2026 Undergraduate Research Contest

Prizes: * 1^st - $250 * 2^nd - $150 * 3^rd - $100
(Plus Books & Honorable Mentions) 

Guidelines:

• Contest is open only to currently enrolled undergraduate students.
• To be eligible, students must attend the Festival. Recognition will occur Friday evening, April 3, 2026.  (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 2) one piece of creative nonfiction (up to 7500 words), or 3) 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. Any use of AI is unacceptable!
• 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 6, 2026. 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, 2026). 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: Brent Newsom received the 2020 Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award in poetry from Poets & Writers, and he wrote the libretto for A Porcelain Doll, an opera based on the life of deaf-blind pioneer Laura Bridgman. He is the author of Love’s Labors (CavanKerry Press, 2015), which was a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award in poetry. His poems have also appeared in Southern Review, Hopkins Review, PANK, Cave Wall, and other journals.