*** DEADLINE EXTENDED TO FEB. 11, 2025 FREE CONTEST FOR WRITERS! Welcome to the 2025 First Pages Contest. Contest #1 of this year is for writers of Young Adult Novels (all types). If you write in this age category, keep reading and submit your work! This free contest ends on Feb. 11, 2025 [UPDATED, EXTENDED DEADLINE]. Here’s how it works: We invite awesome literary agents to judge the contest. The agents pick 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! There are two additional contests happening now in January 2025 -- one for writers of adult romance and women's fiction and historical fiction, and one for writers of adult science fiction & fantasy. DATES AND GENRE SPECIFICS: 2025 Contest #1: You have until Feb. 11, 2025 to submit to the contest. [DEADLINE EXTENDED AND UPDATED!] This contest is only for writers of young adult fiction (all kinds). The agent judge has three weeks from the contest’s end to judge all entries. Then we will inform the winners and post the names here on this blog post. 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 judge for a 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. 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. When you e-mail your submission, make sure you include some kind of way for us to understand you have followed these guidelines. If you have shared news on Facebook, include a link to your 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. Here is my personal Facebook page to tag me. Or you can tag us on Twitter/X: @writingdaywksp Or you can tag us on Instagram: @writingdaywksp Find us on Blue Sky here. Find us on Threads here. 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 me does not count. You have to include the contest URL with your mention; that’s the point.) 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 Young Adult Fiction — https://tinyurl.com/wdwcon1 — Judged by agent Eric Smith, 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 Twitter by using their handle when tweeting the news. ![]() THE AGENT JUDGE: Eric Smith is an agent at P.S. Literary and a published YA author. He has a love for unusual literary fiction, accessible sci-fi and fantasy, and all kinds of non-fiction. He’s worked on award-winning and New York Times bestselling titles and began his publishing career at Quirk Books. He also occasionally writes books for kids when he finds the time, like his most recent young adult novel, the award-winning With or Without You (HarperCollins Children’s, 2023). Here are some books he's written or represented. Check them out! With or Without You, by himself (Eric). The pitch: Everyone knows Jordan Plazas and Cindy Ortiz hate each other. According to many viral videos of their public shouting matches, the Plazas and Ortiz families have a well-known food truck rivalry. Jordan and Cindy have spent all of high school making cheesesteaks and slinging insults at each other across their shared Philadelphia street. But the truth? They’re in love, and it’s all just an act for the tourists. When the fake feud lands them a reality tv show pilot, Jordan and Cindy find themselves having to lie on a much bigger scale. Trapped between pursuing their dreams or their love, can they find a way to have their cheesesteak and eat it too? Dust by Alison Stine. In this haunting, speculative coming-of-age novel about finding your place in an unforgiving environment, a partially deaf teen questions everything she knows about family, love, and her future. Roll for Love by M.K. England. A second-chance queer romance about two teens whose in-world D&D characters fall in love, but in IRL ... things are more complicated, perfect for lovers of Ashley Poston and Becky Albertalli. The Corruption of Hollis Brown by K. Ancrum. From acclaimed author K. Ancrum comes a queer romantic thriller in which the lives of Hollis, a boy in search of meaning, and Walt, a spirit with unfinished business, collide when Walt takes possession of Hollis's body...and maybe his heart. For fans of Adam Silvera and Aiden Thomas! SUBMIT TO CONTEST #1 OF 2025: 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 as well as any terms possibly added by me in the “Comments” section of this blog post. If you have questions or concerns, write me personally at chucksambuchino [at] gmail.com. The Gmail 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. Attend a writers conference in 2025:
CHECK OUT MORE LINKS FROM WRITING DAY WORKSHOPS
Comments are closed.
|
Top CategoriesCategories
All
|