I just heard about a very cool contest sponsored by Keshet, the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Jewish advocacy group. (The word keshet means rainbow in Hebrew.) They realized that there’s a lack of Jewish children’s books out there that have GLBT families or characters.
So to combat it, they’re asking for submissions. But they don’t want just any book. They want a GOOD book. A book with an engaging story that would resonate with the whole Jewish community–but just happens to also have GLBT characters. So in other words, they don’t want it to be too preachy about inclusion or anything; it should just naturally have GLBT folks as part of Jewish life. Which is the way our world should be, in my humble opinion. But that’s another blog post for another time.
Submissions should be between 800-1000 words, and the winner gets a prize of $250 and a chance to have their book published. Kind of awesome. Entries are due by April 15, so get writing!
