Judging Writing Contests Let Me See Behind the Scenes
And you might have less competition than you think
I love contests. My writing career started with a contest. So when, after a decade of writing, entering competitions (and sometimes winning!), I was invited to be on a judging panel for an international fiction contest, I was thrilled.
Since then, I’ve been on several judging panels and now I’m on another one for the Jotter First Chapter Awards.
When you’re on the other side of the contests, you start to see interesting patterns. One realization I’ve had is how easy it is to increase your chances of being shortlisted with some simple steps that people often miss.
Here are three lessons I’ve learned from behind the scenes:
Most contests don’t get a large number of entries
There are huge writing contests — the Medium Creative Nonfiction Awards had 10K+ entries — but these are the exception. Most contests end up with far fewer entries.
I’m an avid contest enterer and have won an unusual number of prizes in my life. My children have too. We’ve won money, travel vouchers, a video player, a bike, chocolate….recently I won a beautiful umbrella with a starry night scene when you open it up. Are…
