Writing Quotes/Calls for Submissions

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

A friend sent me this photo of a Christmas tree made of books. How appropriate for writers.

Here’s a gift for my Followers: May each of you find writing inspiration in the new year. To help you along I’ve listed some of my favorite writing quotes. Enjoy.

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer." - Karl Krauss

"The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say." ~Anaïs Nin

"Write about what you know and care deeply about. When one puts one's self on paper — that is what is called good writing." ~Joel Chandler Harris

"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection." ~Anaïs Nin

"Anyone can become a writer. The trick is staying a writer." ~Harlan Ellison

“To write is to practice, with particular intensity and attentiveness, the art of reading.” –Susan Sontag

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a
manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer.
You send that work out again and again, while you're
working on another one. If you have talent, you will
receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.
~Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

“Writing for children means thinking about your own past, while staying in touch with young people now."-- Michael Rosen, UK Children's Laureate

"Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
(William Strunk, Jr.)

"To me the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make." Truman Capote

"Rejection is actually an opportunity to find the right editor and the right publishing company." - Jane Yolen.

Call for Submissions for Adult Writers:
Electric Dragon Cafe Science Fiction and Fantasy Quarterly Short Story Contest
Entry Fee: None
Prize: 1st place: $25 Barnes and Nobel gift certificate 2nd place: $10 certificate
Seeking short fiction contest entries. Must be science fiction, fantasy or horror with fantastic elements and adhere to a theme which we will provide.
Please visit the website for full contest details and guidelines.
E-mail: contest@electricdragoncafe.com
Deadline: MONTHLY
Details at http://www.electricdragoncafe.com


Call for Submissions for Student Writers:

Hazard Community & Technical College is hosting their annual Young Appalachian Poets Award. Any poet, high school aged or younger, may submit their original poetry. First prize includes $100 and publication in Kudzu; Second Place is $50 and publication in Kudzu. Makalani Bandele will serve as this year’s judge. He has been a member of the Affrilachian Poets since 2008. His poetry has been anthologized in My Brother’s Keeper and The Storytellers, and has been picked for upcoming issues of the African-American Review and Mythium Literary Magazine. He is a winner of the Ernest Sandeen Prize for Poetry. His most recent book—hellfightin’—is out now. You can contact Scott Lucero the contest’s coordinator at Scott.Lucero@kctcs.edu. With all correspondence, please put YAPA in the subject line. You can submit your work at their new submittable account-- http://kudzu.submishmash.com/categories. The deadline is January 30th.

Check out more contests on my blog: http://nancykellyallen.blogspot.com/

Trends in Children's Literature/Calls for Submissions

Even though editors ask us to write stories we feel compelled to write, it’s nice to keep up with the trends in children’s literature. Here’s a list released last week from Scholastic.

1. The expanding Young Adult (YA) audience
2. The year of dystopian fiction The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner. Dystopian fiction features stories that indicate the future will be worse than the present.
3. Mythology-based fantasy: Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series set the trend – and now series like The Kane Chronicles, Lost Heroes of Olympus and Goddess Girls are capitalizing.
4. Multimedia series: The 39 Clues, Skeleton Creek and The Search for WondLa are hooking readers with stories that go beyond the printed page and meet kids where they are online or via video.
5. A focus on popular characters – from all media: Kids love to read books about characters they know and recognize from books, movies and television shows. Titles centered around those popular characters (like Fancy Nancy, David Shannon's David, or Toy Story characters) are top sellers.
6. The shift in picture books: Publishers are publishing about 25 to 30 percent fewer picture book titles than they used to as some parents want their kids to read more challenging books at younger ages. The new trend is leading to popular picture book characters such as Pinkalicious, Splat Cat and Brown Bear, Brown Bear showing up in Beginning Reader books.
7. The return to humor: Given the effects of the recession on families, it is nice to see a rise in the humor category, fueled by the success of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Dav Pilkey's The Adventures of Ook & Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future, and popular media characters like SpongeBob, and Phineas & Ferb.
8. The rise of the diary and journal format: The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series is the most well-know example of this trend, but the success of Wimpy Kid is leading to popular titles such as Dear Dumb Diary, Dork Diaries, The Popularity Papers, and Big Nate.
9. Special-needs protagonists: There is a growing body of literary fiction with main characters who have special needs, particularly Aspergers Syndrome and Autism. Examples: My Brother Charlie, Marcelo in the Real World, Mockingbird, and Rules.
10. Paranormal romance beyond vampires: The success of titles like Shiver, Linger, Beautiful Creatures, Immortal, and Prophesy of the Sisters shows this genre is still uber-popular and continues to expand.

Calls for submissions

Hazard Community & Technical College is hosting their annual Young Appalachian Poets Award. Any poet, high school aged or younger, may submit their original poetry. First prize includes $100 and publication in Kudzu; Second Place is $50 and publication in Kudzu. Up to five original poems may be submitted as attached documents to Scott.Lucero@kctcs.edu or HZ-HCTC-KUDZU@kctcs.edu. Please include a brief biographical statement and put YAPA in the subject line. The deadline is January 30th.

KUDZU, HCTC’s literary magazine, is seeking submissions for its spring 2011 issue. Send your original poetry, short stories, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction. Submissions must be in either Word or as an RTF and emailed as attached documents to HZ-HCTC-KUDZU@kctcs.edu. No snail mail submissions will be accepted. Please contact Professor Scott Lucero at 1-800-246-7521, ext 73200, or at Scott.Lucero@kctcs.edu for more detailed submission guidelines. Deadline is January 15, 2011.

Highlights Magazine is looking for stories.

Rebus Stories (ages 4-6) up to 100 words, Joëlle Dujardin, Senior Editor.
Beginning Readers (ages 6 to 8), up to 500 words, Joëlle Dujardin, Senior Editor. Wants humorous stories, folktales, holiday stories, sports stories.
Fiction for Independent Readers (ages 8 to 12), up to 800 words, Joëlle Dujardin, Senior Editor, Wants mysteries, humorous stories, adventure stories, historical fiction, sports stories.
Details at http://www.highlights.com/contact-us