Tuesday, September 1, 2026
22nd Annual Scissortail: Featured Authors
Kelli Jo Ford is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her debut novel-in-stories Crooked Hallelujah was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, The Story Prize, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, The Dublin Literary Award, and The Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. She is the recipient of honors and awards such as The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize, an NEA Literature Fellowship, a Creative Capital Award, a Dobie Paisano Fellowship, and a Native Arts & Cultures Foundation Fellowship. She teaches writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Wayne Miller is the author of six poetry collections, most recently The End of Childhood (Milkweed, 2025) and We the Jury (2021). His awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, as well as the UNT Rilke Prize, two Colorado Book Awards, two Pushcart Prizes, six awards from the Poetry Society of America, and a Fulbright Distinguished Scholarship to the Seamus Heaney Centre in Northern Ireland. He has co-translated three books by the Albanian writer Moikom Zeqo—most recently the prose collection Sellers of Chaos, forthcoming from Unbound Edition Press. He teaches at the University of Colorado Denver, co-directs the Unsung Masters Series, and edits Copper Nickel.
Vu Tran is the author of Dragonfish – a New York Times Notable Book and a San Francisco Chronicle Best Books of the Year – as well as a forthcoming novel, Your Origins. His criticism and short fiction have appeared in publications like the New York Times, The O. Henry Prize Stories, The Best American Stories, Virginia Quarterly, and McSweeney’s. Born in Vietnam and raised in Oklahoma, Vu received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and his PhD from the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas, and is also the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from the NEA, MacDowell, Yaddo, and Bread Loaf. He teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Chicago, where he is an Associate Professor of Practice in the Arts and Director of Undergraduate Studies.
23rd Annual R. Darryl Fisher Creative Writing Contest
East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma presents
Oklahoma’s Most Prestigious High School Writing Competition
Fiction: 1 "Superior"Award: $300; 4 "Outstanding"Awards @ $150; Five "Excellent" Awards @ $50
Poetry: 1 "Superior"Award: $300; 4 "Outstanding"Awards @ $150; Five "Excellent" Awards @ $50
Guidelines:
* All Oklahoma high school students (9th - 12th grade) are eligible.
* Poetry (up to 100 lines) or Short Fiction (up to 6,000 words) is acceptable.
* Limit 5 poems and 1 short fiction piece per student.
* All entries must be the original work of the student.
* Absolutely, any use of AI, computer-generated “work” is unacceptable!
* All entries must be neatly typed; please double-space fiction entries.
* Entries will not be returned, so keep your originals.
* No identifying marks should be on the manuscript itself, except for the title.
* Provide cover page with contact information: 1) Student’s name; 2) High School and Teacher’s name 3) Classification (senior, junior, etc.) 4) Phone number, Email and student’s mailing address. (Work submitted without a mailing address for each student will not be judged)
DEADLINE: Conventional mail must be postmarked on or before Monday, February 16, 2027. Email entries must be sent via email by 11:59 p.m. on February 16, 2027. There will be no exceptions.
Awards will be recognized by May 1, 2027. The names of winning writers will be posted on this website. Awards will be mailed to students.
Poetry Submissions: send work electronically as attached files to jgrasso@ecok.edu or mail to Dr. Joshua Grasso, East Central University, Dept. of English & Languages, 1100 E. 14th St., Ada, OK 74820
Fiction Submissions: send work electronically as attached files to peterbattlebiles@gmail.com or mail to Peter Biles at 14577 CR 1569 Ada, OK 74820
Contest Information: Dr. Joshua Grasso (580-235-3197).
Scissortail Creative Writing Festival Information: Dr. Ken Hada (580-559-5557)
Guidelines:
* All Oklahoma high school students (9th - 12th grade) are eligible.
* Poetry (up to 100 lines) or Short Fiction (up to 6,000 words) is acceptable.
* Limit 5 poems and 1 short fiction piece per student.
* All entries must be the original work of the student.
* Absolutely, any use of AI, computer-generated “work” is unacceptable!
* All entries must be neatly typed; please double-space fiction entries.
* Entries will not be returned, so keep your originals.
* No identifying marks should be on the manuscript itself, except for the title.
* Provide cover page with contact information: 1) Student’s name; 2) High School and Teacher’s name 3) Classification (senior, junior, etc.) 4) Phone number, Email and student’s mailing address. (Work submitted without a mailing address for each student will not be judged)
DEADLINE: Conventional mail must be postmarked on or before Monday, February 16, 2027. Email entries must be sent via email by 11:59 p.m. on February 16, 2027. There will be no exceptions.
Awards will be recognized by May 1, 2027. The names of winning writers will be posted on this website. Awards will be mailed to students.
Poetry Submissions: send work electronically as attached files to jgrasso@ecok.edu or mail to Dr. Joshua Grasso, East Central University, Dept. of English & Languages, 1100 E. 14th St., Ada, OK 74820
Fiction Submissions: send work electronically as attached files to peterbattlebiles@gmail.com or mail to Peter Biles at 14577 CR 1569 Ada, OK 74820
Contest Information: Dr. Joshua Grasso (580-235-3197).
Scissortail Creative Writing Festival Information: Dr. Ken Hada (580-559-5557)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)