The Knight Agency/Deidre Knight Super Big Mega Contest Announcement!

Shopping around for an agent? If so, here's a GREAT opportunity to get your work in front of Deidre Knight of The Knight Agency! Deidre is running a contest to find a fresh new voice to add to her client list.

Snipped from the website:

Knight Agency president and founder Deidre Knight is on the hunt for a fresh, unique voice to add to her personal client roster. Are you the one she's looking for? Find out by joining us here on The Knight Agency blog for "Speed Dating with Deidre." Beginning Tuesday, November 30th, Deidre will whittle down the first 125 entries to one lucky winner.* The contest opens at 8:00am ET right here on the blog, so set your alarms!

Oh, and there’s a special bonus, one randomly drawn winner will receive a first chapter critique from Deidre – drawn from all entries.**

Contest is for completed manuscripts only. For more info, rules and guidelines go to: http://knightagency.blogspot.com/
Good Luck!

Ellora's Cave Blush Line Call For Submissions

I snipped the following from the Ellora's Cave Website:

Ellora's cave will begin accepting submissions for its Blush line of non-erotic romances in January. Here's some info:

Blush ~ Mainstream Romance
Blush is our line of non-erotic romances, of any genre. (Formerly known as Cerridwen Press.) We will be accepting submissions starting in January 2011.

Story length is 7,000 to 125,000 words. Sensuality level can be anything from sweet (kisses only) to sensual-but-not-quite-erotic. We do not publish inspirational/religious romances or category-style romances. (No secret baby, Big Misunderstanding, amnesiac in the storm, ex-SEAL-turned-sheriff, billionaire's secretary/mistress, or TSTL heroines.)

Cotillion is our line of sweet Traditional Regency romances. Story length is 7,000 to 75,000 words.

We do not publish non-fiction, poetry, children's literature.

Ellora's Cave
Ellora's Cave Author Submission/Information Packet

Wild Rose Press Romantic Suspense Call For Submissions

Crimson Rose (mystery, romantic suspense), of The Wild Rose Press, has issued a call for Christmas manuscript submissions under the series title:

Red Christmas
Someone's ready to kill the holiday...

They have space for six Christmas releases for 2011 so get your story in early. The spaces will be filled in the order they are contracted.

Each story will need to contain Santa Claus - either the hero or the villain needs to be using a costume as a part of the story.

Submissions should be between 7,500 and 60,000 words.  Deadline is March 1st

For rules & guidelines see this Behind the Garden Gate blog post at:
http://behindthegardengate.blogspot.com/2010/11/submission-call.html

Wild Rose Press

Good Luck!

My New Blog Award

I opened my inbox yesterday to find the following message from Polka Dot Banner:

Congratulations Carol Burge!

You have just been awarded the "2010 Web Supporter" at http://www.polkadotbanner.com/

Best regards,

PolkaDotBanner.com Staff

And this was posted on my profile page, along with the award graphic:

Thanks for spreading good words about the PDB out on the web. Links you posted have been reported in our site analytics. (Cool!) This icon award on your profile is the PDB's way of thanking you for support of PolkaDotBanner.com. Huzzah!

Nice, huh? I've proudly added the award to my side bar.

Thanks PDB!

Polka Dot Banner
An Author's Gathering Place

The History Channel Magazine American Hero Contest

Here's a fun little contest for all of you history buffs out there.

The folks at the History Channel are currently putting together the next issue of The History Channel Magazine and they need your help! They're looking for one of their Living History readers to write a 500 to 800 word article about their favorite American history hero and why he/she's important to you. This can be anyone: Abe Lincoln, Ben Franklin, Rosa Parks, Mickey Mantle ... anyone. It's up to you. The most well-written submission will be published in the History Alive section of an upcoming issue under the Heroes department. This contest is open to anyone interested in American history, so let your friends and family know.

Please e-mail all submissions—along with a digital image of yourself to: editorial@thehistorychannelclub.com

Good Luck!

*NOTE: For the record, I got this info from the History Channel's Living History Newsletter. I tried to verify the guidelines and the deadline, etc., but I couldn't find anything about the contest on the website. If you want to try and check it out yourself, links to the website are below. Hopefully you'll have better luck then I did. :)

History Channel
History Channel Magazine

Call For Submissions For Aspen Mountain Press New Regency Romance Line

-----------------------------------
On October 15, 2010, Aspen Mountain Press launched its new Aurora Regency imprint, a line devoted to Regency romance.

Traditional Regency romances, as exemplified by Georgette Heyer's work, is historical fiction that takes place during a very specific (and short) era (1811-1820).

Aurora is looking for well-researched Regency romances between 35,000 and 70,000 words, although they will bend on the upper word limit if the story merits it.

Aspen Mountain Press is a royalty-paying e-publishing company, and they do not charge set-up or editing fees. Their contract requests rights to the contracted work, including digital and print formats, as they will provide some titles in print later this year. 

For complete guidelines visit the Aspen Mountain Press Submission Page:  http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/submissions/info_6.html

Aspen Mountain Press: http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/

Cleopatra Literary Contest for Young Women

This literary contest is named after the inspirational Cleopatra VII of Egypt, who was an author of works about cosmetics, pharmacology and weights & measures. Established and sponsored by author Stephanie Dray, the competition is aimed at discovering and mentoring aspiring young female writers. In particular, the award seeks to foster new voices with an appreciation for women’s history. Deadline March 1, 2011. Entries are limited in length to 2,000 words. Short stories, essays, poems, and excerpts from novels and novellas are welcome, in any genre, as long as they focus on one of the themes.

Teen Category Winner: Choice of $100 cash or a brand new E-reader, in addition to an award certificate, a month-long writing mentorship with Ms. Dray, a feature article in her blog and newsletter, and a critique from NY literary agent, Jennifer Schober of Spencerhill Associates.

Young Women Category Winner: Choice of $100 cash or a brand new E-reader, in addition to an award certificate, a month-long writing mentorship with Ms. Dray, a feature article in her blog and newsletter, and a critique from NY literary agent, Jennifer Schober of Spencerhill Associates.

Finalists: Constructive feedback from publishing professionals, mention on Ms. Dray’s blog and newsletter, an award certificate, and a free book courtesy of contest sponsors.

Females ages 13-18 for the teen category.

Females ages 19-22 for the young women’s category.

This is an international contest, so writers outside of the US are eligible.

Before she wrote novels, Stephanie Dray was a lawyer, a game designer, and a teacher. Now she uses the transformative power of magic realism to illuminate the stories of women in history and inspire the young women of today. She remains fascinated by all things Roman or Egyptian. Her book Lily of the Nile, comes out in January 2011, about the daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

Read more at Stephanie’s website.

NOTE: I snipped this contest info from Hope Clark’s blog. C. Hope Clark is editor and founder of FundsforWriters.com . Her newsletters reach over 37,000 writers. Writer's Digest selected FundsforWriters one of its 101 Best Websites for Writers every year since 2001. www.fundsforwriters.com

You can sign up for Hope’s newsletter(s) on her blog. I recommend you subscribe to at least one of them, if you haven’t already. They’re chock FULL of information.