2025 Undergraduate Writing Contest

Prizes: * 1st - $100 * 2nd - $75 * 3rd - $50
(Plus Books & 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 4, 2025. (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.

• Each institution is responsible for selecting its contestants.

• 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. Joshua Grasso at jgrasso@ecok.edu. In the subject line of your email submission, type “Scissortail Undergraduate Contest.”

• Professor Grasso will screen entries, then an outside judge will judge all entries that meet minimum guidelines.

DEADLINE: Email entries to jgrasso@ecok.edu must be received by Midnight March 2, 2025. There will be no exceptions. Recognition of writers will occur Friday April 4 as part of the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival held at East Central University (April 3 - 5, 2025). Please regularly visit www.ecuscissortail.blogspot.com to view festival updates. Contact: Ken Hada, khada@ecok.edu (580) 559-5557 for information regarding the Festival

Judge: David Meischen is the author of Nopalito, Texas: Stories (University of New Mexico Press, 2024) and Caliche Road Poems (Lamar University Literary Press, 2024). Anyone’s Son, from 3: A Taos Press, won Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters in 2020. A Pushcart honoree, with a personal essay in Pushcart Prize XLII, David is cofounder and Managing Editor of Dos Gatos Press. He lives in Albuquerque, NM with his husband—also his co-publisher and co-editor—Scott Wiggerman..