The following guidelines apply to ALL Knoxville Writers Guild contest categories. See specific guidelines under each category heading for requirements specific to each category.
Please read the guidelines carefully in order to ensure entries are processed efficiently and fairly.
The Knoxville Writers Guild is accepting submissions for the 2018 Annual Knoxville Writers Guild Contest beginning March 31, 2018 through midnight, June 30, 2018.
The Knoxville Writers’ Guild awarded prizes in three contest categories for 2018.
Novel Excerpt: Dianne Stewart, for Tesoro
Short Fiction: Jessica Pierce, for Remnants of Evergreens
Poetry: Deborah Scaperoth, for Dream of Frankenstein
What does it mean this dream in an old journal? They said he had been reformed but one night in particular I knew he’d go crazy. Darkness settled in. We locked all the doors and windows. Still, I felt dread with my children gathered around me. Others reassured me, “He’ll be fine.” I knew better. […]
Remnants of Evergreens On cold December afternoons like this one, every sound seems amplified by the glittering layers of frost that glaze the branches, the bushes, each blade of grass. It crunches beneath their feet as they trudge between the trees side by side. The warm steam of their exhales floats up in cumulus formation […]
Terms: acuita– from the Taino words meaning “eye” and “did not know” acuita celt– a small knife, hand-carved from bone, that allows the holder to teleport acuit– to teleport acuitor – someone who teleports using an acuita celt Alli The present, Western North Carolina, September I wake up and open my eyes, then squeeze […]
The Knoxville Writers Guild is accepting submissions for the 2018 Annual Knoxville Writers Guild Contest beginning March 31, 2018 through midnight, June 30, 2018.
Mrs. Stridewell “Dead,” he read aloud as he paced the floor. “It says I am dead, killed in some horrific way too terrible to mention.” The paper in Johnathan Stridewell’s hand was anything but ordinary that morning as he sat at the dining room table. “Oh whatever do you mean?” declared the misses of […]
A Letter to Myself Dear Meagan, Do not think you must define yourself for others right now. You have recently seen your belief systems and sense of identity crash to the ground as if you had seen the world lean a little too hard on the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and now you have been […]
Make No Mistake Near cotton fields of asphyxiation, men hung from high strung branches half-ass amputated. Throats slammed shut like freedoms door. Dangling gods like obscene pendulums. . . such crimes went un-clocked and the aorta of ancestry constricts. Near cotton fields of captivity, hearts beat to the hymns of Jesus, hearts half-baked and […]