Authors First Launches Contest for Novelists and Short Story Writers

Authors First logoAuthors First, an online community for authors, is now accepting entries for their first annual novel-writing contest. The contest is open to all works of fiction over 40,000 words. The winner will receive a cash prize of $5,000, along with a publication contract from The Story Plant, an iPad Mini, and a year’s worth of Story Plant books. Five runners-up will also be chosen, each winning an iPad Mini loaded with a year’s worth of Story Plant books.

In addition to the novel contest, Authors First announced a short story contest for works of fiction 20,000 words and less. They will choose 20 winners, each of whom will be published in an Authors First anthology.

The deadline for entering is September 30, 2014. The winner will be announced by December 1.

“We’re tremendously excited about this contest,” said Lou Aronica, President of Authors First. “We know from personal experience what it is like to put everything into your writing but still struggle to find a publisher to pay attention to you.”

Authors First was founded by New York Times bestselling author Lou Aronica, Tony and Pulitzer Award- winning Broadway veteran Mitchell Maxwell, and Aaron Brown, an international bestselling author who publishes under the name Ethan Cross.

“We created Authors First to share the wisdom we’ve gained collectively about writing over the years and to help writers learn from a group of fellow writers who care deeply about their craft,” said Aronica. “We created the contest because we want to give writers a forum for being discovered.”

Set up like a virtual writers’ conference, Authors First offers basic and intermediate instructional sessions on topics such as idea generation, character development, research, pitching, and the publishing business.. A Master Class level will be introduced this fall.

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