SLUSH PILE CHALLENGE April 2020
We are pleased to announce the April 2020 Slush Pile Challenge,
set by Megan Carroll, of Watson, Little Limited.
 |
| Megan Carroll |
Megan graduated from Goldsmiths with a BA in English and American
Literature in 2013 and worked as an intern at Watson, Little and Caroline
Sheldon Literary Agency before returning to the agency as the assistant in July
2014. She is now an Associate Agent and is building her own list.
In Children’s and YA, Megan would love to see contemporary YA tackling
realistic issues and big, epic love stories as well as funny, female-focused MG
– think Louise Rennison – and an Abi Elphinstone-style adventure for that age
group too. She’s also keen on finding new picture book authors writing funny,
commercial texts tackling the big issues and is growing a list of talented
illustrators for all ages.
Watson, Little Ltd handles an unusually wide range of fiction and
non-fiction for adults and children. Founded in 1970, Watson, Little Ltd is a
long-established literary agency that offers a full service to its clients
across all aspects of media. It has an outstanding track record, and has represented a number of celebrated, bestselling and prize-winning authors
over the years. Its current authors feature some of the world’s leading and
most exciting novelists, children’s writers, historians, illustrators, and
specialist writers, each of whom are at the top of their respective fields
of expertise.
Watson, Little’s agents combine years of experience in many
different aspects of the publishing industry with modern and
author-centred attitudes and a keen awareness of the changing face of
the industry.
THE CHALLENGE
“I’d love to see a non-rhyming text of no more than 700 words
that takes place in an interesting and unusual setting (not
commonly seen in a picture book) that features either human or animal
characters. The characters need to be compelling and appealing to children, of
course, but the setting also needs to play a part in the story.”
THE REWARD
Megan will pick a winner. She will arrange to have a 30-minute meeting with
the winner. It will be in person, via Skype or a phone call.
THIS COMPETITION HAS NOW CLOSED
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
WHO IS ELIGIBLE?
You need to be an un-agented, current SCBWI member, and resident in either the UK or Europe.
If you win a challenge, you can enter any other Slush Pile Challenges but not with the same manuscript.
To join SCBWI and take advantage of the many opportunities to raise your profile, market your work, meet fellow writers, artists and the gatekeepers to publication, while being supported in the development and pursuit of your craft, visit scbwi.org
If, between submitting your entry and the winner being announced, you gain representation from an agent, please contact us at competitions@britishscbwi.org
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO?
1 Check that you are a paid-up member of SCBWI before submitting your entry by going to scbwi.org. Any entries received where member's details cannot be found on SCBWI records will not be included as a valid entry.
2 Send in your entry as a single Word Document to competitions@britishscbwi.org. Submissions to the Slush Pile Challenge should not be sent direct to the agent/editor/judge.
3 The document should only contain THE TITLE and PICTURE BOOK TEXT the judge has requested. Do not include your name, address or email address in your word document or the document name. The word document should be named in the following format – 'your title' April 2020 Slush Pile.doc
4 Please do not insert a header or footer in your submission.
5 In the email please write your full name as it appears in SCBWI membership records and your email address. Also include the title of your work.
6 Shortly after you have submitted your entry you will receive an email from the competitions email address stating, 'Your entry has been received.' If you do not receive this message please send an email to competitions@britishscbwi.org. However, we cannot put entries through after the closing date unless your entry is received on or before the closing date.
7 Only the first entry will be considered. Please do not send revisions, multiple entries or multiple attachments.
8 Any entries received after the closing date will automatically be disqualified.
THE PROCESS
As soon as the competition is closed, it is necessary to generate a random selection using a computer program. All valid and verified entries received will be included irrespective of whether the entry was received on the date of the launch of the competition or on the closing date, or whether the entrant has previously had their submissions seen by an agent/editor/judge. This has to be done to ensure that there is no bias or pre-judging from SCBWI BI/SCBWI BI Words &Pictures editorial team when sending the entries for judging. The terms of the competition are that the judge agrees to read a minimum of fifteen entries from the number of submissions. In many cases the agent/editor/ judge requests to read more. When an agent/editor/judge requests to read fifteen or another proportion of the total entries, those chosen as the first ones to be read by the computer will be sent to him/her. Sometimes the judge may request a further selection of valid and verified entries before making their decision. When this occurs, to avoid bias, the next group of entries from the initial computer generated random selection will be sent to the agent/editor/judge. There are times when the judge requests to read all the entries and these are then forwarded to him/her.
The judge will pick a winner and also tell us why. Sometimes he/she may quote a few sentences or phrases from the winner's submission in the blog announcing the winner.
The winner will be put in touch with the judge so they can arrange the 30-minute discussion, in person, by Skype, or on the phone.
Good Luck Everyone!
The Words & Pictures team are aware that our members write for
different ages and genres. With this in mind, we endeavour to provide at least
one Slush Pile Challenge a year that our un-agented members
feel able to enter.
Elaine Cline has been a SCBWI member for over six years and loves
to write picture books, middle-grade and teen books. She lives by the sea and
has one dog and one cat.
Elaine is a member of the Words & Pictures editorial
team, managing The Slush Pile Challenge.
No comments:
We love comments and really appreciate the time it takes to leave one.
Interesting and pithy reactions to a post are brilliant but we also LOVE it when people just say they've read and enjoyed.
We've made it easy to comment by losing the 'are you human?' test, which means we get a lot of spam. Fortunately, Blogger recognises these, so most, if not all, anonymous comments are deleted without reading.