Student Writing Contests

TACWT contests continue to promote and highlight positive accomplishments of our association and open many doors for our winners. Winners enjoy professional experience while building CV lines, confidence, potential for publication, and a $100 prize.

Submission Policies

1. Manuscripts must have been written in a class or as an independently graded project (such as acapstone portfolio, thesis, or dissertation project) within the last academic year, including summer school. That means: Summer 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Summer 2013.
2. Manuscripts must not contain the student’s name anywhere on the manuscript. Manuscripts must be identified by title only.
3. In the body of the email, state the title of manuscript, the student’s name, the name of the competition genre and level (e.g. undergraduate nonfiction), the sponsoring member and school. This information helps us identify the winners, so make certain that the information is correct in the email and that ONLY the title appears on the manuscript. For poetry submissions, please include all titles of poems in the submission in your email.
4. Prose should not exceed 15 pages (double-spaced with one-inch margins and 12-point type), and poetry should not exceed six pages but should include 3 to 5 poems, single-spaced.
5. The contest is open to creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Sponsors may enter once in each genre and level (six entries total).
6. Sponsors must be members of TACWT. We do have a list of current members who are up to date with their dues. We will not name a winner if the sponsor is not a member in good standing.
7. Of course, all manuscripts must be word processed.

Submission

Contest submissions must be sent to Melissa Morphew at eng_smm@shsu.edu as PDF or RTF files only. We will NOT accept paper submissions. Please write "TACWT contest" in the email subject line.

2013 Judges:

Trish Harris, editor of the Pea River Journal, for fiction
Donna Walker Nixon for creative nonfiction
Jeff Hardin, poet and professor at Columbia State College, Columbia, TE for poetry

Submission deadline is 11:59pm June 15

Winners will be announced late August 2013