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.
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 […]
Leaving There was a time when you waited for me. As I hurried to catch up. Holding your hand, I was a little girl. When I looked up, you were always there. For a while we were together, Walking arm in arm. But now you’ve grown away from me. Now you’re fading, Gray and […]
Call It Painted Trillium 1. Our Father, as you know, Clinton Highway is not your most glorious work. 640 and 275 cleave not-quite clover-like, an overhead span of concrete and asphalt wholly unremarkable where I was ferried underneath each Sunday night from birth to 12, returning from visits to my papaw, my father at the […]
And Christmases Yet to Come Lucille sat in the library with a book in her lap, one of her own she had brought when she moved here. It was a pleasant enough room, with welcome sunlight pouring in through tall uncurtained windows, one of the few places she had found in the retirement home with […]
My Thank You Letters I started writing thank you letters the second time I almost died. Having not quite understood the art of the bargain the first time around, I made a deal with myself and God that if I made it out of the hospital, I was going to write thank you letters to […]
On February 1, 2018, Knoxville Writers’ Guild was pleased to announce the winners of the Fall 2017 Writing Contest. The Contest received sixty-six entries in four categories: Poetry, Short fiction, Nonfiction, and Young Writers. Heather Davis was awarded first prize for her short story “My Thank You Letters.” Author and YouTube producer Joseph Beaubien judged […]