Announcing the First Annual “Minnesota Author Project: Communities Create” Contest

The Metropolitan Library Service Agency (MELSA) is pleased to announce the call for entries in the first annual Minnesota Author Project: Communities Create contest.

For Minnesota organizations and communities who have creative written work to share—a short story collection from a classroom, a local history book by a team of librarians, a poetry anthology from a writers group, a cookbook by a local foodie society—this new contest is the perfect opportunity to get that work out to a wide audience and maybe win a contest in the process! 

Marlene Moulton Janssen, board member of the Minnesota Library Foundation, which sponsors the Minnesota Author Project (along with Minnesota’s libraries and Bibliolabs), explains that this new contest category is designed “to recognize community-created writing and to highlight the central role that libraries play in providing support for local authors and the communities they serve.” (The Minnesota Author Project also awards self-published work in Adult Fiction and Young Adult Fiction categories.)

Submissions will be accepted from April 1-May 31, 2020. 

The winning organization will receive:

• A $1000 cash prize
• Honors at the 2020 Minnesota Library Association Conference
• An honorary plaque
• Printing of the winning book and the opportunity to make the book available statewide in the Indie Minnesota collection on BiblioBoard Library
• Media promotion throughout the state

In order to be eligible for the contest, the book must:

• have been created by a Minnesota-based organization
• be available in either PDF or ePub format
• be of a recommended minimum length of 10,000 words or 20 pages

There are no genre or creation date restrictions, and organizations of all types are encouraged to submit their work, including nonprofits, libraries, schools, cultural groups, historical societies, artistry guilds, and beyond.

Groups are invited to submit entries at indieauthorproject.librariesshare.com/Minnesota. Groups that have content ready but need help formatting or creating a book file are encouraged to use the free self-publishing resources available to all Minnesota library users at MNWritesMNReads.org. 

For more information about the Indie Minnesota library, download the Biblioboard Library app or go to library.biblioboard.com/module/indie-minnesota.