PYHIAB - Best Contest Ever!!!

For the record, the Put Your Heart in a Book Contest run by the New Jersey Romance Writers is the best contest ever!!! Now, I would love to be able to say that this glowing assessment is completely unbiased, but alas, I can make no such claim. Cuz I won it! Or rather, Picket Fences won the Single Title category. Sweet, eh?But I choose to believe I would have endorsed the contest just as whole-heartedly had I not been so lucky.

So what makes PYHIAB so awesome? Well, little lady, allow me to elucidate. (Anyone get the reference? Anyone?) Ahem. The evidence:
1. Three, count them, three published judges critique your work in the first round. I don't know about you, but I find the comments from published judges are much more helpful (and kind) than those of the unwashed masses. (No offense, unwashed masses!)
2. Three, count them, three industry professionals (editor, agent & best-selling author) judging the final round.
3. If you final, you get a certificate (plaque for 1st), cashola (enough to cover your initial contest fee investment), a pitch with an editor/agent at the PYHIAB conference in New Jersey (where many an industry professional has been spotted, due to its proximity to NYC), and recognition at their Awards thingy at the conference. Sadly, I had to take a pass on the last two as New Jersey is not in close proximity to Seattle and I am tres broke, but how rockin' awesome are those prizes? Not too shabby, huh?

Now, this is just my opinion and I'm sure there will be those out there who had very different experiences, but what made the PYHIAB contest so singularly awesome for me was the quality of the judging. If you've entered more than a couple contests, odds are you've had one of those judges. The nasty ones who seem to delight in tearing your work apart without providing any specific, constructive suggestions as to how to improve your story - which should always be the goal of such feedback, IMHO. The PYHIAB judges could not have been farther from those judges. They were stellar, phenomenal, breathtakingly brilliant. Someday, I shall write odes to their majesty.

Now, they obviously liked my stuff, so that does bias me pretty heavily in their favor, but they didn't just give me a pass, scribbling "Don't change a word" or "Perfect just the way it is" or some other unhelpful platitude. No. I got some good, hands-on, specific criticism. It was heavenly. I had several writing epiphanies as a direct result of these judges' comments. Realizations that will make my writing stronger for years to come.

I don't know what they put in the water in New Jersey or how they train/select their judges, but I do know that my experience was wildly positive. This contest receives my highest recommendation. I would totally enter again next year if not for the fact that my novella disqualifies me. PYHIAB - Best Contest Ever.