When Jen Storer announced that this year we could submit as many pieces as we liked to her Scribbles Creative Writing Awards and that there was a new poetry section – I got busy. I ended up submitting 6 pieces. Five picture books text and one poem and I’m very thrilled to announce that the poem (My Island) and one of the picture books (Betsy’s Bargain Bloomers) have made the shortlist along with all these wonderful fellow kidlit writers/illustrators listed above.
It can be daunting entering competitions and there have been some interesting discussions on facebook about this, particularly about the disappointment that the non-shortlisters feel. Competitions are tough, not only for the entrants but for the judges also, especially, as Jen informed us, that some entries missed out by only 0.5 of a mark and of course it’s terribly frustrating not knowing if your entry was one of those.
However, despite the disappointments and the not knowing, I think competitions are invaluable (as some of you may know I run my competition every Spring for Writers of Rhyme and Metre) because they force you to write something new or polish something old and get it out there in front of readers and this what it’s all about really isn’t it? Getting our writing read.
So huge congratulations to everyone who entered this year’s CWA and I hope that some of you will consider entering my comp too.
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Congratulations, Jackie! I’m still in the Scribbles CWA picture book mix so feeling nervous…