Show Me the Voice Contest Blogfest

I got a late start today, fighting a cold or allergies! Brenda Drake's Show Me the Voice Blogfest begins today, and I've already sent in my entry. We could either send it now, or wait until we got feedback and send it later; My book has gone through several betas and critiques so I felt comfortable submitting it now. But, in true blogfest spirit, I will still be making the rounds of those who posted their pages to give them some feedback.

I would have liked to submit my first 250 words from Crow's Rest, but the rules stipulate that your sample must be from a completed novel. So I submitted the first 250 from Spirits from the Vasty Deep (from the prologue, actually).

Name: Angela Jackson, writing as Angelica R. Jackson
Title: Spirits from the Vasty Deep
Genre: YA Historical w/ a ghostly twist

(From the prologue)

"Where are you taking me?" I tried to plant my feet, but Miss Bonney roughly pulled me into motion again.

"I'm taking you to the east wing, to put an end to this superstitious nonsense once and for all," she answered, holding my arm in an iron grip. "I will solve two problems with one fell swoop—get some use out of that room, and cure you of lying."

"But I don't lie," I said, my breath coming in puffs as I trotted to keep up.

Miss Bonney snorted. "I suppose you deny telling the other girls the ghost of the groundskeeper and his dog walk the gardens? Or that Tabitha's late grandmother wanted to speak with her? Some of those girls haven't slept in a week. You're nearly ten years old, Olivia, you're getting too old for such stories."

"They're not stories—there are shades all around us, all the time. And I told the others they didn't need to fear these spirits, they don't mean us any harm."

Miss Bonney turned left into a long gallery, raising her candle to get her bearings. Cold and disused, this wing of the school reeked of decay and mildew. Quiet reigned at this end of the building; all the students would be getting ready for bed in their dormitories by now.

My curiosity about the forbidden wing outweighed any misgivings—until we approached the door at the far end. "What is this place?" I whispered, trembling as
I felt the weight of a presence beyond it.
----------------------------------------------

Looking forward to reading people's entries, and "meeting" some new writing friends!

Contest Roundup

Marie Rearden dubbed me "The Contest Watcher" on her blog post yesterday--how did she know I had a few more contest opportunities this morning??? And I'm not sure if my title is valid, since a few weeks ago I missed that I had won 2 separate book giveaways. The bloggers had to email me to notify me {hangs head}

But enough of my shame--get to the contests! These are both great opportunities with agent Natalie Fischer of the Bradford Literary Agency.

The contest celebrating the anniversary of Adventures in Children's Publishing is more time sensitive (she doesn't say when it closes, just that she's announcing the winner Saturday) and a random winner gets a first chapter critique by Natalie. There's a great interview with Natalie as well.


And Brenda Drake is running a Show Me the Voice contest, where you could win a critique of your first 20 pages, first 10 pages, or query by Natalie! To enter, you need to sign up through the linky on the contest page, and on March 20 and 21, you post the first 250 words of your completed book on your own blog.

And then the really fun part: you hop around to everyone else's blog and give them feedback, and they return the favor. Once you have your entry spit polished, you email it to Brenda by March 22. If that sounds confusing, read the rules on her page, she lays them out better. Top 20 entries will be posted Mar. 24, and the winners announced by Mar.28.