Happy New Year!
Submission opportunities, a Cornish course and the date of our next live chat
Happy New Year!
We hope you had a lovely Christmas. We enjoyed spending time with family and friends, playing board games and walking on the beach.
On Boxing Day we joined several hundred other locals for the annual sea dip which was cold but lots of fun.
Traditionally this is the time of year when everyone starts thinking about resolutions. If yours is to focus on your writing and illustration then we’ve got you covered.
We have some incredible interviews with inspiring agents, authors and illustrators lined up, (honestly, we’re so excited for you to see who we’ve spoken to), along with weekly advice posts, monthly lives and submission opportunity shout outs.
If you don’t know where to start - this resource post is a great place to begin:
Resources for children's authors and illustrators
We thought it would be helpful to compile a list of some of the resources that are available for writers and illustrators.
Join Naomi for a picture book course in Cornwall
Naomi will be running a one day picture book writing course in Cornwall on Saturday 1st February to help raise money for the St Austell Festival of Children’s Literature.
She’ll share everything you need to know about writing picture books and will draw on her experiences as an author, editor and the eight years she spent working for Penguin Random House and Hachette Children's Books. There will also be a chance to ask questions and play with new ideas.
There are a limited number of spaces available which can be booked here.
Competitions and submission opportunities
There are a lot of submission and competition opportunities currently available for children’s authors:
Naomi is offering three hours of free picture book mentoring for a writer who feels their voice is underrepresented in children’s publishing. Find out more details here. Deadline 31st January 2025.
In response to the research from the NTL, Faber has announced a new action writing competition for writers of children’s fiction. Deadline 30th January 2025.
The GLL Literary Foundation is offering 20 paid author placements in libraries in: Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth, Dudley and Lincolnshire. Nominations close 10th January 2025.
Sponsored by Bonnier Books, the WriteMentor Picture Book and Novel Awards 2025 are now open to picture book and fiction writers. Deadline 1st February 2025.
The Alice Corrie Award at Orange Beak Studio invites picture book authors to submit a manuscript by 3rd March 2025. The winner gets £200 and have the opportunity to meet a publisher online. This award is in memory of editor Alice Corrie who Naomi worked with on her books How to Catch a Rainbow and How to Make a Story.
Hachette Children’s Novel Awards for writers living in the north of the UK writing children’s middle grade and YA fiction. Deadline 13th January 2025.
Inkubator is a 6-month development programme for writers and freelancers living in Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland. Application deadline 20th January 2025.
City Lit’s Malorie Blackman Scholarships for Unheard Voices provides three annual awards to fund one year’s study within the Creative Writing department at City Lit. Deadline 2nd February 2025.
The Kelpies Prize for writing - they have categories for picture books, children’s fiction and non-fiction but writers must live in Scotland. Closing date is 28th Feb 2025.
The Emma Press will be open for submissions of poetry and fiction for children aged 8+ between 4-18th February.
Recommended substack posts
This post is packed full of information for picture book creators and is well worth a read:
What did we get up to in December?
We had stalls at a couple of local Christmas markets where we launched some new prints. (They’ll be available on our Not on the High Street shop and website in early 2025.)
James has been very busy illustrating our new picture book which publishes next autumn and Naomi has been working on some manuscripts which will be out on submission soon.
We’re also taking bookings for World Book Day author and illustrator visits. If you know a school that’s interested, you can find out more about our events here.
Join us live
For all our paid subscribers, our next live zoom call will be Sunday 26th January at 8pm.
We cannot wait to chat to you in person. It’ll be a chance to meet us and ask us anything you’d like about making children’s books and getting published.
If you can’t make it but have a question you’d like answered, just drop us a message and we’ll make sure we answer as many questions as we can.
It costs just £5 a month or £50 a year to subscribe and access all the benefits from being a member of the word and pictures community. If you’d like to upgrade your subscription to a paid one before then you can do so here:
Happy New Year! Brilliant list; thanks for sharing it. Just checked these out and the Write Mentor 2025 prize deadline is 31 March (phew, more time!) and the Northern Writers' Awards Children's Novel Awards are only open to those living in the North of England (and so not people living in Scotland). Hope that's helpful to someone!