Friday, March 22, 2013

Some good Sites

A site that looks like it might be a good one for critiques is critters.org. (It was originally created for sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers-primarily short story-ists, but they have since branched out.) You join a forum that specializes in your genre (Fantasy/romance/etc.), upload your piece, or section you want reviewed (there is a special process for whole novel reviews) and put a special tag on it if it is *adult* (innapropriate for 12 year olds).  Then you choose pieces to critique from each week's (or two weeks') batch, to earn critiquing points.  You have to stay active (give 1-2 critiques/week) to keep your submission moving up the line.  They estimate that it will take about a month until its sent out, but house-published authors get to cut in line.  On average, you would get 10-12 responses/work/ (longer pieces get fewer responses)

Another good site about potential scams and things to look out for is called, Writers Beware (www.sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware/).  It acts as part of the SFWA's site, but the information can be applied to all authors.  It talks about contests, publishing houses, agents, copyrights, writer's services, etc. 

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Writers Conferences

Writing and Illustrating For Young Readers  has a weeklong conference in June.  One of their classes was a "Full Novel Class" that will actually critique your entire (YA/Middle Grade) novel during that week.  Unfortunately, it costs $1000 and it's in Sandy, UT.  Boo. 
The event closer to home lets you bring an entire pictutre book or the first ten pages of your work in for a critique.  Details for the tri-state mid west conference (May 3-5) in Fort Worth Indiana can be found at: http://www.kidsbooklink.org/PDFFiles/2013WWMBroch.pdf (It's $235/ members, and $255 for non-members. - Early bird pricing ends April 1st).  Professional critiques are an additional $45, and they try to pair you up within your sub-genre.
Additional Events in our area can be found at: http://www.kidsbooklink.org/id4.html