February 2016 Contest Roundup

Holy cow there are a lot of contests coming up. Pitch opportunities abound. So polish up those pitches and get ready!

Sub it Club’s 3 year anniversary celebration is in February and we’re excited to be bringing you some great opportunities as well. We hope you’ll join in and help us celebrate!

January:

1/29: #PitchCB – Open to any genre of novel length fiction and nonfiction. Pitch Curtis Brown and Conville and Walsh Agencies using the #PitchCB hashtag. Pitching is open for 24 hours. Please note this agency is in the UK so adjust your pitch time accordingly.

1/31: Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize – Open to works in progress of innovative literary nonfiction by a writer not yet established in the genre. Submit a one page cover letter, a 2-10 page overview, and a minimum 25,000 words of the manuscript via Submittable. Entry opens January 1st. Winner to receive a $12,000.00 advance, editorial guidance, and publication.

1/31: Nelson Algren Literary Awards – Enter your fiction, up to 8,000 words. Two entries allowed per person. One grand prize winner will receive $3,500. Four finalists will each receive $1,000. Five runners-up will each receive $500. All entries will be considered for publication by the Chicago Tribune. Enter via Submittable.

1/31: Deborah Rogers Foundation Writer’s Award – Open to unpublished writers who are residents within the British Commonwealth and Eire. Enter your 20,000 – 30,000 fiction or nonfiction WORK IN PROGRESS along with a brief synopsis and bio. Winner to receive £10,000.

February:

2/1: Sun vs. Snow – Open to MG, YA, NA, and Adult. 17 agents have agreed to participate so far. 200 submissions will be accepted. The manuscript cannot have been in an agent round of any other contest. Enter your query, first 250 words, and answer this in 100 words or less: Which would your character find more helpful in fighting through their biggest obstacle–hot or cold. And why? Tell us which weather would be the most helpful to your character. Agent round to take place on 2/22.

2/3: #Pit2Pub  –Open to Picture Book through Adult. Pitch your manuscript to publishers via Twitter using the #Pit2Pub hashtag from  8am to 8pm CST. One pitch per manuscript every two hours. Include the age group and genre in your tweet. See their hashtag post for details. This is a publisher pitch day. Check out the blog list for features on the participating publishers.

2/4: Sub It Club Pitch Day with Agent Shira Hoffman – Pitch agent Shira Hoffman of McIntosh & Otis right here on the Sub It Club blog. Post your pitch of up to 100 words plus the first 100 words of your manuscript on our pitch post that will be up on February 4th. Shira will be perusing your pitches from 9am to 5pm EST. Shira Hoffman represents adult fiction, literary fiction, up-market women’s fiction, romance (adult & NA), sci-fi/fantasy, mystery, nonfiction, memoir, YA (contemporary, sci-fi/fantasy, mystery), and upper middle grade (scary, sci-fi/fantasy, mystery).

2/8: Sub It Club Submission Pass to Sterling Publishing – Sterling Children’s Editor Christina Pulles will be here to talk about submissions and will be giving away a pass to jump the slush pile! Entry will be in the comments section of the interview posted on the 8th.

2/9: Dear Lucky Agent Contest – Open to completed women’s fiction novels. Enter the title, logline, and first 150-250 words of your manuscript. 3 winners each receive a critique of the first 10 double-spaced pages of your work from agent Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein of McIntosh & Otis.

2/11: Sub It Club Kidlit Giveaways with Author Ariel Bernstein – Enter to win a picture book and query letter critique from Ariel. Plus we’ll be giving away a pass to jump the slush pile from her agent Mary Cummings of Betsy Amster Literary. Mary represents fiction and poetry for children and teens, from picture books to middle grade and young adult novels. Entry will be in the comments section of the post on the 11th. 

2/11: #PBPitch – Open to picture books. Pitch your picture book via Twitter using the #PBPitch hashtag. See the event page for a list of agents they hope are stopping by.

2/11: #PitMatch – Open to all genres. Tweet your pitch one time per manuscript using the #PitMatch hashtag between 1PM and 4PM EST. 3 teams of literary cupids–an author team, an agent team, and an editor team–will work to find the connections between authors, agents, and editors who accept direct submissions in an attempt to do some literary matchmaking.

2/14: Sub It Club Anniversary Giveaway – Open to picture book writers. Enter to win a pass into my new Picture Book Query Letter Workshop (details to come soon). I’ll also be giving away a picture book and query letter critique. Entry details will be on my post on February 14th.

2/15: Son of a Pitch – Open to YA, NA, and Adult. Post your query + 1st 250 words on your blog and link to it in the comments of the upcoming contest post. It is not clear whether or not you need to take part in this round to participate. Please check lengthy contest requirements. There will be a round for agents, editors, and publishers to participate.

2/17: #AdPit – Open to New Adult and Adult manuscripts. Includes an online “mini-conference” and a Twitter pitch day. The link I used last month is now gone and the information I can find says mid-February so let’s keep an eye out for more info.

2/26: Sub It Club Pitch Day with Agent Jennifer Johnson-Blalock – Open to nonfiction, commercial and upmarket fiction, thrillers/mysteries, women’s fiction, contemporary romance, young adult, and middle grade. Post your 100 word pitch and first 100 words of your novel for agent Jennifer Johnson-Blalock of Liza Dawson Associates right here on the Sub It Club blog from 10am to 6pm EST. Jennifer will be offering feedback and making requests on those that pique her interest. Pitching will take place on our post on the 26th.

2/26: Pitch Madness Mario Kart Edition – Open to completed Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult. Submit a 35-word pitch and the first 250 words of your manuscript. 60 entries will be chosen to go onto the agent round. Agents play a game to win requests for more pages of their favorite entries. The best played agent request wins either a partial or full manuscript read of the entry. Agent round begins 3/9. Watch for the participating agent post on 2/17, rules on 2/19, and formatting instructions on 2/23.

2/26 WRiTE CLUB – 

March:

3/5: P2P16 – 15 freelance editors will be paired with chosen authors to help polish their manuscript. Check the editor links to see what categories they work in. Edited manuscripts go into the an agent round on 4/15. More information to come.

3/7: #SonofaPitch – Pitch your manuscript via Twitter using the #SonofaPitch hashtag. Include your genre and age category. One tweet per manuscript per hour.

3/9: Creative Writing Fellowship – Open to published authors of poetry. $25,000.00 in grants are available. Applications must be submitted through Grants.gov. See links to various information in the sidebar on the page.

3/17: #Pitmad – Open to any genre and category. Pitch your completed manuscript on Twitter using the #PitMad hashtag along with a category/genre hashtag (see list on the #Pitmad rules page) from 8AM – 8PM EDT. Tweet 3 pitches per project.

3/31: Foley Poetry Award – Open to unpublished poetry on any topic. Poem be 30 lines or less. Winner to receive $1000.

 Upcoming:

4/24: #FicFest –  Open to Children’s Books, Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult. 45 manuscripts will be chosen. Finalists will work with teams on revisions. Agent round begins 7/8 with agents requesting partial/fulls on the manuscripts that interest them.

6/9: #Pitmad – Open to any genre and category. Pitch your completed manuscript on Twitter using the #PitMad hashtag from 8AM – 8PM EDT. Tweet 3 pitches per project for the day.

8/3: Pitch Wars – “Published/agented authors, editors, or industry interns choose one writer each, read their entire manuscript, and offer suggestions to shine it up for agents. The mentors also critique the writer’s pitch to get it ready for the agent round. Writers send applications (query and first chapter of manuscript) to the four mentors that best fit their work. The mentors then read all their applications and choose the writer they want to mentor for the next two months. Then we hold an agent round with over a dozen agents making requests.”

Looking for even more competitions? Here is A Curated List of Creative Writing Competitions put together by Almond Press.