SLUSH PILE CHALLENGE October 2024

 

 

We are pleased to announce the October Slush Pile Challenge, set by Millie van Grutten, of RCW Literary Agency.

 

 

 

Millie van Grutten works as an agent with a particular interest in illustrators and picture books. One of her earliest memories is reading Lauren Child’s Clarice Bean – she adored seeing Clarice Bean tucked up in the airing cupboard amongst the knickers and socks whilst reading her comics and escaping her wonderfully eccentric family. Little did she know that one day she would have the enormous pleasure and privilege of working in the world of children’s book writing and illustration. Narrative in both text and illustration have always been important to her. Millie’s degree was in Classics and she loves the great stories of Virgil and Homer; to her there’s no better example of narrative than the ancients – packed with suspense, jammed with emotion and all within the perfect structure. It’s these sort of qualities she look for in both illustrations and texts – so not much to live up to then…

 

Millie relishes the opportunity to champion the work of illustrators and authors alike – and to fight for their space on the bestselling shelves.

 

 

THE CHALLENGE

 

“I’d like to set a picture book challenge that can really appeal to the younger readers, 500 words or less. I’m looking for a bold and punchy text that does a lot with a little word count and that is funny. I’d love a book with a big character(s) at its heart, and I am always keen to see a bit of an interactive element in there too e.g. a search-and find, what is…?, who is… ?”

 

Although Millie is only asking for the text, she is open to illustrated texts and illustrator/authors.

 

 

THE REWARD

 

Millie will pick a winner. She will arrange to have a 30-minute meeting with the winner. It will be in person, Zoom 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 picture book manuscript 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 2024 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 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.

 

 

 

Elaine Cline has been a SCBWI member for over eight years and loves to write picture books, middle-grade and teen 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. Her twitter handle is elaineccline.