DEADLINE: May 15, 2020

ELIGIBILITY: Writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry who have yet to publish or self-publish a book may enter.

WHAT TO ENTER: Fiction and nonfiction: up to 6,000 words. Poetry: 3–5 pages.

FEE: $24. The fee includes a 1-year subscription to Ploughshares (beginning with the Spring 2020 issue and ending with the Winter 2020-2021 issue) and free submissions to the 2020 regular reading period.

PRIZE: Publication, $2,000, review from Aevitas Creative Management, and a 1-year subscription for one winner in each of the three genres.

HOW TO ENTER: Submissions must be made via Ploughshares’ online submission manager. You must create an account before submitting.

JUDGES: Kirstin Valdez Quade (fiction), Ilya Kaminsky (poetry) and Esmé Weijun Wang (nonfiction). 

Each year, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) hosts awards in a range of subjects and for different age groups. This year, Ava Sharahy (’20) was one of 15 11th grade winners from the state of New Jersey for the Achievement Awards in Writing. Congratulations Ava!

Bennington College has a unique literary legacy, including ten Pulitzer Prize winners, three U.S. poet laureates, four MacArthur Geniuses, the youngest Man Booker Prize winner, countless New York Times bestsellers, and two of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people.

DEADLINE: November 1, 2019

ELIGIBILITY: 10th-12th graders

AWARDS: 1st place $500; 2nd place $250; 3rd place $125

WHAT TO SUBMIT: Submit to only one of the following categories: poetry (three poems), fiction (a short story or one-act play under 1,500 words), or nonfiction (a personal or academic essay under 1,500 words). All entries must be original and sponsored by a high school teacher.

HOW TO SUBMIT: Online or by mail.

Get more information and read past winners’ work here.

Mid-June through August, every Friday the New York Times asks students, “What interested you most in The Times this week? Why?” You then have until the following Friday to answer, when a team of Times journalists choose their favorite responses, and we publish them here. Post any questions you might have in the comments or write us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com. You can also watch our webinar on summer and independent reading to learn more. The contest runs from June 15 to Aug. 24.

Sponsored by The Poetry Society

Largest International Poetry Contest

Deadline: July 30, 2019

Prizes:

• 15 winners and 85 commended poets selected.
• Winners will be published in a print anthology with a 24,500 distribution.
• Commended poets’ names appear in the anthology. Poems will be published in an online version.
• Award ceremony in London.

Entry Fee: None

Eligibility: Ages 11 – 17

Past Winners: Find online anthology here.

Questions: Email: fyp@poetrysociety.org.uk.

Guidelines: poetrysociety.org.uk

Website: foyleyoungpoets.org

How to Enter: Submit on your own by 7/30 or send your poems to Ms. James by 5/14 to be included in a packet of entries from Newark Academy.

The Poetry Society
22 Betterton Street
London WC2H 9BX
Email: fyp@poetrysociety.org.uk
Telephone (UK): 020 7420 9880

“The Greed Game,” a play by Kianni Keys ’19 won 1st Place in THE THEATER PROJECT 17th Annual Young Playwrights Competition and was honored at an awards ceremony on March 9, 2019 at the Cranford Community Center, where the play was performed by professional actors of The Theater Project. The performance was supported by grants from New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Investors Foundation and the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, and hosted by Theater Project artistic director Mark Spina, and award-winning playwright, screenwriter and novelist, Bill Mesce, Jr.

In 2018 Kianni earned 3rd place in the same contest. In 2017, she won the 34th NJ Playwrights Festival annual high school contest for her play “Smile,” which was staged by professional actors at the Playwrights Festival at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown. In addition, Kianni earned a Governor’s Awards in Arts Education and membership in the Dramatists Guild of America.

A flash fiction story by sophomore Annika Inampudi titled “Other Gods” earned a Scholastic Art & Writing Silver Medal. About one percent of Scholastic’s nearly 340,000 entries submitted nationwide in 2019 earned national recognition. This is Annika’s second National Medal. As an eighth grader she won a 2017 Gold Medal for her flash fiction story, “Stolen Hearts.” Congratulations Annika!

https://youtu.be/aMWyhoh2JL0

Eligibility: Ages 13 – 19.

Info: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/learning/student-contest-our-sixth-annual-15-second-vocabulary-video-challenge.html?module=inline

Guidelines: All words must come from the NY Times Word of the Day feature. Each word must be pronounced and defined, and the part of speech must be given. You can work alone or with others, but only one submission per student. Your video should be no more than 15 secs.

Post: Post your video on YouTube, then post a link to that video in our comments section, along with the name or names of everyone who worked on it. Include the name of your school if you like. Please make sure you make your submission public so that we can see it.

Tips: Use your imagination. You can act the word out, animate it, use puppets, draw, sing a song, create a dance, incorporate photographs, create a Claymation, or anything else that will help viewers understand and learn your word.

DEADLINE: Feb. 17, 2019

The Interlochen Review is an online literary journal edited by creative writing students of Interlochen Arts Academy. Eligibility: Grades 9-12 or high school postgraduate year. Guidelines: Submit up to 6 pieces total. Website: http://www.interlochenreview.org/ Fiction — Word count for each story must be below 5,000 words. Poetry — Long form poems are welcome. Nonfiction — Word count for each essay must be below 5,000 words. Hybrid Genre — These may include flash fiction, prose poetry, lyric essay, film essay/poem, photo essay, new media writing, performance documentation, mixed-media experiments, singer-songwriter compositions or any other hybrid work. Scripts/Screenplays — Scripts should be below 40 pages in standard manuscript format. Screenplays should be below 40 pages in standard screenplay format. BIO: All submissions must be accompanied by a brief author bio. Please DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR NAME anywhere on the submission EXCEPT for in the bio statement. We do accept work recognized by Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and YoungARTS. We DO NOT accept previously published work from other journals, online or in print.

Deadline: March 1, 2019

Eligibility: Ages 13 – 19

Prize: Publication in The New York Times

Read Previous Winners: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/learning/making-connections-50-teenagers-suggest-creative-ways-to-link-classroom-curriculum-to-the-world-today.html?module=inline

How to Enter: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/learning/making-connections-50-teenagers-suggest-creative-ways-to-link-classroom-curriculum-to-the-world-today.html?module=inline

Guidelines:

1. Choose some piece of academic content: something you’ve been reading, discussing or learning about in school. It may be a work of literature, an event in history, a concept in civics, a phenomenon in science or something else entirely. It can be as small as a single haiku or as large as a world-changing event like the Industrial Revolution.
2. Find something published in The New York Times in 2018 or 2019 (article, Op-Ed, image, video, graphic or podcast, etc.) that you think connects to your chosen subject in some interesting, meaningful way, and explain how.

• What relevance does your academic content have to our world today?
• What does it have to do with your life and the lives of those around you?
• What parallels do you see between it and something happening in our culture or the news?
• What lessons does it offer for us today?

3. Tell us in 450 words or fewer, how and why the two things connect.

Deadline: January 21, 2019

Louise Louis / Emily F. Bourne PSA Student Award

Deadline: December 15 if emailed by Ms. James for inclusion in a school packet (NA pays entry fee); December 22 if mailed on your own ($5 fee paid by you).
Eligibility: Grades 9-12
Entry Fee: $5 if submitted by student. $20 (paid by Newark Academy) for an unlimited number if submitted by teacher. Checks made payable to Poetry Society of America. (Membership not required).
Award: One of the most prestigious awards available to poets. $250.
Submit: One unpublished poem
Previous Winners: See winning poems here.
Website:  poetrysociety.org

About:

Endowed under the wills of Louise Louis Whitbread and Ruth M. Bourne, this prize is awarded for the best unpublished poem by a student in grades 9 through 12 from the United States. Teachers or administrators may submit an unlimited number of their students’ poems, one submission per student.

Instructions:

•  Only one entry per student.
•  Previous PSA winners cannot be re-submitted.
•  Previously published work cannot be submitted.
•  No translations.
•  No poems by multiple authors.
•  Entry must have 1 cover page and 2 collated copies of your poem.

Cover Page:

Name
Address
Email (if available)
Phone
Name of the Award
Title and First Line of first poem in submission
Your name should not appear anywhere else besides this cover sheet.

Cover Sheet Template: It’s not a requirement, but you might find it helpful to use our cover sheet template.

Mailing Address:

Poetry Society of America
Annual Award Submission
15 Gramercy Park
New York, NY 10003

National Council of Teachers of English Achievement Award for Superior Writing

Who: This contest is for current JUNIORS only.

Purpose:  To encourage high school students in their writing and to publicly recognize some of the best student writers.

Eligibility:  Juniors in the current academic school year are eligible to be nominated by their school’s English department. Nominations should be based on whether the writer exhibits power to inform and move an audience through control of a wide range of the English language. Entries are only accepted from teachers (i.e. the Head of the English Department).

Submission: If you would like to be considered for this award, you must submit to Mr. Stourton 6 pages of your best creative writing along with a 4-page prose piece (fiction or nonfiction) addressing this year’s prompt. See website.

Website: NCTE.org

Questions: Contact Mr. Stourton at nstourton@newarka.edu or Ms. James at tjames@newarka.edu.

Deadline: Submit essay and “best writing” to Mr. Stourton by Wednesday January 15, 2019.

A Kansas nonprofit established in 1980, the Writing Conference Inc. hosts an annual national writing contest for middle and high school students.

Deadline: Early January. See website.

WHO: For grades 6 -12

WHAT TO SUBMIT: Each student may submit ONE entry: a poem, personal essay or narration (short story or play).

THEME:  See website for this year’s theme.

FORMATTING: Entry form required. See website.

PRIZE: Award winning pieces will be published in The Writers’ Slate whose audience is comprised of students and teachers at the elementary, middle, and secondary levels. Submissions should be appropriate for this audience.

One Teen Story is open to students age 14-19. Short stories should be between 1,500 to 4,000 words and be the writer’s own original, unpublished work. Previously published stories and stories forthcoming at other publications cannot be considered. No entry form or fee is required. Deadline:  Mid-November. See website.