SLUSH PILE CHALLENGE "So long, farewell ..."

 

 

“Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start …”

 

I love musicals. Using lyrics from The Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein was appropriate for me to begin this article about the Slush Pile Challenge.

 

Candy Gourlay built the early SCBWI British Isles websites in 2003 and in the process created the old SCBWI British Isles logo.

 

 

Candy also designed SCBWI France’s newsletter because of her friendship with Bridget Marzo. By 2003, Candy was also designing the hardcopy of Words & Pictures for SCBWI-BI, which was distributed to members.

 

 

Candy dreamt up the idea of an innovative and interactive online magazine as she was blogging for Notes from the Slushpile. She was very familiar with Blogger and designed the first digital Words & Pictures. In 2010, SCBWI-BI Words & Pictures was relaunched and became accessible to the whole world under Editor in Chief, Jan Carr.

 

Sara Grant found out that other SCBWI chapters organised writing competitions for their members to enter. In 2010, Sara developed their idea and introduced the Slush Pile Challenge for unagented members to enter. Candy designed this logo.

 

 

The introduction of the new Words and Pictures online magazine was an ideal platform for the first Slush Pile Challenge. It was set by Sara Grant’s agent, Jenny Savill, Director of Andrew Nurnberg Associates Ltd in June 2010: “I would like the first chapter and synopsis of a story that would appeal to boys aged eleven and over.” The winner of this challenge was Lucy Van Smit. Her new book will be launched on 28th November 2025.

 

In 2011, Liz De Jager took over the coordination of the Slush Pile Challenge from Sara. In the same year, Mo O’Hara won this competition. “The brief was to do a story loosely based on Frankenstein.” So Mo “wrote a thousand word section of a book and called it Frankenfish.” After positive feedback, Mo worked on her manuscript and it became My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish. This is now a best selling series published by Macmillan Publishers.

 

Chitra Soundar took over the coordination of the Slush Pile Challenge from Liz in 2013.

 

At the beginning of January 2014, George Kirk won a Slush Pile Challenge. George was given an Honorary Mention in Undiscovered Voices in 2013, 2015 and 2017. She was also short-listed for the Commonword Diversity in Children’s Writing Prize and was overall winner in the Brit Writers’ Unpublished Award. In 2018, George was a finalist in the Hook at the SCBWI-BI conference in Winchester. George signed with Alice Williams Literary Agency in 2019. George’s debut book, Bessie’s Bees, illustrated by Ana Gomez was published on 3rd July, 2025.

 

Nancy Saunders took over from Jan Carr as Editor in Chief for Words & Pictures in 2015. In the same year, Chitra Soundar put out a request for someone to take over the Slush Pile Challenge as she was embarking on an MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University. Having entered the Slush Pile Challenge and found the experience valuable, I offered to take over the coordination of it. I realised that this role would mean that I wouldn’t be able to enter this competition.

 

The first Slush Pile Challenge I coordinated was set by Amber Caravéo, agent at Skylark Literary in October, 2015. Maureen Lynas had been a finalist in Undiscovered Voices in 2012. She was delighted to win this challenge and became represented by Amber.

 

In 2016, Ellie Brough became a co-editor with Claire Watts. At the end of the year, Claire became Editor and Az Dassu (A M Dassu) became Deputy Editor. Under their direction, Words & Pictures was transformed into a weekly online magazine, featuring articles to interest, inform and inspire SCBWI-BI members and anyone involved in creating books for children.

 

Everyone faced challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. I thought it was important that the Slush Pile Challenge should continue as it offered hope to our unagented members.

 

Megan Carroll of Watson, Little Ltd, set and judged the April 2020 Slush Pile Challenge and Kate Thompson was given an honourable mention. Kate also entered the July 2020 Slush Pile Challenge and was placed as a runner up by the agent/judge, Jo Williamson of Antony Harwood Literary Agency. Kate is represented by Jo.

 

In January 2022, Gulfem Wormald became Editor of Words & Pictures. Fran Price (who was Events Editor from January 2018 to January 2022) became Deputy Editor of Words & Pictures. Tracy Curran became Productions Editor of Words & Pictures in January 2022. Gulfem, Fran and Tracy continued to ensure that this online magazine provided interesting, informative and inspiring articles.

 

Many unagented members of SCBWI who lived in the United Kingdom, Eire and Europe regularly entered the Slush Pile Challenge. This has included Meredith Vigh who entered this competition in April 2017, set and judged by Jodie Hodges of United Agents. Meredith was given a “Special Mention”. In 2022, Meredith won the Slush Pile Challenge, set and judged by Christabel McKinley of David Higham Associates. Meredith’s latest book, Odell’s Amazing Arms, illustrated by Clair Rossiter was published by Jellycat on 21st June, 2025. Her agent is Christabel.

 

The least number of entries received for the quarterly Slush Pile Challenge was seven. The most number of entries received was 154 for the April 2021 Slush Pile Challenge, set by Joanna Moult of Skylark Literary Agency. Thank you Joanna for reading all the entries. Jenny Ireland was placed as a joint winner in this competition and is represented by Joanna.

 

My role included emailing industry professionals asking them to set and judge the competition. Thank you to those agents and editors who agreed to do this and for providing helpful feedback to entrants.

 

Since coordinating the Slush Pile Challenge, I’ve received over 5000 emails to the competitions website address and sent over 8500 emails from the same email address. When entrants submitted their entries, I manually acknowledged them. SCBWI HQ amended their website which meant I was no longer able to check to see if entrants were valid members of SCBWI and lived in United Kingdom, Eire or Europe. I had to send additional emails to entrants asking for evidence of membership. I also contacted the entrants when I knew how many entries the agents/editors were going to read, as well as informed them the outcome of their entry.

 

The SCBWI-BI Words & Pictures online magazine was used to launch the quarterly Slush Pile Challenge and to inform readers the results of the competition. The winner was given the opportunity to write about their experience of winning this challenge.

 

The last Slush Pile Challenge was set in April 2025 by Carolyn May McGlone of May Literary Agency and won by Kate Higney. Her son’s comment, “You’ve won a pile of slush!” made me laugh. But from the conversations and written communications about this competition I’ve had with entrants (whether they won or not) entering it helped them on their writing journey.

 

With the reorganisation taking place in SCBWI and the ending of Words & Pictures online magazine, there will be no further quarterly Slush Pile Challenges in its present form.

 

SCBWI-BI was run solely by volunteers. Thank you to Natascha Biebow MBE, author and Founder of Blue Elephant Storyshaping, who has been Regional Advisor for 27 years. Thank you to Tita Berredo, Kathryn Evans, Alison Gardiner, Candy Gourlay, Sara Grant, Philip Kavvadias, Anita Loughrey, Mo O’Hara, Ashley Taylor, BB Taylor and Catherine Whitmore for supporting the Slush Pile Challenge and giving their time to help SCBWI-BI members.

 

Thank you to past and present dedicated voluntary committee members, network organisers and Facebook admins who supported the promotion of this competition and other SCBWI events. I’m also grateful to the volunteers who organised social meetups, agents’ parties, conferences, retreats, workshops, courses, Undiscovered Voices, face-to-face and online critique groups, and many other activities to support SCBWI-BI members in creating books for young people.

 

Thank you to past and present editors, sub editors and everyone who has contributed to Words & Pictures.

 

And a special thank you to the unagented SCBWI members who live in the British Isles, Eire and Europe for entering the competition. Many became my pen pals.

 

I will heed my own advice to keep writing and enter appropriate competitions including SCBWI-BI Undiscovered Voices.

 

The lyrics from the Sound of Music by Rodgers and Hammerstein seem an appropriate way for me to conclude this article: “So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye …”

*Header image: Ell Rose & Tita Berredo

*

 

Elaine Cline has been a SCBWI member for over ten years and loves to write picture books, chapter books and middle-grade. She lives by the sea and has a dog.

 

Elaine was a member of the Words & Pictures' editorial team and managed the Slush Pile Challenge for writers for nearly ten years.

 

Connect with Elaine on X formerly Twitter: @elaineccline

 

Connect with Elaine on Bluesky: @elaineccline.bsky.social