Teen Eyes Contest Announcement

I'll be hosting an awesome editorial based contest next month for my friend Brent Taylor. There's a lot of info, so I'll just let him explain.

Three teen editors on three blogs with three prizes. Win!

Have you ever wondered if your young adult, new adult, or middle grade manuscript would hook a teen reader? We all have. So what better way to find out then a contest with the talented teens of TEEN EYES EDITORIAL.

Here's a bit about the editors . . .

Brent Taylor

Brent Taylor lives in Louisville, Kentucky. He’s an ex-gymnast and worked as a children’s and YA specialist at a New York-based literary agency for two years. His articles have appeared in School Library Journal and VOYA, and he is a contributing writer at Lambda Literary and Huffington Post Teen.

Brent was raised in middle grade fantasy, hung out with YA contemporary for years, and is now enjoying every stolen moment on his porch swing with nice literary and not-so-literary fiction. He loves narrators that take him on wild rides to worlds and situations he’s never experienced before and fresh plotlines.

You can follow him on Twitter.

Julie Daly

Julie's name is actually Julianne, but nobody ever remembers that. She became serious about being a book blogger while procrastinating finishing her NaNoWriMo novel and hasn't been able to leave the publishing world since. A book blogger for three years, Julie is also the assistant for YA author C.J. Redwine, and a critique partner or occasional beta reader to anyone who asks. She wrote her first book at age nine and has dozens of false starts for novels since then. Despite this, Julie was one of five winners in a short story competition judged by several published authors and a finalist in a competition to get a short story published in a HarperTeen anthology. When not doing any of the above, she's staring at her far-too-large to-be-read pile and trying to figure out what to read next. To the world outside of her computer, Julie's just a girl in NYC trying to get her BA in English Literature and a Publishing Certificate despite the lure of British television.

Julie is a sucker for anything with a good romance in it, especially if it's also historical fiction, fantasy, steampunk, sci-fi, dystopian, cyberpunk, or contemporary. "Time-travel," "fairy tale retelling," and "Downton Abbey" are some of her major buzz words.

You can find Julie on twitter, tumblr, and her YA book review blog.

Grace Smith

Grace is a fourteen year old who likes to think that she is more like an adult. She's known that she's wanted to go into the publishing industry since she was twelve, and was absolutely certain of it after attending BookExpo America in 2012 and falling in love with the publishing world. During those two years, Grace has been passionately blogging about books, entering writing competitions, and critiquing for authors such as Kimberly Sabatini and Lindsay Cummings. Grace is also an intern for Immortal Ink Publishing and is a Paper Lantern Lit Trendsetter. Grace has written one novel, among her many short stories and poems, and is currently hard at work on her second. In her year of competing, she has never lost a writing competition, and is her school's representative in the district competition. She reads about 2-3 books per day and can never read or write enough. When not working or daydreaming about New York City, she is known as an identical twin and a dancer.

Overall, the number one thing that Grace loves in stories is passion. She loves poetic or lyrical writing, fairy tale retellings, books based on folk tales, and she still is in love with the paranormal genre. She loves romance overall, but is also in love with historical fiction, contemporary, sci-fi, and fantasy. Grace wants a book that will make her feel alive or overly emotional.

You can find Grace on her book review blog or on Twitter.

Each editor will read different type of entries for new adult, young adult, and middle grade manuscripts (please see info. below each editor's picture for their genre tastes) on these three blogs . . .

Brenda Drake Writes...under the influence of coffee

Brenda Drake will host editor Brent Taylor who will judge query letters. The winner will receive a $100 gift voucher to use towards any of his editorial services (expires in 2014).

The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment

Matthew MacNish will host editor Grace Smith who will judge 1st pages (250-word max.). The winner will receive a 20K in-depth manuscript critique. 

Random Notes from Holly Bodger

Holly Bodger will host editor Julie Daly who will judge logline pitches. The winner will receive a reader’s report of their full manuscript.

The submission posts on all three blogs will go live on August 5 at 8AM EST. Here's the great part, you can enter on one, two, or all three of the blogs for a chance to win the prize on that blog (one prize per person). 

You don't have to follow us on our blogs or on twitter or spread the word to win, but we'd love it if you did. All you have to do is come back and enter on the submission post on August 5.

Note from Matt: I'm also over at Project Mayhem today, discussing FEAR.