.

I'm now planning to apply for a one month mentorship through PBChat tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Ken

Storystorm 2022

 

 

 

 

 

This year's Storystorm run by Tara Lazar just started up on January 1st, 2022!  This might be the biggest event to date based on the number of comments (over 2,500) I saw on Tara's website. Tara has assembled another great list of prizes too. I already generated a number of ideas and look forward to the rest of the event and the helpful writing posts each day from authors in January! Thanks Tara and good luck to all participants!

Ken