Book Wish Foundation

We just announced here, the six aspiring writers who have won the essay contest for our new book, What You Wish For! Pretty incredible that they get to have their manuscripts critiqued by the authors and literary agents. During the next few weeks, we will post some of the most interesting excerpts from the submitted essays, which all tackled the question of how the wishes in What You Wish For relate to the Darfuri refugees in Chad. Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all who entered!

What You Wish For is now the perfect holiday gift for aspiring writers ages 13+. Readers have a chance to get their own unpublished manuscripts critiqued by renowned literary agents and authors, in an essay contest we just announced at bookwish.org/contest. A 500-word essay about a short story in What You Wish For is all that separates six winners from getting feedback on their own writing from:

• Laura Langlie, literary agent for Meg Cabot
• Nancy Gallt, literary agent for Jeanne DuPrau
• Brenda Bowen, literary agent and editor of Karen Hesse's Newbery Medal winner Out of the Dust
• Ann M. Martin, winner of the Newbery Honor for A Corner of the Universe
• Francisco X. Stork, winner of the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award for The Last Summer of the Death Warriors
• Cynthia Voigt, winner of the Newbery Medal for Dicey's Song and the Newbery Honor for A Solitary Blue

Essays are due Feb. 1, 2012, so there's plenty of time for gift recipients to enter. Essay contest winners will have six months to submit young adult or middle grade manuscripts for critique, so it's okay if they haven't written them, yet. See bookwish.org/contest for full details about the contest.

What You Wish For is a collection of short stories and poems about wishes from 18 all-star writers: Meg Cabot, Jeanne DuPrau, Cornelia Funke, Nikki Giovanni, John Green, Karen Hesse, Ann M. Martin, Alexander McCall Smith, Marilyn Nelson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Joyce Carol Oates, Nate Powell, Sofia Quintero, Gary Soto, R.L. Stine, Francisco X. Stork, Cynthia Voigt, Jane Yolen. With a Foreword by Mia Farrow. All contributed their writing for free so that we could donate 100% of our proceeds to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, to develop libraries in Darfuri refugee camps.

What You Wish For received a starred review in the American Library Association's Booklist magazine.

Where to buy:

Better World Books >

IndieBound >

Amazon >  Kindle >

Barnes & Noble >  Nook >

What do the authors of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, The Princess Diaries, the mega-bestsellers Goosebumps (350 million+ sold) and The Baby-sitters Club (175 million+ sold), the Newbery medal-winning Dicey's Song and Out of The Dust, and the National Book Award-winning them have in common?

They are among the incredible contributors to our new book, What You Wish For: A Book For Darfur! I am thrilled to share with you the exciting news about the book, and hope you will help us in a very specific way to make it a huge success. Working with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, we will be using 100% of our proceeds to fund libraries for the 250,000 Darfuris living in refugee camps in eastern Chad.

What You Wish For: A Book For Darfur features stories and poems about wishes by some of the top talent writing for children and young adults: Alexander McCall Smith, Meg Cabot, R.L. Stine, Ann M. Martin, Cynthia Voigt, Karen Hesse, Joyce Carol Oates, Cornelia Funke, Nikki Giovanni, John Green, Nate Powell, Gary Soto, Jeanne DuPrau, Francisco X. Stork, Marilyn Nelson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sofia Quintero, and Jane Yolen. All have contributed their writing for free to support this cause. Advocate, actress, and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow has written a moving Foreword based on her 13 visits to Darfur and Chad, and we are honored to include a statement by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres.

All that the book is missing right now is you. We will be printing the names of 1,000 supporters in the book, and I hope you will strongly consider being one of them and helping to tell as many people as possible about this opportunity. By donating $20 at this link, you can get your name or your child's included (a great gift for young fans of these authors). If you are concerned about privacy, but want to support the cause, we can print your last initial instead of your last name, S. instead of Smith. We need to receive your names by April 30 in order to make our publisher's deadline.

If you know anyone who loves to read, is a fan of one of our authors, or is an activist concerned about the refugees, please share this news. Just direct them to bookwish.org -- email it, tweet it, put it on your Facebook page. With your help, we can assemble the 1,000 supporters and not only fund this important aid for the refugees, but also show everyone who picks up the book just how strongly people still care about Darfur. It has been eight years, but the refugees are still in the camps and still need books for their education and mental health. This is an easy way to help, with the rare opportunity to be part of a book by such phenomenal authors.

What You Wish For: A Book For Darfur will be released in September by Penguin's imprint G.P. Putnam's Sons. You can already pre-order online, and one socially-conscious bookseller, BetterWorldBooks, has pledged to donate 100% of its net profits from the book's sales, increasing how much we earn for the refugees.

If you have any questions about the book, or ideas or contacts for publicity, please contact us. Thank you for your continued support. We have been working on this book for two years behind the scenes, and we are so excited to finally share it with you.