Tag Archives: Writers

2017 Minnesota Writing Workshop

December 18, 2016Literary, Writing Conferences & GetawaysAdult Books, Betsy Amster Literary, Childrens Books, Conference, Corvisiero Literary Agency, Dee Mura Literary, Editing, Editors, February, Fiction, Getting Published, Graywolf Press, How To Get Published, Jennifer De Chiara Literary, Kensington Publishing, Literary Agents, Manuscripts, Middle Grade Books, Mighty Media Press Children's Books, Minnesota, Minnesota Writing Workshop, Non-Fiction, Pitch Event, Red Sofa Literary, St. Paul, Stories, The Bent Agency, The Lark Group, Writers, Writing, Young Adult Bookspdpabst

The 2017 Minnesota Writing Workshop is a wonderful opportunity to get intense instruction over the course of one day, pitch a literary agent or editor (optional), get your questions answered, and more. Note that there are limited seats at the event (150 total). This workshop is a full-day “How to Get Published” writing event in St. Paul, MN on February 11, 2017.

Agents and editors confirmed to be in attendance and/or available to pitch are:

literary agent Laura Zats (Red Sofa Literary)
literary agent Gemma Cooper (The Bent Agency)
editor Yana Makuwa (Graywolf Press)
literary agent Mary Cummings (Betsy Amster Literary)
literary agent Kimiko Nakamura (Dee Mura Literary)
literary agent Vicki Selvaggio (Jennifer De Chiara Literary)
literary agent Jennie Goloboy (Red Sofa Literary)
editor Elizabeth May (Kensington Publishing)
literary agent Abby Saul (The Lark Group)
literary agent Samantha Fountain (Corvisiero Literary)
literary agent Dawn Frederick (Red Sofa Literary)
editor Lauren Kukla (Mighty Media Press Children’s Books)
literary agent Kaylee Davis (Dee Mura Literary)
literary agent Erik Hane (Red Sofa Literary)
and possibly more to be announced.

For information on how to enroll and where to stay, go here. As always, good luck!

P.D. Pabst
Blogger and writer of MG/YA fiction.

12 Book Giveaway!

December 16, 2016LiteraryBlog Hops, Blogs, books, Christmas, Divided, Fiction, Giveaway, Holiday Giveaway, Published, Reading, Sharon Johnston, Shattered, Stories, Writerspdpabst

book-spines

Sharon Johnston and eleven other authors have banded together to give 12 books away they authored. This is a great giveaway around the holiday season. I’ve read both Sharon’s books Divided and Shattered, and highly recommend! As for the other awesome sounding titles, I’m entering in hopes of winning too! I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t like books! Go here for information on entering and links to the other authors.

As always, good luck!

P.D. Pabst
Blogger and writer of MG/YA fiction.

#PitchMAS Twitter Party Tomorrow!

December 15, 2016Contests, LiteraryAgents, Authors, December, Editors, Guideliens, Jess Russo, Literary contest, Manuscripts, Pitch Contest, Pitch Party, PitchMAS, Tamara Mataya, Twitter, Unagented, Unpublished, Writers, Writingpdpabst

Jessa Russo and Tamara Mataya are celebrating the success of their blog contest with a #PitchMAS twitter party December 16, 2016 from 6am-6pm PST. This is for completed and polished unpublished manuscripts! You will need to create a 140 character pitch for twitter and use the age category and genre (if possible). Participating agents and editors will fave pitches that interested them. Check their twitter feed and/or agency website for guidelines on how to submit.

As for the twitter party guidelines, go here. As always, good luck!

P.D. Pabst
Blogger and writer of MG/YA fiction.

The Bent Agency Internship Opportunity

December 14, 2016Internship, LiteraryAdult Fiction, Book Lovers, English Majors, Internship, Literary Agent, Manuscripts, Middle Grade Fiction, New York TImes Bestseller List, Non-English Majors, Readers, Remote, Slush Pile, The Bent Agency, Unpaid, Writers, Young-adult fictionpdpabst

The Bent Agency

The Bent Agency has intern positions open for an adult fiction reader and for a young adult/middle grade reader. To become an intern reader for the Bent Agency, you do not need to have any kind of publishing experience, but you should love to read and be familiar with all sorts of fiction in these categories. In particular, it’s helpful to be familiar with the books on the New York Times bestseller list.

You do not need to live in New York since this is a remote internship. They do ask for a ten-hours-a-week commitment. Please note that it is unpaid. For details on qualifications and how to submit, go here.

As always, good luck!

P.D. Pabst
Blogger and writer of MG/YA fiction.

2017 Poetry Competition

December 13, 2016LiteraryBeautiful, Classical Art, contest, Culture, December, Divine, Environment, Free Verse, Great Culture, Human Nature, Human Rights in China, Humor, Issues of Our Age, Monetary Prize, Natural World, Poems, Poetry, Poets, Riddles, Sublime, Terrorism, The Society of Classical Poets, Theme, Writers, Writingpdpabst

The Society of Classical Poets is holding a poetry contest with a monetary prize! Metered and rhythmed poetry is preferred but not required. They usually do not publish love poems, free verse, or overly dark poems that don’t teach a positive lesson. Poems are judged based on both form and character. The poem should ideally be written in 2016, but does not have to be. It is okay if you have submitted it to other contests or posted it on your blog.

The poems must be within the four themes used by the Society, and at least one poem must be in the “Issues of Our Age” theme:

(1) Beautiful & Sublime: Beauty in human nature, culture, the natural world, classical art forms, and the divine.

(2) Humor & Riddles: Clean humor only please.

(3) The Issues of Our Age:

A. Terrorism. Terrorists and their ideology plague the world like a hate-filled cancer that does not seem to go away. How can the world defeat such an invisible foe?
B. The Environment. Though debate remains over climate change and GMOs, environmental pollution undeniably compromises our water and air. Nature’s beauty and purity plays victim to technology and industrialization.
C. Human Rights in China. In a globalized world, the human rights violations in China are essentially in our own backyard. Particularly heinous is the persecution of the peaceful meditation practice Falun Gong. Poetry in this category may also be submitted here.

(4) Great Culture: Good figures, stories, and other elements from classical (pre-1900) history and literature. Grand prize is $500 and there is a high school prize of $100. (Look to the site for additional prizes.) The deadline is December 31, 2016 with winners announced February 1, 2017. As always, good luck!

P.D. Pabst
Blogger and writer of MG/YA fiction.

The Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition

December 11, 2016Contests, Literaryagent, Chicken House, Childrens Books, Competition, December, Editing, Fiction, Guidelines, Manuscripts, Middle Grade, Monetary Prize, publisher, Publishing, Representation, Royalty Advance, Stories, Times, Unagented, Writers, Writing, Young Adultpdpabst

While they no longer accept unsolicited manuscripts, they do offer unpublished and unagented writers of children’s fiction the chance to submit their work to the annual Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition. They’re looking for original ideas, a fresh voice and a story that children will love!

First prize is a worldwide publishing contract with Chicken House with a royalty advance of £10,000 (approximately $12,500 US), plus representation from a top children’s literary agent.

To enter, you must have written a completed full-length novel suitable for children/young adults aged somewhere between 7 and 18 years. The full-length , manuscript should be minimum of 30,000 words and do not exceed 80,000 words in length.

The deadline to enter is December 18, 2018. Also, there is an entry fee of £15 (approximately $18.76 US). For complete guidelines and entry form, go here.

P.D. Pabst
Blogger and writer of MG/YA fiction.

#PitchMAS Blog Contest

December 9, 2016Contests, Literary35 Words, Agents, Blog Contest, contest, December, Editors, Jessa Russo, Literary Cheer, Manuscripts, Pitch, PitchMAS, Publishers, Stories, Submissions, Tamara Mataya, Winners, Writerspdpabst

PitchmasLogo

Oh yes, it’s that holly-jolly Pitchmas time! You know? The best time of the year! Where agents and editors stalk the feed to give you literary cheer!

Jessa Russo and Tamara Mataya are at it again! To submit, you’ll need a 35 word pitch for your finished, polished and unpublished manuscript! They will take submissions by email only, starting Sunday 12/11/16 at 9am PST and ending Monday 12/12/16 at 6pm PST. The winners will go live on the blog December 15, 2016.

You can find this years participating agents and editors here. And don’t worry if you don’t make the contest. There will be a twitter pitch party for everyone on December 16, 2016. Be sure and use the twitter hashtag #Pitchmas (I’ll post a reminder). As always, good luck!

P.D. Pabst
Blogger and writer of MG/YA fiction.

Dan Kobolt’s #SFFpit is Tomorrow!

December 6, 2016Contests, Literary#SFFpit, Age Category, Agents, Authors, Dan Koboldt, December, Editors, Fantasy, Genres, Hashtags, Manuscripts, Pitch Party, Publishers, Research Requests, Science Fiction, Stories, Subgenre, Twitter, Unagented, Unpublished, Writerspdpabst

It’s that time of year again for science fiction and fantasy writers to polish their pitches for Dan Koboldt’s #SFFpit writing contest on twitter! It starts tomorrow December 8, 2016 between 8am-6pm EST. This contest allows 10 pitches total and Dan asks that you use them wisely! As usual, it needs to be a 140 character pitch for twitter and includes the hashtag #SFFpit. For all the rules, including how to properly insert the age group and category, go here. And remember to research any agents or editors that favorite your tweet because ANY ONE can trawl the feed!

As always, good luck!

P.D. Pabst
Blogger and writer of MG/YA fiction.

Queries That Worked

December 4, 2016LiteraryAgents, Angst, books, Charlotte Dillon, Chuck Sambucnino, Contract, Dream, editor, Hopeful, Inquiry, Letter, Manuscripts, Paragraphs, publisher, Query, Query Sample, rejections, Snubby, Stories, Successful, Successful Queries, Summorizing, Words, Writer's Digest, Writers, Writingpdpabst

Every writer knows the angst of summing their fantastical manuscript into a couple brief paragraphs. This grueling step is necessary to write an intriguing query letter. (For non-writers, this letter is the introduction to a manuscript to swoon a literary agent and/or publisher into reading a writer’s story with hopes of being signed.) Writerly folks can spend hours, days, weeks, and months forming words together, rearranging, and deleting until the paragraphs are just right. And honestly, some writers struggle knowing when the query is the absolute best for sending out into the world.

And sometimes, the problem isn’t always summing up the story. With nearly 130 million books published in the world, it’s likely someone already wrote something similar. So a writer needs to know what makes their story different and highlight that in their query letter. And trust me, this isn’t necessarily as easy as it sounds.

Knowing the struggles of query letters, I decided to inform my readers of a couple places to view query letters that have worked in hopes it’ll help a few writers.

Successful Queries via Chuck Sambuchino at Writer’s Digest. The reason I love this sight is because he also lists commentary from the agent that signed the author and why it worked for them.
Query Samples via Charlotte Dillon.

And for authors receiving rejections, here are a few best sellers that got snubby rejections but went on to sell millions of copies! Don’t let go of your dream!

P.D. Pabst

Blogger and writer of MG/YA Fiction.

Intern at Entangled Publishing with Kate Brauning

December 2, 2016Internship, Literarybooks, Category Romance, Disabled, editor, English Major, Entangled Publishing, Entangled Teen, Fiction, Intern, Internship, Kate Brauning, LGBTQ, Librarians, MOGAI, Neuroatypical, POC, Publishing, Publishing Career, Reader, Romance, Writers, Young Adultpdpabst

Kate Brauning

Exciting news! Editor Kate Brauning of Entangled Publishing is seeking 2-3 additional interns. Yep, you heard that right. Not just one! She looking mostly interns with YA for Entangled Teen but also with single-title adult romance and category romance. POC, LGBTQ+/MOGAI, neuroatypical, and disabled applicants are encouraged. For those not familiar with Entangled teen, know their books are distributed by Macmillan Publishers, which means they can reach 120 countries with English versions of their books (among other things).

This is a remote, unpaid internship. Regular access to the internet will be necessary. Substantial training, mentorship, and copies of the print books from my list are provided. Applicants for the internship should have 8-10 hours per week available, though the internship is somewhat flexible. Prior experience in publishing is not required, but experience in a library or bookstore is a plus.

For guidelines on how to submit, go here.

As always, good luck!

P.D. Pabst
Blogger and writer of MG/YA fiction.

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