#FicFest Writing Contest
New Adult Team Member
Team Leader: E.L. Wicker
E.L. Wicker is the author of the award winning Bearwood Series. She splits her writing between paranormal romance and contemporary romance. She is the creative director at Lakewater press and also mentors authors in several pitch writing contests. Her standalone contemporary romance series will be released later this year. If she’s not creating, chances are she’s reading a New Adult contemporary romance.
What she's looking for
Emma is completely, utterly, and hopelessly in love with the New Adult genre, particularly contemporary romance with a huge slice of hot, so if you have that, she wants it. She LOVES dual POV and is also a major fan of 1st person either past or present. Her personal preference is not ‘behind closed doors’ so she won’t be looking for that. Paranormal Romance? Yes please to that too. In saying that, the team are all into different things so read under their bio to find out what might catch their eye.
Team Member: Jamie Zakian
Jamie Zakian is a YA/NA writer and acquiring editor at Evernight/Evernight Teen Publishing. When not writing, she enjoys farming, archery, and blazing new trails on her 4wd quad with her rowdy family. Her debut NA novel Ashby Holler releases June 14th from Limitless Publishing and her YA sci-fi thriller Emergence is forthcoming from Month9Books. Check out her website or follow her on Twitter.
What Jamie is looking for
In new adult, I’m really hoping to see a thriller involving hackers or genetically engineered soldiers. I would also love a paranormal romance involving mythical creatures. A M/M intergalactic love story would have me doing backflips, especially if it’s tragic. While I tend to stray toward stories with speculative elements, a historical or contemporary with strong voice and a unique storyline will grab my eye.
Team Member: Hetal
Daughter, sister, wife, and mom are titles that have heretofore defined me; I'm working hard to add “published author” to that list. As a first generation Indian-American growing up in a predominantly Caucasian community, I often escaped into Indian mythologies and superstitions to get through the wearisome days. After the day job is done, parenting is performed, and the chauffeur’s hat is hung up for the night, I'm bending those stories to my will so the girl’s saving the day, the guy if the situation demands, and traveling the world.
What I'm looking for
Send me anything diverse, speculative, fantastical, horrifying, thrilling, or suspensful. Your story can have a romantic subplot, but I prefer the romance to be secondary to the action.
Contest Overview
FicFest is a brand new contest launching in 2016 that will help put manuscripts in front of agents. FicFest is unique in that this contest covers the five major categories of writing: Children's Books, Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult. The chances for each category to get agent requests is equal. Unlike most writing contests, an equal number of finalists will be chosen for each category so that one does not over power the other. FicFest creators also ensure that there will be a plethora of agents wanting each of these categories. Our goal is to help writers of all books get out there, get great feedback, and have the opportunity to get partial/full requests from agents.
Contest General Details
FicFest is open to all finished manuscripts and all genres for Children's Books, Middle Grade, Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult. In this contest, each category will have three teams. Teams will be made up of a Team Lead and two team members, who will pick three finalists and one alternate per team. This ensures that forty-five manuscripts will move on to the agent round, with fifteen manuscripts being held as alternates in case one of the finalists drops out of the contest. Once the finalists are chosen, they will work with their teams on revisions for 8 weeks before the agent round. During the agent round, participating agents will be able to request partial/fulls from the manuscripts they want to see. There is no bidding, and no competition for agents. They can request whatever intrigues them, giving everyone a huge opportunity to get requests and hopefully an agent for their manuscript. More rules, regulations, and details will be posted via the host and team lead blogs as the contest begins!
FicFest 2016
March 20, 2016 @ 12:00 PM EST
Guidelines & Theme Reveal
(Host Blog)
March 27, 2016 @ 7:00 PM EST
Meet the Team Leads & Their Members!
(Team Lead Blogs & Host Blog)
April 3, 2016 @ 6:00 PM EST
Agent List Announced
(Host Blog)
April 17, 2016 @ 7:00 PM EST - 10:00 PM EST
Q & A with Team Leads & Host
(Twitter - Using #FicFest)
April 24, 2016 @ 12:00 AM EST - April 25, 2016 @ 11:59 PM EST
SUBMISSION
April 26, 2016 - May 3, 2016
Teams will chose their finalists/alternate
May 4, 2016 @ 10:00 AM EST
Finalists/Alternate Reveal
(Team Leads Blogs)
May 5, 2016 - June 30, 2016
Revisions
July 8, 2016 @ 12:00 AM EST - July 14, 2014 @ 11:59 PM EST
Agent Round
