Thursday, September 10, 2009

NEW VOICES--Writing Competition for Students 11-18
















New Voices

As a child, I dreamed of being a famous author. I secretly wrote poetry and short stories that are still in some of my diaries (and never to be seen by anyone’s eyes but mine). In high school, I won a few of my high school’s poetry contests. Needless to say, I was excited, but never considered pursuing writing as a career. Had I been given the chance to submit my work to professional authors and receive positive feedback with recommendations on how to improve my work for free as well as the possibility to win publication and a prize, perhaps my chosen career path would have been different. Regardless, I know the encouragement would have meant the world to me.

Well, that’s exactly why New Voices was started: to encourage young writers to write and to read. A writing competition open to students in public, private, or home schools and ages 11-18 years of age (6th-12th grades) around the world, New Voices offers what few other writing competitions offer: encouragement and comments from professional authors, editors, publishers, teachers, and librarians on every entry received, not just finalists. It’s an exciting and wonderful opportunity for young writers interested in pursuing a publishing career.

Run completely by volunteers, New Voices has no entry fee. Matter of fact, entrants need never pay for anything involving the competition. PDF versions of the winning entries are available as a free download -- http://www.newvoicesyoungwriters.com/anthology.html -- on our website. However, they can attend the New Voices’ tract at EPIC’s yearly conference in New Orleans this year. The fee to attend is $40, which covers the workshops and lunch. The attendees will even have an opportunity to sign up for a “practice” pitch session with publishers, editors, and published authors. For more information about what we’ll be doing at the conference, you can visit our conference page -- http://www.newvoicesyoungwriters.com/conference.html.

Prizes in the past have included money orders, checks, ebook readers, gift certificates, and cash.

Entering is as easy as following this link -- http://www.newvoicesyoungwriters.com/enter.html and following the submission guidelines posted on the page. New Voices is looking for short stories, poetry, and essays.

Entries are accepted up until October 20, 2009, at midnight. Finalists will be notified toward the end of December.

All inquiries can be directed to Marci Baun or Danielle Thorne at newvoices.chair@gmail.com.


Marci Baun
Publisher
Wild Child Publishing -- http://www.wildchildpublishing.com/
Break free...read wild!
Freya's Bower -- http://www.freyasbower.com/
Weaving passion into words...

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