Welcome to the 30th (free!) “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest on the GLA blog. This is a FREE recurring online contest with agent judges and super-cool prizes. Here’s the deal: With every contest, the details are essentially the same, but the niche itself changes—meaning each contest is focused around a specific category or two. If you’re writing middle grade (any genre or type), then this 30th contest is for you! The contest is live through end of day, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2016. The contest is judged by agent Caitie Flum of Liza Dawson Associates.

WHY YOU SHOULD GET EXCITED

After a previous “Dear Lucky Agent” contest, the agent judge, Tamar Rydzinski (The Laura Dail Literary Agency), signed one of the three contest winners. After Tamar signed the writer, she went on to sell two of that writer’s books! How cool! These contests can’t be missed if you have an eligible submission.

HOW TO SUBMIT

E-mail entries to [email protected]. Please paste all text. The only time to include attachments are when you have to attach images to show your social-media sharing (more info that below).

MEET YOUR (AWESOME) AGENT JUDGE!

Caitlie Flum joined Liza Dawson Associates as audio rights manager. She is now building her own list of clients. She graduated from Hofstra University in 2009 with a B.A. in English with a concentration in publishing studies. She interned at Hachette Book Group and Writers House. Caitie is looking for commercial and upmarket fiction with great characters and superb writing, especially historical fiction, mysteries/thrillers of all kinds, romance, and book club fiction. She is open to science fiction and fantasy that crosses over to a young adult market. She is also looking for middle grade and young adult projects. In nonfiction, she is looking for narrative nonfiction, especially history that’s impossible to put down, books on pop culture, theater, current events, women’s issues, and humor.

WHAT TO SUBMIT (AND OUR SOCIAL MEDIA REQUIREMENTS)

The first 150-300 words (i.e., your first double-spaced page) of your unpublished, completed middle grade novel. You must include a contact e-mail address with your entry and use your real name. Also note your city of residence (i.e. — the city & state you live in, not your full address). Submit the title of the work and a logline (one-sentence description of the work) with each entry. Self-published middle novels are not eligible.

Please note: To be eligible to submit, you must mention this contest twice through any any social-media. Please provide a social-media link or Twitter handle or screenshot or blog post URL, etc., with your official e-mailed entry so the judge and I can verify eligibility. Some previous entrants could not be considered because they skipped this step! In short, simply spread the word twice through any means and give us a way to verify you did; a TinyURL for this link/contest for you to easily use is http://tinyurl.com/jb6max3

An easy way to notify me of your sharing is to include my Twitter handle @chucksambuchino at the end of your mention(s) if using Twitter. If we’re friends on FB, tag me in the mention. If you are going to just use Twitter as your 2 entries, please wait one day between mentions to spread out the notices, instead of simply tweeting twice back to back. Thanks. (Please note that simply tweeting me does not count. You have to include the contest URL with your mention; that’s the point. And if you use Twitter, put my handle @chucksambuchino at the middle or the end, not at the very beginning of the tweet, or else the tweet will be invisible to others.)

Here is a sample TWEET you can use (feel free to tweak): New FREE contest for writers of Middle Grade http://tinyurl.com/jb6max3 Judged by agent @caitief, via @chucksambuchino

Check Out These Great Upcoming Writers’ Conferences:

• Feb. 11, 2017: Writers Conference of Minnesota (St. Paul, MN)
• Feb. 16–19, 2017: San Francisco Writers Conference (San Francisco, CA)
• Feb. 24, 2017: The Alabama Writers Conference (Birmingham, AL)
• Feb. 25, 2017: Atlanta Writing Workshop (Atlanta, GA)
• March 25, 2017: Michigan Writers Conference (Detroit, MI)
• March 25, 2017: Kansas Writing Workshop (Kansas City, KS)
• April 8, 2017: Philadelphia Writing Workshop (Philadelphia, PA)
• April 22, 2017: Get Published in Kentucky Conference (Louisville, KY)
• April 22, 2017: New Orleans Writers Conference (New Orleans, LA)
• May 6, 2017: Seattle Writers Conference (Seattle, WA)
• May 21, 2017: Get Published in San Diego (San Diego, CA)
• June 24, 2017: The Writing Workshop of Chicago (Chicago, IL)
• July 22, 2017: Tennessee Writers Workshop (Nashville, TN)
• Aug. 18–20, 2017: Writer’s Digest Conference (New York, NY)

WHAT IS ELIGIBLE?

Any completed middle grade manuscript. This includes any genre/type of middle grade story, from fantasy and science fiction to contemporary and realistic.

If you’re wondering if your novel is actually a middle grade novel, know this:

• Middle grade novels are usually read by readers ages 8-12.
• Middle grade novels typically have protagonists (main characters) aged 10-13.
• Middle grade is not young adult. Young adult books are for older readers. They feature older characters with storylines that are usually more complex and mature.

CONTEST DETAILS

1. This contest will be live through the end of January 31, 2017, PST. Winners notified by e-mail within three weeks of end of contest. Winners announced at the top of this blog post at the same time.
2. To enter, submit the first 150-300 words of your novel (i.e., your first double-spaced page). Shorter or longer entries will not be considered. Keep it within word count range please.
3. You can submit as many novel entries as you wish. You can submit even if you submitted to other contests in the past, but please note that past winners cannot win again. All that said, you are urged to submit only your best work.
4. The contest is open to everyone of all ages, save those employees, officers and directors of GLA’s publisher, F+W: A Content and E-Commerce Company, Inc.
5. 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 chuck.sambuchino (at) fwmedia.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.

PRIZES!!!

Top 3 winners each get: 1) A critique of the first 10 double-spaced pages of your work by your agent judge. 2) Their choice of any of Chuck’s two new books that came out in fall (the Guide to Literary Agents 2017 or the Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market 2017).

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The post 30th Free “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest: Middle Grade Fiction appeared first on WritersDigest.com.