Guest Post: Janci Patterson on Writing Contests

Follow @jancipattersonBy Janci Patterson
for Cynthia Leitich Smith's Cynsations

I heard about the Utah Arts Council Original Writing Competition from one of my grad school professors. This was in 2007--I’d been writing novels for seven years. I had five novels drafted and had been sending books out for years and receiving form rejections.

So when I heard about the Young Adult Novel category, I didn’t have high hopes. But my policy was to send things out because books that sit in drawers don’t g...