QueryTracker.net is offering its First Agent-Judged Contest. QueryTracker has admirable goals, and I’ve perused their site but not actually utilized it as, well, I’m not agent hunting or query writing at this time.
However, I do receive their email announcements and news letter, from whence this came:
[QueryTracker is] very pleased to announce that Joanna Stampfel-Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary will be judging a contest next week on the QueryTracker.net blog.
To enter, submit a one sentence hook for your book. Details will be revealed on the QueryTracker blog Monday, April 13th.
Grand prize – full submission of your manuscript
1st place – 50 page submission
2nd place – 30 page submission
3rd place – 10 page submission
Sounds good to me. If I had a manuscript in presentable condition, I’d jump on the chance. So I thought I’d share it with y’all. 
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Heroic Fiction Ring
Thanks for the link to the QueryTracker blog. Wishing you the best with your writing.
Mary
http://www.marylindsey.com
Hello Mary, thanks for dropping by.
Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have a short story in your SOUL PURPOSE world that might be fitting for Demons: A Clash of Steel Anthology, would you?
Bet I could come up with something. Right now, all my writing is novel length, but I’ve been toying with some shorter-length concepts.
The anthology looks interesting. Thanks for the contact.
You’re so great to mention the QT blog even though you aren’t entering the contest. Thanks so much!
I’m finding these types of query contests increasingly common. Agents Nathan Bransford of Curtis Brown and Colleen Lindsay of Fine Print Literary Management have both run contests in the last few months with the winner getting either partial or full submissions.
I wonder why? Most of them seem swamped already with an influx of queries.
Cool, Dave, thanks for the head’s up on the others. I link to Bransford’s blog, but haven’t been by in a while.
Perhaps they are simply trying to shake the staid tree of submissions and find a few sparks who otherwise weren’t submitting or were getting skipped over in the slush piles.