Each year, the PEN New England Children's Book Committee honors emerging writers and writer/illustrators with its Susan P. Bloom Children's Book Discovery Award. Winners will present their work to the public at the PEN New England Children's Book Discovery Evening in May 2011, and winning manuscripts will be read by editors at major publishing houses. In past years, editors from Knopf, Candlewick, and Houghton Mifflin have read winning submissions.
Entrants must be residents of New England who have not been published in any genre (with the exception of print and online magazines, anthologies and self-publishing), and the submitted work (or another work) must not be under contract to be published. While people who have self-published may submit, we ask that the piece they submit be unpublished. People who have done work-for-hire books are allowed to submit if their name did not appear on the work-for-hire. Previous winners of the contest are not eligible. We are able to accept only one entry per person, in one of the following four categories: picture books, novels, poetry and nonfiction.
The deadline for submissions is Tuesday, February 1, 2011. Entries need only be postmarked by that date. If you want to be sure your entry has been received, enclose a self-addressed and stamped postcard. Please do not require a signature for delivery.
All work should be-in both format and quality-ready for consideration by a publisher. The Committee does not determine ahead of time the number of winners or the categories to be represented. Winners will be notified by late March.
To submit your work, please follow these guidelines:
1. Each submission of text should be approximately 10 pages in length, double-spaced, though picture books may be shorter. PLEASE NOTE: Manuscripts will not be returned. Please include a cover page with the title, your contact info, and the category you are submitting in.
Picture books: Send complete text. If you are a writer and not an illustrator, there is no need to send along illustrations. Author/illustrators should include sample illustrations or a book dummy, which will be returned if an appropriate SASE is provided. Do not send original artwork.
Middle grade or Y/A novels: Send one or two chapters, and a one-page synopsis.
Poetry: Send up to ten poems.
Nonfiction: Send one or two chapters, plus a brief outline or table of contents.
2. Include a short biographical statement about your experience and interest in the field.
3. Enclose a letter-sized SASE for notification of decisions.
4. Staple all documents together if possible. If not, use a binder clip to secure them. A cover letter is not necessary but the first page of your submission should include the category you are submitting in, the title of the work, your name, and contact info (include a phone number and e-mail address.)
5. Mail your submission to:
PEN New England/CBC Discovery Night
c/o Kim Ablon Whitney
34 Stafford Rd.
Newton Centre, MA 02459
Members of the PEN New England Children's Book Committee will serve as judges. Members are: Susan P. Bloom, David Elliot, Susan Goodman, Robie Harris, Pat Lowery Collins, Lisa Jahn-Clough, Liza Ketchum, Lois Lowry, Mitali Perkins, Leslie Sills, and Kim Ablon Whitney.
More information here.
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