English Department Writing Contests

The Academy of American Poets

$100 prize. The spring deadline will be announced in December.

This competition is for the best group of three poems by a Macalester student. In the summer, the Academy will send a letter of Congratulations and a certificate to each winner or honorable mention recipient. If two winners are chosen, the prize money will be divided between them.

The Nick Adams Short Story Contest

$1000 prize. The winner is announced in late May.

Sponsored by The Associated Colleges of the Midwest, it is open to all Macalester students. An ACM faculty panel selects four or five finalists, from which a nationally-known fiction writer selects the winner. Limit of 10,000 words.

The Harry Scherman Contest for Seniors

Up to four $200 prizes annually. Winners will be officially announced at the Honors Convocation in the spring.

An endowed fund established by Harry Scherman, this is a local contest open to all Macalester seniors, in residence, during the year of the competition. a) There are up to two prizes for an essay in literary studies, and b) up to two prizes for creative writing; either in prose, or in poetry. You many enter only one category.

Conditions of Entry

• Two copies of each entry must be sent to the English Department office, OM210.
• Manuscripts must be word-processed on white 8 1/2 X 11 paper.
• The Title Page should be paper clipped to the entry, and must have the following information on it: the contest name, the title of the work, your full name, campus address, and permanent address.
• Manuscript pages should be numbered and stapled. Leave your name off of your actual submissions; they will be reviewed anonymously by an outside judge.
• The writing you submit may be written expressly for the contest or may have been written for a course. If you submit material from a course, you must present a clean copy for the contest, without comments from a previous reader.