Legally, probably not, but a scheme for sure. Yesterday my kids came home with a photocopied flyer for a poetry contest and were, of course, excited by the prizes: You May Win $500! Prizes Just For Entering! Laptop Computer! Afterschool Shopping Spree!
Always wary of people who are trying to collect my minors' contact information, I did a little checking around. It turns out there is much discussion on writers' forums about this and similar 'contests.' They are based on a Who's Who model, in which everyone who supplies contact information (the poem, at 20 lines or less, seems to be an afterthought), receives a letter saying their poem is so wonderful it has been 'selected' to appear in an anthology, called Brilliance (or Excellence, or something like that). The anthology will cost you $79. If you want your author bio in there, that's an extra $39 (I'm making up the prices, but you get the idea). Information on this and similar writing 'contest' schemes may be found here.
It really bothers me that, much as we try to protect our children, their security is still compromised. Where is their contact information being gathered and shared against our will? It doesn't happen very often, but it's troubling that it happens at all. When Tris was seven, he got a certificate for a free medical consultation of some sort: brain scan? arthritis screening? Whatever it was I was horrified that 'somebody out there' had his information, and couldn't find out how it was obtained. Last spring, Graham and Tris were both 'nominated' to participate in an exchange program to England purportedly because of their excellence in academic and community involvement. Excuse me? Not that they're not model citizens, but what about their sister? It had me racking my brain for something that the boys were signed up for but not Cecilia. I still draw a blank. In any case, the program actually seems to happen, families are drawn in to do lots of fundraising and plenty of meetings, and then the exchange happens the following year. But were my children really 'nominated'? By whom? How did the program find them? And who in their right mind would send their ten-year-old blithely off to merry olde? Anyhow, there I go again. Does this any of this bother you, too?
