Welcome to the Creative Writing Contest
We welcome all students in southwest Minnesota who enjoy writing to enter this contest. The more you write, the better writer you become. Through writing, students can learn about themselves and their abilities as a writer. Students around our regions submit amazing stories that deserve to be read and showcased. Entering this contest is a great way to expose students' talents, skills and creativity and get people reading their work. Students will find that writing can open a lifetime of opportunities and a needed lifelong skill. Whatever you do, KEEP WRITING!
Contest Entry Details
We are celebrating 22 years of this contest. It is available to students in grades 3-12 in the 18 counties of southwest and west central Minnesota. View the 18-county map.
Students can enter one category or all three categories: up to three per category. Entries are judged in grade groups of 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10 and 11-12 for each category. The top three entries in each category and each grade group will receive recognition at the ceremony.
Entry Fees
This year the fee has been reduced per category and is now charged per poem. There are many chances to win, so get students started on their stories and get them entered. There are many fun trips and summer family happenings to write about.
- Poetry (grades 3-12); $3 each
- Fiction (grades 3-12); $3 each
- Non-Fiction (grades 5-12); $3 each
How to Enter
- Create a poem, fiction or non-fiction story.
- Follow the Contest Rules and Guidelines.
- Category descriptions are listed below.
- Submit your entry piece on the entry form online and pay payment at the time of submission through your PayPal account.
Submission Deadline: January 16, 2026 (No entries accepted after deadline).
*Copyright reverts to authors upon publication. (Meaning: If a student wishes to publish an entry, they just need to mention that it was printed in a small anthology of contest-winning pieces. We do not hold first publication rights.)
*Photos & media: By participating in this event you are giving SWWC permission to use any audio/video recordings and photographs that are taken during the event.
Category Descriptions
Poetry (grades 3-12)
What is poetry? The language of the imagination and feelings. Prose explains, and poetry sings, but it doesn’t have to rhyme. Poetry is precise, concrete, fresh, memorable, and magical. A poem, like food, can feed us. It can be a peach, a pizza, a taco, or a four-course meal. But it can also be popcorn or a candy bar. Always, poetry uses words as ingredients to let us taste, touch, see, smell or hear something in the world as if for the first time.
Fiction (grades 3-12)
What is Fiction? The art of storytelling. To build a good story, a writer needs: plot, characters, place or setting, point of view, dialogue, action and conflict. When we read a good story we’re pulled into another world and leave this one far behind. We travel to different places in our imagination, and when we return, we often see our world with new eyes.
Nonfiction (grades 5-12)
What is Creative Non-fiction? An essay with real events and people that mattered or changed you—the day your pet chicken died, that summer your best friend moved away. The characters, settings, and events are true. The writer decides the best way to grab our attention, how to start, what elements of poetry to add as spice—images, metaphor, simile—and what elements of fiction to add zing—characters, place, dialogue. This genre is popular because we read it and think, “Wow, this really happened to someone else, but I feel like I was there!”
Creative Writing Anthologies
Recognition Ceremony
April 12, 2026, at the SMSU Conference Center
Guest Speaker - Michael Kleber-Diggs
Michael Kleber-Diggs (KLEE-burr digs) is a poet, essayist, literary critic, and arts educator. He is the author of My Weight in Water, a memoir about his complicated relationship with lap swimming (forthcoming with Spiegel & Grau, 2026). Michael’s debut poetry collection, Worldly Things, won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize and was published by Milkweed Editions in 2021. His poems and essays often explore themes of intimacy, community, empathy, and grace, practices he believes are simultaneously distinct and interdependent. Michael is a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow in Literature, and he teaches creative writing at Augsburg University and through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. His work appears in many journals and anthologies. You can learn more about Michael at michaelkleberdiggs.com
First Place Winners
Scholarship Winners
Directions to SMSU
Other Enrichment Events
Click each image for more details!
