Two Great Opportunities

First of all, thank you for all your words of congratulations! We are feeling so blessed by our little blessing, Naomi. She's been a wonderfully calm baby so far -- sleeping, eating, pooping. Everything a newborn is supposed to do.

Even though I'm mostly out of the loop these days (*yawn*), I discovered these two opportunities for writers and wanted to make sure you all knew about them:

1) You can win a free substantive edit of a YA or MG novel by Dear Editor's Deborah Halverson to celebrate her book Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies. Click here for a list of rules and more details. You have until Jan 31 to enter. (And, by the way, I briefly met Deborah at the SCBWI conference in LA and attended her workshop. She is amazing. Not only is she an award-winning novelist, but she worked as an editor for many years and her advice was so practical. If you write YA or MG and have a completed novel, don't miss this opportunity!)

2) For all you picture book writers, there's a Picture Book Marathon starting Feb 1. It's basically a Nanowrimo for picture book writers. Click here for more details. Sounds fun. I wish I had the time to participate. Let me know if you decide to.