Writing Contest for PSU

Sixth Annual Ooligan Editors’

Choice Fiction Contest

Sponsored by Portland State University’s Publishing Program and Ooligan Press

The Advanced Book Editing class wants your stories!

Submit your original short story on the theme MAKING MONSTERS.

The Ooligan Press Editors will carefully select and professionally edit the five entries that best exemplify originality, reader appeal, and writer’s craft. The winning stories will receive the Ooligan Editors’ Choice Award and will be published in Ooligan’s Best Short Stories of 2010 (our annual electronic journal).

Details:

Stories must not have been previously published

Maximum of 4,000 words

One story per person

Authors will retain copyright to their writing

To Enter:

Send a Word document, double-spaced and formatted in 12-point type, as an e-mail attachment to nancycdinzillo@gmail.com. Include the title of your story. In the body of your e-mail, include your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address.

All submissions are due by May 1st, May Day.

Read past winners at www.ooliganpress.pdx.edu

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Great Sign – Go Wales

In Wales, all road signs must be in both Welsh and English.

The English is clear enough to lorry drivers – but the Welsh reads:

“I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.”

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Editors SHOULD Get Royalties

I read this article about editors getting royalties today, and I wanted to start a discussion on this topic.

Editors do so much work on a book, they often spend months reading and re-reading one novel. Granted, they are often working on more than one book – but so do agents. Agents get royalties for finding publishing deals for books. When editors edit books before an author gets an agent, they help secure those book deals. When an editor edits a novel after an agent makes a deal, the editor helps to ensure good sales for that book.

The editor is making sure that the book is as appealing to readers as possible – as readable, as clear, and as grammatically correct as it can be within the author’s perimeters. So why then doesn’t the editor get some $$$ when a book does well? That makes so much sense – and gives the editor that little extra nudge of motivation to do their work well (many people don’t need this push, but let’s face it – money is always appealing).

Anyone have any thoughts?

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Kids as Acquisitions Editors with the Young Editors Project

Ooligan’s Acquisitions workgroup takes publishing into the classroom with the Young Editors Project (YEP), a fun way for kids to read and evaluate young adult manuscripts that are being considered for publication.

The Young Editors Project is just another way to bring publishing into children’s lives. In many of the projects described in Classroom Publishing, Ooligan’s most recent release, kids are encourage to publish their own creations, but evaluating the writing of others can be just as useful in understanding great writing. Ooligan’s YEP allows kids to look at novels and identify the strengths and weaknesses of an author’s story in a situation where their opinion matters.

Sometimes it’s difficult for acquisitions editors to decide whether or not to publish a manuscript they have received – there are so many factors to consider. One factor, of course, is whether the book will appeal to the target audience. Ooligan does publish young adult books, but sometimes we need help deciding whether young adults will really like the manuscript we are considering. For most of us, it’s been over a decade since we were young adults ourselves. And so, we turn to the source for help – we ask young adults to read the manuscripts and give their opinions. The name for this process is the Young Editors Project.

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