Teen Eyes Editorial Contest … Can you hook a teen?

Have you ever wondered if your manuscript would hook a teen reader? We all have. So what better way to find out than a contest with the talented teens of TEEN EYES EDITORIAL.

How is this going to work? You’ll post a 35-word pitch and the first 250 words of your young adult or middle grade manuscript in the comments of the submission post that will go live on August 18 and we’ll take entries until August 26 at 1PM EDT. The three Teen Eyes editors will go through the comments and each select one winner. The winners will be announced on September 1st.

What are the prizes? There will be three (3) winners. The winners will receive a free 25-page critique from the editors. Each Teen Eyes editor will pick the entry they feel is best, and then work with that writer on the critique.

Can I enter this contest if I entered Pitch Wars? Absolutely. The critique would be an added pair of eyes on your manuscript … teen eyes. If you make it into Pitch Wars and win a critique from Teen Eyes, you and your mentor will decide how best to use the critique.

Formatting details will be on the submission post on August 18.

Here’s a bit about the teen editors . . .

Kate Coursey
Editor

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Kate Coursey has been editing professionally since 2010. She helped found Teen Eyes in 2011, working with clients from all over the world to perfect their manuscripts. As a YA autho, her novel LIKE CLOCKWORK won Scholastic’s PUSH Novel Contest when she was 16 years old. In addition to having extensive experience as a freelance editor, Kate worked as an intern at Scholastic Press, where she read many agented and unagented submissions. She received the prestigious Sterling Scholar Grant in 2011 based on an extensive creative writing sample. Later that year, Kate underwent a comprehensive evaluation of her editorial skills, beating out dozens of post-grad students for an editorial internship at a mid-sized publisher. She is currently finishing up her ninth novel, which took first place in the LDS Storymakers First Chapter Contest. Kate spends far too much time messing around on the Internet and occasionally succumbs to caffeine-induced fits of hysteria at 2:00 a.m.

Kate loves all things fantasy, contemporary, historical, steampunk, dystopian, and magical realism. She particularly enjoys unique lead characters and morally ambiguous situations.

Grace Smith
Editor

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Grace Smith is a 17-year-old who’s been passionately blogging about books and writing since April 2011. During those three years, Grace has interned for a small press, served on numerous panels and teen outreach programs by publishers, as well as edited for authors with book deals from imprints such as SimonTeen and Greenwillow. After attending BookExpo America in 2012, Grace’s desire to work in publishing led to her to pursue even more connections to the industry. While Grace currently focuses on short stories and poetry herself, she’s fervently devoted to manuscripts and the development of fiction. A finalist in the prestigious Virginia B. Ball Creative Writing Competition, Grace studied at Interlochen Center for the Arts in the summer of 2013 under the tutelage of professors from M.F.A. programs at the University of Michigan and Brown University. She reads over 200-300 books a year but can never read, write, or edit enough. She has a weakness for books from strong poetry backgrounds as well as fractured fairy tales, but loves almost everything encompassed by the young adult genre. When not working or with her identical twin, she plays lacrosse and piano.

Zoe Strickland
Editorial Director

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Zoe Strickland is a 19-year-old California college student currently living in Oregon. She has been working at Teen Eyes for two years, and has been Editorial Director for one year. Outside of Teen Eyes, she is Editor-in-Chief of The Northwest Passage, Western Oregon University’s literary magazine.

After a brief and intense tryst with Harry Potter, Zoe went straight into reading Young Adult books. After reviewing books for 5 years, she decided to end her review website in 2014 in order to fully focus on editing. In addition to book blogging, Zoe’s past literary experience includes an internship with Creston Books and assisting Young Adult novelists Sarah Ockler and Daisy Whitney. Zoe particularly enjoys contemporary novels with characters that jump off of the page and demand to be heard. Though she loves to read anything and everything, some of her favorite writers are David Levithan, Rainbow Rowell, Hannah Moskowitz, and Stephanie Perkins.

When she isn’t editing, Zoe enjoys watching British television, drinking copious amounts of coffee, and dancing to musicals.
Come back on August 18 to enter and find out if you can hook a teen reader!