Contests & Awards
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| © Danielle Heitmuller |
Submitting your work to contests and awards is a great way to get your work noticed. Here's a list of submission opportunities for children's writing and illustrating. We normally only list contests that do not require an entry fee.
Also, check out these other compilations of contests:
- Sub It Club's monthly lists of contests (see their contest roundup calendar)
- Funds for Writers
- Lee & Low's roundup of Awards & Grants for Authors of Color
- Institute for Children's Literature runs contests (for fee)
- Poet & Writer's Database of Writing Contests (includes fee contests)
Before entering a contest, pay attention to warning signs:Writing Contests are Important: How to Choose the Right Ones from the Scams; Awards Profiteers: How Writers Can Recognize Them and Why They Should Avoid Them
James Cross Giblin Scholarship for Highlights Foundations courses
What I Gained from Contests (Besides my Agent)
Draw This!
- What: monthly illustration challenge with a prompt, due 20th of each month
- Who: SCBWI members
- Prize: winning pieces featured in SCBWI's monthly newsletter
ONGONG
- What: apply for emergency funds during the pandemic
- Who: people of color in the children's publishing industry (agents, editors, authors, illustrators) who've been furloughed or lost their jobs
- Award: emergency funds
June
April 1- June 30 New Visions Award
- What: submit your MG or YA manuscript
- Who: Open to writers of color and Native/Indigenous writers 18 years or older and a legal resident of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia.
- Prize: an advance offer and standard publication contract
July
July 1-30 SCBWI Emerging Voices Award
- What: apply for full tuition to the SCBWI summer conference in Los Angeles
- Who: writer or writer/illustrator from traditionally underrepresented ethnic or cultural background; with an original work not under contract
- Award: full tuition to summer conference, access to agents/editors