CONTEST RULES

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS:

ANY ORIGINAL, UNPUBLISHED PIECE

NOT ACCEPTED BY ANY PUBLISHER

AT THE TIME OF SUBMISSION IS ELIGIBLE.

• Each entry must be accompanied by a reading fee of $19 (credit card or debit card).

• The entry fee will also entitle you to free entry to an instructional and educational webinar with the judge of the contest to be held after the winners have been chosen. You will have access to the replay for a limited time as well. 

• Non-entrants must pay for their ticket to the webinar.  Entries are submitted online: We have developed a safe and secure web page for your contest entry and manuscript submission. It is easy to use.

• An “unpublished piece” means not published anywhere as of yet. That means anything from on your own blog, someone else’s, or through a magazine or book. The idea is to get you stretching and writing.

• You will first be directed to the section requiring the pre-payment of a $19 reading fee. You can enter as many times as you want, but each manuscript must be entered individually with its own reading fee. 

• You’ll then be led to the manuscript entry page. Bookmark that page!

Then, when you have your manuscript ready, you will submit your entry.

Once you click to continue to the entry page (which you can do by clicking this link) and pay the nominal entry fee, receipt of your entry will be acknowledged on the next page by sending you to the submission form. Make sure to bookmark that page!

• We cannot return submissions; please retain a copy of your manuscript.

• All manuscript submissions must meet the entry deadline outlined in the contest. Entries must be typed double-spaced.

• You’ll need to include your name, address, and email on the cover page, and just your name on the rest of the pages when you attach your manuscript to the entry form.

• Entering this contest means you acknowledge and agree that ICL may read aloud and (kindly) critique all winning entries during the webinar held after the deadline. In addition, any positive comments made during in the chat may be used as testimonials.

• No entries containing violence or derogatory, racist, or sexist language or situations will be accepted, at the sole discretion of the judges. No employees or relatives of employees or former employees of the Institute or its divisions are eligible.

• Winners: The winners will be announced at the webinar, in our Facebook group and in any upcoming newsletters, which receives first rights to the prize-winning manuscripts, after which all rights revert to the authors. The newsletter will be emailed free to all entrants, as long as you subscribe to the newsletter. We do like to celebrate our winners and like to interview you in the case that you win. 

• Judges: All entries will be read by faculty and editorial staff members of the Institute of Children’s Literature. Winners will be notified by email approximately 60 days after the close of the contest if not by other means. Once the winners are announced, all non-winning entries are released for submission elsewhere.

• Each entry must be uploaded in the following format:

Double spaced PDF or a Word doc saved as:

YourFirstNameYourLastName-PoetryContest.doc

In the upper left hand corner include your name, address, phone number, email address, and word count. Name only on following pages. Entries that do not follow this format are subject to disqualification.

We received this question in our Facebook group (which you can join here):

Question: “I know it should be double-spaced, but is it OK to add the extra space between paragraphs (or stanzas for a poem or rhyming story)? Or is it just all double-spaced with no break between stanzas? I didn’t see this in the contest rules, but it looked like there was an extra space between stanzas in the example.”

Answer: As most things we do are, this rule is meant to teach. The rule is to teach that there is a proper format. We hope that our contestants will be compelled to learn what that is, and submit correctly. Then, when they are submitting to a publisher, they will have had a good lesson and won’t mess up when it’s even more important. If an entry is sent in, for example, with a single-spaced, run-on sentence, that would be eliminated.  Double-spacing and then formatting so there is more space to differentiate between stanzas makes perfect sense. If it’s not a poem or rhyming story, the correct format would be to either indent your paragraphs or as follows in the visual example.

• Rights: The Institute of Children’s Literature will have first rights to the prize-winning manuscripts to publish on their website and/or in their newsletter, after which all rights revert to the authors.

• All cash prizes will be awarded.

>via: https://www.instituteforwriters.com/contestrules/default.aspx