Minor/Major Matters of Business

First, congratulations to everyone who applied for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards (www.artandwriting.org). The results won't be known at regional levels for another month or so, but congrats. You guys work so hard. Please let me know if you win anything!

The PUSH imprint contest, for unpublished novels written by teens, is open until March. If you have 30-50 pages of a novel, run over to the Scholastic page and see if you're interested in submitting. Please pay attention to the rights you give up for the contest; know what you're doing!

You can find me today over at www.orb28.blogspot.com, and my Fresh Ideas column at KidMagWriters.com has been published. Go read my life-altering words of wisdom-- or gently entertaining writing thoughts-- over at http://kidmagwriters.com/workday/fresh-ideas.htm.

The Thing About Contests

I don't enter contests much, unless they're scholarship-based. There are many different opinions about contests- they're fab, they're fly, they're flat- but I stay away from them for a couple reasons.
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There's likely to be an entry fee, and I'm in a perpetual state of being broke. Unless I've published something. Contests also have specific guidelines (stories about mad cats celebrating Kwaanza) and I find it hard to go that specific (mad cat celebrations in general are OK.) Contests have concrete deadlines and that's a good thing, but in the long run, contests are harder to put on query bios. I prefer straight-out working with an editor.
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What do you think?

NEXT WEEK: Megan Kelley Hall will be joining us for Wednesday Wonderfulness to talk about her spooky-and-acclaimed debut, Sisters of Misery