30 May 2011

Free to Enter: The Festival of Romance New Talent Award

Post date: 30 May 2011
Deadline: 1 September 2011

1 The award is open to all fully paid-up delegates of the Festival of Romance to be held at Hunton Park, Watford on 21-22 October 2011 who have not had a full-length (over 50,000 words) work of romantic fiction published by a royalty-paying non-subsidy commercial publisher. The Award aims to recognise and showcase new writing talent of romantic fiction in its broadest sense and is open to writers of any type of work that could be classified as romantic fiction.

2 Each delegate may submit one entry. There is no entry fee.

3 The entry should take the form of the opening chapter to a romantic novel of any genre, which includes but is not limited to, works of contemporary romance, historical romance, paranormal romance, erotic romance, chick lit and women's fiction.

4 Entries must be entirely original work in the English language and can be of any length up to 3,500 words.

5 The entry must state the name of the work and the name and email address of the writer. It should not include any further material (e.g. a synopsis or outline of the story). The competition will be judged entirely on the merits of the work as an opening chapter to a novel and any supporting material submitted will be deleted.

6 Entries should be submitted as a .doc or .rtf attachment via email to festivalofromance@gmail.com and must be received by Thursday 1st September 2011. Receipts of entry will not be provided.

7 Each entry submitted will be read by a panel of published authors who will score the work as the opening chapter to a novel, with marks given for the following in particular:

i) gripping opening

ii) emotional engagement with the main character(s)

iii) strength of characters

iv) pace and integrity of plot

v) mastery of dialogue

vi) overall quality of writing

8 Moderated scores will be distributed to entrants after the Award judging is completed.

9 The scoring will be carefully moderated, and the highest scoring entries will be shortlisted on or before Monday 10 October 2011. An announcement will be made of those on the shortlist.

10 Each shortlisted entry will be read by the New Talent Award judges who will determine the overall winner. The judges are Donna Condon, Senior Commissioning Editor at Piatkus (Little, Brown) and Jane Judd, literary agent at Jane Judd Literary Agency.

11 The winner of the New Talent Award will be announced on Saturday 22 October 2011 at the Festival of Romance Ball and will receive a presentation.

11 Failure to comply with any of these rules will render an entry liable to disqualification and the organisers’ decision on disqualification shall be final.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: festivalofromance@gmail.com

For submissions: festivalofromance@gmail.com

Website: http://festivalofromanceonline.ning.com/
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