 FREE CONTEST FOR WRITERS! Welcome to a First Page Contest. Contest #9 is for writers of Romance and Women's Fiction. If you write in these categories, keep reading and submit your work! This free contest ends on April 20, 2026. Here’s how it works: We invite an awesome literary agent to judge the contest. The agent picks the genre(s) they want to judge. Writers in that genre are invited to send in their first page as part of the competition. Winners get a fabulous critique from your agent judge. It’s free to enter. Sound good? Then let’s get to some details and rules! PRIZES: The agent judge will pick three winners (in no particular order). All three winners are invited to send their first 5 double-spaced pages to the agent judge for a free critique. If you've ever wanted to know what an agent is thinking when they read your submission, this critique is a great way to learn just that. There are other contests happening right now in Spring 2026: First Page Contest #8: Literary / Mainstream / Book Club Fiction -- Judged by Agent Katie Monson of SBR Media First Pages Contest #10: Young Adult Fantasy / Sci-Fi, and Horror -- Judged By Agent Keir Alexseii of Azantian Literary First Pages Contest #11: Thriller / Mystery / Cozy / Suspense / Crime -- Judged by Agent Ritu Anand of D4EO Literary DATES AND GENRE SPECIFICS: For Contest #9, you have until April 20, 2026 to submit to the contest. Winners will be announced by May 10, 2026. We will reach out to the winners by email and post their names above on this post. This contest is only for writers of Romance and Women's Fiction.  Learn how to get published and pitch to 30+ literary agents at the Ohio Online Writing Workshop: https://pittsburghwritingworkshop.com/ OUR SOCIAL MEDIA REQUIREMENTS: Although the contest is free to enter, in order to be considered, you must fulfill our social media requirements. For every submission, you must spread word of this contest twice through social media — Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or something comparable. In other words, you just have to share news of it online, twice, to spread the word. (Share the website/URL of this contest -- that's the key. You can copy and paste the URL of this post, or use this shorter version: https://tinyurl.com/wdwcon9) When you e-mail your submission, make sure you include some kind of way for us to understand you have followed these guidelines. For example, if you have shared news on Facebook, include a link to that status. If you have shared news of it on BlueSky, you can take a screenshot or send us a link of that status update, etc. An easy way to notify us is to tag us:
If you use Twitter/X, put our handle at the middle or the end, not at the very beginning of the tweet, or else the tweet will be invisible to others. (Please note that simply tweeting does not count. You have to include the contest URL with your mention; that’s the point -- to spread awareness of the contest page here.) If you want to share news of the contest on the same social media platform, try and spread your mentions out, because two mentions at the same time will not help spread the word. At least separate them by a day Here is text that can be copied and used: New FREE contest for writers of Romance and Women's Fiction — https://tinyurl.com/wdwcon9 — Judged by Agent Rachel Beck of Liza Dawson Associates, via @writingdayworkshops. Winners get an agent critique of their work. If you belong to a writing group that may be interested in this contest, feel free to tag them on social media by using their handle when tweeting the news.   THE AGENT JUDGE: Rachel Beck is a literary agent with Liza Dawson Associates. Rachel joined Liza Dawson Associates in 2020 after working at a boutique literary agency for 4 years. She has been in the publishing industry since 2009 and worked at Harlequin editing romance novels for nearly 6 years before transitioning her skills to the agent world in order to be an advocate and champion for authors. She lives outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, three young children, and an endlessly entertaining cat. Check out these awesome titles represented by Rachel: As Long As You Loathe Me by Swati Hegde (pub date 3/31) Dear Mother by Rea Frey (pub date 4/28) A House of Vipers by Emma Jackson (pub date 4/28) No Higher Ground by Nicole Brooks (pub date 8/11) Attention Is the New Currency by Shanna and Marissa Perplies (pub date 8/25) SUBMIT TO CONTEST #9 OF 2026: (If you have previously been named a winner in a WDW First Page contest in the last 6 months, you are not eligible to win again for this contest. Writers cannot win more than once in a six-month window.) Submit your manuscript’s first double-spaced page, via email, to [email protected] 300 words of manuscript text, maximum. Do not attach your page. Just copy and paste the page into the email submission. At the beginning of the email, before you paste your first page, this is what we need to know:
Self-published novels are not eligible for this contest. Unpublished (new) material only, please. You may submit more than one submission; however, you are encouraged to only submit your best work. FINAL NOTES: By e-mailing your entry, you are submitting an entry for consideration in this contest and thereby agreeing to the terms written here. If you have questions or concerns, write me personally at chucksambuchino [at] gmail.com. The Yahoo account above is for submissions, not questions. This contest buys no rights; so even if you win, you can still do whatever you like with the work. We do not acquire or own or publish anything. Good luck! Make sure you fulfill the submission requirements to be considered — i.e., do NOT skip the social media requirements. Pitch an Agent at a Writers Conference in 2026:
 This post by Chuck Sambuchino, freelance editor and lead director of Writing Day Workshops. Chuck is a former longtime staffer with Writer's Digest, editing the Guide to Literary Agents. He is the author of the writing guide CREATE YOUR WRITER PLATFORM as well as the bestselling humor book HOW TO SURVIVE A GARDEN GNOME ATTACK. His most recent books are all about pickleball -- daily tear-off calendars as well as the picture book GOODNIGHT, PICKLEBALL. He is a proud #GirlDad, movie geek, and guitar/piano player. Connect with him through WDW's Instagram and Twitter,
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