Yesterday, at a teacher in-service, one of my colleagues handed me some information about a writers’ conference/workshop that is being held at Hood College this summer. I was impressed immediately with the quality of the brochures, and yet I felt a little distressed at the same time that most students would never even see the brochure or poster. As much as teachers try to promote such writing opportunities, we are inundated with other forms and posters that compete with each other for classroom time. As much as I hate to write this, many of them never even make it to the students simply because there are too many of them; gridlock happens, and we get on with our scheduled lesson.

Shame on us, really. I’m just as guilty; yet, when I send out information about Maryland Voices or other writing projects, I can’t believe that teachers would NOT share such an opportunity with their students.

I turned to that colleague and mentioned to her that it would be really beneficial if we had all of these opportunities in one place, where we could just check to see what competitions or calls for submissions might be a good fit for our young writers (or for ourselves). I haven’t seen an exhaustive list for writers in some time, and I’ve never seen one that includes opportunities for educators as well.

So, I decided to create one today and keep it as a permanent page on my blog. If you look up to the banner, you’ll see several tabs with various samples of my writing. The last tab, on the bottom right, is for writing and publishing opportunities. Just click on that link, and you’ll go directly to the list, organized by category and then by the name of the sponsor of that particular contest, competition, or conference.

I encourage you to check it often, as I will most likely be updating it daily, hopefully thanks in part to your contributions about what’s happening in and around Maryland. If you know of a publishing opp that I should publish, just drop me a note and I’ll get right on it.

There are a few pubs that have deadlines just days away, so don’t hesitate. If you’ve got a story that you want to share with a larger audience, I recommend highly all of the pubs and sponsors that I’ve got listed.

Remember, though, that you need to write for yourself before you write for a larger audience. This list will still be here when you are good and ready to put that piece in the mail. 🙂