Scissortail Creative Writing Festival 2020 Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest

Prizes: * 1^st - $100  * 2^nd - $75 *  3^rd - $50

(Plus Books & Several Honorable Mentions)

Guidelines:

• Contest is open only to currently enrolled undergraduate students.
• Eligible students are expected to attend the Festival. Recognition will occur Friday evening, April 3, 2020. (Please do not submit if you cannot attend the festival).
• Submissions must be confirmed by a sponsoring faculty member.
• Each institution is allowed a maximum of 5 (five entries); This includes ECU.
• Submissions are limited to one of three categories: 1) one piece of short fiction (up to 7500 words), or one piece of creative nonfiction (up to 7500 words), or up to three poems (150 lines total).
• Prizes will not be designated by genre, but will be awarded for best writing.
• All entries must be the original work of the student.
• All entries must be neatly typed; please double-space prose entries.
• Entries will not be returned, so keep your originals.
• No identifying marks should be on the manuscript itself, except for the title.
• Provide separate Cover page with contact information: 1) Student’s Name; 2) Student’s email address AND mailing address 3) Faculty Member’s Name & Email address 3) Institution 4) Classification 5) Phone number 6) Title of original work submitted
• Submit work by email to Dr. Jennifer Dorsey at jdorsey@ecok.edu. In the subject line of your email submission, type “Scissortail Undergraduate Contest.”
• Professor Dorsey will screen initial entries, then an outside judge will judge all entries that meet minimum guidelines.

DEADLINE: Email entries to jdorsey@ecok.edu  must be received by midnight March 1, 2020. There will be no exceptions. Recognition of writers will occur Friday April 3 as part of the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival held at East Central University (April 2-4, 2020). Please visit (and subscribe via email) www.ecuscissortail.blogspot.com to receive festival updates. Contact: Ken Hada, khada@ecok.edu (580) 559-5557 for information regarding the Festival

Judge: Julie Chappell is an ecstatically retired Professor of early British literature and creative writing. She has read her creative works widely, including in venues in California, New Mexico, Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. Her poetry has appeared in several anthologies and journals, such as Elegant Rage: A Poetic Tribute to Woody Guthrie; The Call of the Chupacabra; Malpaïs Review; Voices de la Luna; Dragon Poet Review; Red River Review; Concho River Review; Stone Renga; and Speak Your Mind: Woody Guthrie Poets Celebrate Freedom of Speech 2019, Poems of Protest & Resistance. Her poetry was included in two podcasts in 2019—Ken Hada’s "Sunday Poems" and Jonas Zdanys’ "Open Windows" —for which she is profoundly humbled and grateful. Her two original poetry collections are Faultlines: One Woman’s Shifting Boundaries (Village Books Press, 2013) and Mad Habits of a Life (Lamar University Literary Press, 2019). Two more collections of poetry and a memoir are in progress. She resides in the woods of Lake Keystone in Oklahoma with her poet husband, Hank Jones, and their five cats, umpteen squirrels, raccoons, road runners, and wild birds.

Sponsors: The Undergraduate Writing Contest is sponsored by The East Central University Foundation, Inc, in partnership with THE RED EARTH MFA program from Oklahoma City University, directed by Jeanetta Calhoun Mish. Information: http://www.okcu.edu/artsci/departments/english/redearthmfa