Tag Archives: New Voices Award

New Voices/New Visions Award

Submissions Open for Our New Voices and New Visions Award Writing Contests

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Do you or someone you know write for young readers? Are you an author of color or Native author hoping to break in to the publishing industry for the first time? Submissions for our twentieth annual New Voices Award and our seventh annual New Visions Award are now open! Don’t miss this terrific opportunity to have your work considered for publication by Lee & Low Books.

The New Voices Award and the New Visions Award encourage writers of color and Native nations to submit their work to Lee & Low Books, a publisher that takes pride in nurturing new talent. Winners of each award receive a $2,000 cash prize and a first time publishing contract with Lee & Low Books.

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Awards, Diversity, Race, and Representation, New Voices/New Visions Award, Uncategorized

Announcing Our 2018 New Voices Award Winner and Honor

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New Voices Award WinnerNew York, NY—January 22, 2019—LEE & LOW BOOKS is pleased to announce that SD Youngwolf of Moffat, Colorado is the winner of the company’s nineteenth annual New Voices Award. His picture book manuscript, The Echo People, is the story of two children who go on a special journey with their grandfather and, through their different experiences, learn how we create our own realities through the words and actions we give to the world.

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Awards, New Voices/New Visions Award, Writer Resources

Ten Questions to Ask Yourself Before Submitting to the New Voices Writing Contest

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With the New Voices submission deadline quickly approaching, aspiring picture book writers preparing to submit to the contest may be asking themselves “Am I ready to send off my story?”. If you are a writer grappling with this question, you’re in luck! We’ve assembled a checklist of ten questions you should ask yourself before submitting to the 2018 New Voices Award writing contest:

New Voices Award banner

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Awards, New Voices/New Visions Award

Submissions Now Open for our New Voices and New Visions Award Writing Contests for Authors of Color

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Lee and Low Writing Contests

This year, we’re opening submissions for our nineteenth annual New Voices Award and our sixth annual New Visions Award a month early. That means submissions for both awards are now open! The New Voices Award and the New Visions Award encourage writers of color and Native nations to submit their work to a publisher that takes pride in nurturing new talent.

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Awards, Book News, Diversity, Diversity, Race, and Representation, New Voices/New Visions Award

Announcing Our 2017 New Voices Award Winner and Honor

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New Voices Award sealNew York, NY—January 18, 2018—LEE & LOW BOOKS is proud to announce that Maham Khwaja of West Hollywood, California is the winner of the company’s eighteenth annual New Voices Award. Her picture-book manuscript, The Journey, is a story of a young girl and her parents who are forced to flee their home country when violence threatens their community. In a series of beautiful, reflective poems, the protagonist describes her uncertainties as a refugee navigating a world that is not always welcoming, and her hopes for finding a new home. Continue reading →

Diversity, Diversity, Race, and Representation, Interviews with Authors and Illustrators, Lee & Low Likes, New Voices/New Visions Award, Writer Resources

Where Are They Now?: New Voices Award Authors and Artists Discuss Their Experience and Creative Process

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September is here and with the close of summer comes the close of our New Voices Award submissions window on September 30, 2017. It’s also a time when those who have submitted manuscripts—and those still in the process of doing so—may be grappling with some personal questions:

Should I submit my story if I’ve never written for children before?
I’ve always been an artist, but can I be a writer?
What happens to the winner and honor after the award?
Where can I find good advice from someone with experience?

These questions and others like them are not easily addressed in a FAQ page. So to provide this year’s participants with some insight to the contest and creative process, we reached out to former New Voices Award winners, honors, and artists who faced some of these same questions not too long ago. These three accomplished storytellers have forged successful careers as children’s book authors, illustrators, and even author/illustrators. In the following interview, author Paula Yoo (Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds), illustrator Shadra Strickland (Bird and Sunday Shopping) and author/illustrator Don Tate (It Jes’ Happened) share how participating in the New Voices Award helped shape their success.

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Diversity, Diversity, Race, and Representation, Interviews with Authors and Illustrators, New Voices/New Visions Award, Uncategorized, Writer Resources

10 Do’s and Don’ts for Writing Realistic Dialogue

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You’re a writer working on a manuscript and you’ve finally got your two most important characters in the same room. There’s tension between them. One character has a question and the other has the answer. The conflict your plot has been riding on has finally come to a head—these characters need to say what’s been on their minds for pages!

But how do you make sure that your characters say what they need to in a way that’s believable to the reader? Nothing ruins a moment like this more than when the dialogue doesn’t flow or sound believable. If this is a problem you’re grappling with, don’t worry. We asked two previous New Voices Award-winning authors, Pamela M. Tuck (As Fast As Words Can Fly) and Glenda Armand (Love Twelve Miles Long) for their tips and tricks on writing successful, realistic dialogue.

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Awards, Dear Readers, Diversity, Diversity, Race, and Representation, Interviews with Authors and Illustrators, New Voices/New Visions Award, Uncategorized

Building a Biography: An Interview with New Voices Award Winner Andrea Loney and Senior Editor Jessica Echeverria

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At Lee & Low Books we are always interested in biographies of unsung heroes. Stories of lesser-known individuals who used their talents and overcame obstacles to achieve their dreams and serve their society fill our shelves of published titles. Each year our New Voices Award judges consider dozens of biographical submissions on the lookout for a winning combination of compelling characters and well-researched storytelling. But how do these components come together to create a manuscript? How does a writer condense someone’s entire life into a picture book? Does the writer or editor decide what information goes in the story and back matter? What is back matter, anyway? To answer these questions, and for an inside look at the editorial process, we interviewed Andrea Loney, author of the 2014 New Voices Award-winning biography Take A Picture of Me, James VanDerZee! and Jessica Echeverria, our Senior Editor who helped turn Andrea’s manuscript into an absorbing debut!

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Awards, Diversity, Race, and Representation, New Voices/New Visions Award, Uncategorized, Writer Resources

Submit Your Picture Book Manuscript to the New Voices Award!

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New Voices Award Winner sealSummer is right around the corner! That means the eighteenth annual NEW VOICES AWARD is now open for submissions. Established in 2000, the New Voices Award recognizes a picture book manuscript by an unpublished author of color. It was one of the first (and remains one of the only) writing contests specifically designed to help authors of color break into publishing, an industry in which they are still dramatically underrepresented. Continue reading →

Awards, Diversity, Diversity, Race, and Representation, ELL/ESL and Bilingual Books, Interviews with Authors and Illustrators, Lee & Low Likes, New Voices/New Visions Award, Race, Uncategorized, Writer Resources

The Heart of Writing: The Revision Process

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New Voices Award sealIt’s August and with the New Voices Award deadline approaching in just seven weeks, participating writers may be starting to feel the heat. No sweat! The New Voices Award blog post series has got you covered from the summer sun of stress.

At this stage, you’ve probably got your cover letter and story written down. You’ve also read July’s post on the importance of voice in a story and made your narrative even more engaging to readers. Congrats! That’s two essential checks on the New Voices To-do list –but don’t seal the envelope just yet! Now that your story is down it’s time to begin the revision process.

Revision is an important part of the writing experience. It’s about revisiting what you’ve written, identifying what needs to be strengthened, and rewriting to improve your story. Every writer’s revision process is different so to provide some guidance we interviewed two New Voices Award Winners, Linda Boyden (The Blue Roses) and Jennifer Torres (Finding the Music/ En pos de la musica), about how their revision processes helped them prepare their stories for the New Voices Award.

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