Chase The Dream Contest

Contests for Writing and Books, Oh My!

It’s contest season, folks. Let’s see what’s cooking:

At Margo Berendson’s “Writing at High Altitudes” you’ve got an awesome contest to help push yourself and a fellow author. Margo is offering a commenter a $30 Amazon giftcard for their comment regarding her New Year’s resolution word count  goal. Read her post, get inspired.

Many of you know I entered and won second place for fantasy in the 2010 Sandy Writer’s Competition last year. It’s time to send in your chapters for 2011 and I can’t recommend doing this enough. Seriously. For $30, you get constructive criticism from three published authors AND if you place in the top three positions, your ms goes before an agent. Ginger Clark was my agent-judge last year and she requested my first 50 pages. Pretty darn cool. Check out the competition’s guidelines and get your work in. The deadline is February 13th.

Unless you’re dead or uninterested in writing, you’re aware the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Competition opens on January 24th and closes to entries on February 6th OR when they receive 5,000 entries in a given age range (adult or YA). This competition is FREE and as I posted a few days ago, there are communities at the site who will critique your opening chapters for you while you await the judges’ decisions. Two years ago they helped me polish my opening and made winning second place in the Sandy possible. This contest is well worth your time and you have nothing to lose.

The annual Chase the Dream contest (for you Romance authors) will be rescheduled this year. Make sure you check their website periodically for more information, but if I hear when it will be, I’ll try to post the dates here, too.

Addendum! Maria Zannini was so kind as to let me know about her critique contest! Be sure to go there next for a chance to win a free critique!

Good luck and God bless you all!

Chase The Dream Contest Winner!

I’m so excited for my friend, Vicki Bendau. Not only did she win this year’s Chase Dream contest, but her book, “Hooves of Thunder, Hearts of Silk” is set in 1226 A.D. Monogolia, east of Samarkind on the Silk Road.

I’ve got a link to her interview with contest administrators Leigh Michaels and Rachelle Chase in the title of this post. See this link to view her entry. Congratulations, Vicki!

Chase The Dream Contest

The third annual CHASE THE DREAM contest will officially kick off on January 1, 2010. Once again, author Rachelle Chase (www.rachellechase.com) and Leigh Michaels are teaming up to offer what may be one of the best contests in the romance-writing world.

Details about rules and prizes and how to enter are on the contest website at http://chasethedreamcontest.wordpress.com/

But here’s the short (unofficial) version: Enter the first 1,000 words of a romance novel (or novel with a romantic theme). Each week Rachelle chooses a finalist; each week author Leigh Michaels of Harlequin Romance fame will choose a non-winning entry to receive a mini-critique.

The eight finaling entries will all be reviewed by a panel of editors and agents. (This year’s agents and editors include Alex Logan of Grand Central Publishing; Deb Werksman of Sourcebooks; Theresa Stevens of Red Sage Publishing; Susan Swinwood of Harlequin/Mira/Spice; Esi Sogah of Avon Books; Kelli Martin of Kumani Press; Christine Witthohn of Book Cents Literary Agency, and Laura Bradford of Bradford Literary Agency — with more to be announced.)

No promises about what might happen this year, but in previous contests, many finalists have received offers of agent representation and requests for full manuscripts, and several have been published as a result of entering CHASE THE DREAM. (See my friend Jeannie Lin’s story on her blog, All That You Desire.)

The contest is free, and they have great prizes — including a free class donated by Gotham Writers Workshop, manuscript critiques, books, and other goodies. Check it out — and polish up the first 1,000 words of YOUR book to enter!