Category Archives: 1

Finding a Contest: Kay Snow Writing Contest

by

When I sat down, my hair was wet. Now it’s dry. It’s not easy finding a good contest for those of us who write children’s stories. But perseverance paid off!

The Kay Snow Writing Contest, sponsored by the Willamette Writers, is looking for juvenile fiction (short stories), book excerpts, or an article, as long as it doesn’t go over 1500 words. Easy-weezy, right? Well-l-l-l, you only have till Aprill 23, 2009.

I know. I’m sorry to spring it on you like this ’cause there’s a fifteen dollar entry fee (unless you’re a Willamette Writer). That’s a bit of money that you want to spend wisely, right?  So, check out the guidelines here and for heaven’s sakes, follow the guidelines carefully!

I have a story I want to send but it needs some spit and polish. And I intend to polish that fiction till it shines like, um, something really, really shiny.

Hmm. I better write better than that if I hope to win this contest.

Finding a Whim on Wednesday

by

Technically, my whim began on Tuesday. Here’s the story…

I wanted to say a few words about blogging and etiquette and commenting and such over at my other blog (Cathy C.’s Hall of Fame) since I’d just hosted a blog tour there. And a line from The Walrus and the Carpenter kept going ’round and ’round my head, so I slapped that into the post (It was the line about cabbages and kings, if you must know). Then, before I knew what I’d done, purely on a whim, I up and posted the “Cabbages and Kings Blogging Comment Contest.”

Well. I thought wouldn’t a picture of that famous scene from Alice Through the Looking Glass be just swell? And I found a really swell pic, from this splendiferous site, Karen’s Whimsy. And what I loved about Karen’s site was that she had tons of public domain pictures from old, old, picture books; many of them were children’s picture books. And the picture I used had been converted so that it could be colored. Isn’t that even more swell? Here’s another one, so you can see what I mean.

Alice in Wonderland - 5

Now, don’t you think that’s splendiferous? I kinda wish my kids were still little so they could color an old-fashioned picture like this of Alice at the Tea Party.

The second serendipitous whim came along when Danette Haworth stopped by my blog to comment (Oh! You should go over there to Cathy’s C.’s and comment yourself if you want to try and win a copy of  Query Letters That Rock!). Danette has a delightful blog (A Summer Friend) where she mentioned Alan Rinzler, the Executive Editor at Jossey Bass Publishing and his blog, The Book Deal, An Inside View of Publishing. Which happens to be just what I need these days.

So, all on a whim, I came across a handful of keepers. I love it when whims have a happy ending.