SLUSH PILE CHALLENGE October 2023
Ludo Cinelli
Steven Evans
Ludo Cinelli is an Agent and the Managing Director at Eve White Literary Agency. He joined the company in 2017 and began to grow his list of clients in 2018. He has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London.
He reads widely across fiction and nonfiction. The books he loves might challenge him with their ideas and style, but they might also be a simple story beautifully told. He does this job because of the variety, the excitement, and the potential it offers. He takes pride in building strong, long-lasting relationships with his clients and publishing colleagues alike.
In his spare time he enjoys good and bad films, cooking, eating, and sporadically attempting to improve at chess.
In no specific order, here are some older and newer books he’s enjoyed recently:
• Bad Behaviour by Mary Gaitskill
• Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
• Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
• Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
• Luster by Raven Leilani
• … And Away by Bob Mortimer
• Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
• Underworld by Don DeLillo
• No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
• Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
Steven Evans is the agency assistant at Eve White, reading submissions and providing administrative and editorial support. Steven grew up in Newcastle upon Tyne. After completing an MPhil in comparative film & literature at Queens’ College, Cambridge, he moved to Paris, where he taught English and worked as a freelancer for several literary scouting agencies. He enjoys reading fiction and non-fiction of all kinds, but has a particular interest in non-fiction which sheds light on under-represented perspectives, communities and histories, and literary fiction which explores new ideas, challenges the reader, and plays with style, form, character and/or plot.
Eve White Literary Agency is UK-based representing internationally published authors. A Member of the Association of Authors’ Agents.
THE CHALLENGE
“We would like to see a 200-word synopsis of a middle-grade adventure written in the novel’s narrative voice.
Things we’re especially keen to see:
• Pitches from underrepresented writers and/or POVs we haven’t heard from before.
• Stories that are fun, but not necessarily funny.
• An unlikely friendship or complex central relationship.”
Entrants must have written at least three chapters and a synopsis prior to entering this competition.
THIS COMPETITION HAS NOW CLOSED
THE REWARD
Ludo and Steven will pick a winner. They will arrange to have a 30-minute meeting with the winner. It will be either in person, Zoom or a phone call.
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 200-word synopsis 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' October 2023 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 winner will be put in touch with the judge so they can arrange the 30-minute discussion by Zoom 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.
*Header image: In-house collaboration between Ell Rose and Tita Berredo
*
Elaine Cline has been a SCBWI member for over eight years and loves to write picture books, chapter books, and middle-grade books. She lives by the sea and has one dog.
Elaine is a member of the Words & Pictures editorial team, managing The Slush Pile Challenge.
Twitter handle: @elaineccline
Tita Berredo is the Illustrator Coordinator of SCBWI British Isles and the Art Director of Words & Pictures. Contact her at: illuscoordinator@britishscbwi.org
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