Welcome to the Creative Writing Contest

We invite all students in southwest Minnesota who love to write to enter this year's writing contest! Every story, poem, or essay you write helps you grow as a writer, build confidence, and discover your unique voice.

Each year, students from across our region share incredible writing that deserves to be read and celebrated. This contest is an opportunity to showcase your creativity, imagination, and talent while inspiring others through your words. Whether you dream of becoming an author or simply enjoy telling stories, writing is a lifelong skill that opens doors to endless possibilities.

So grab a pencil, open your notebook, or start typing—and most importantly, KEEP WRITING!

Guest Speaker

Prof. Tarik Dobb's

Tarik Dobb's is a writer and artist. Dobbs runs poetry.onl and is assistant professor of English in creative writing (poetry) at Southwest Minnesota State University. Dobbs's poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poem-a-Day, and Poetry Magazine, among others. Dobbs is the author of Nazar Boy (2024), winner of the 2026 GLCA New Writers Award in Poetry, and Dearbornistan (forthcoming), both from Haymarket Books.

Content Entry Details

Creative writing Flyer, Rules & Guidelines - 2025-26

Creative writing Flyer, Rules & Guidelines - Spanish - 2025-26

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.

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

Common Writing Errors to Avoid

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!”

Anthologies

Dates

Submission Deadline:

December 18, 2026

(no entries accepted after the deadline)

Recognition Ceremony

April 12, 2026,

at the SMSU Conference Center

Directions to SMSU

Other Enrichment Events

Click each image for more details!