Well, now this is exciting! The Pitch It! Competition is back for its third year running! And the team at Just Write For Kids Australia are deliriously overjoyed to share the new developments this year!
If you’re like most writers, you’re probably itching for the chance to skip the slush pile and get your manuscript directly on the desk of a publishing editor. I’ll bet you also wouldn’t mind your manuscript appraised by one of these professional assessors. Am I right? Well, believe it or not, now you can have the chance to jump ahead of the rest simply by writing a knock-out pitch!
Here’s what you need to know to enter…
OPEN
September 1, 2020
CLOSING
September 30, 2020
ENTRY CATEGORIES
Three separate categories are open to cater for your specific writing preferences. You will have the chance to enter into any or all of the following:
a) Picture Book Category (PB)
b) Junior Fiction / Middle-Grade Category (JF/MG)
c) Young Adult Category (YA)
ELIGIBILITY
All writers within Australia, published or unpublished in the children’s book industry.
Each entry will be based on the pitch of an unpublished manuscript. That is, the manuscript you are pitching for is NOT already published.
PRIZES
Winners:
The PICTURE BOOK WINNER will have their pitch and accompanying manuscript forwarded to their choice of publisher, EITHER:
Diane Evans, publishing editor of Big Sky Publishing
Anouska Jones, publishing editor of EK Books
James Layton, publishing editor of Larrikin House, also offering a 15-minute Zoom session, or
Clair Hume, children’s commissioning editor of University of Queensland Press
PLUS
FREE access to best-selling author and presenter, Adam Wallace‘s Short Courses for Authors
The JUNIOR FICTION / MIDDLE GRADE WINNER will have their pitch and accompanying manuscript assessed by EITHER:
Diane Evans, publishing editor of Big Sky Publishing, or
Clair Hume, children’s commissioning editor of University of Queensland Press
PLUS
FREE access to best-selling author and presenter, Adam Wallace‘s Short Courses for Authors
The YOUNG ADULT WINNER will have their pitch and accompanying manuscript assessed by:
Diane Evans, publishing editor of Big Sky Publishing
PLUS
FREE access to best-selling author and presenter, Adam Wallace‘s Short Courses for Authors
And here is my own winning entry from the 2018 Pitch It! Competition.
“Toy Mountain is a 440-word picture book for 3-6 year olds. It’s a quirky, action packed story of 5-year old Sam’s chance to become a toy tester for the Tiny Hands Toy factory, reminiscent of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. After Sam signs up for his exciting new task, he quickly accumulates a pile of plastic, clunky toys, discarding his well-loved toys handed down to him from his Grandmother. Toy Mountain has an underlying theme of our world’s ‘war on waste’. In Australia, we generate 6.3 billion tonnes of plastic. Only 9% is recycled and 12% incinerated. The remainder goes into landfill polluting our precious environment. This story encourages the reader to cheer Sam along as he rescues his treasured old toys from being lost under a growing mound of broken plastic. Toy Mountain also draws on gatekeepers' nostalgia for quality toys that can be cherished forever.”