Contest Open Date: September 15, 2024
Deadline: March 15, 2025
Eligibility: 9-12th graders who attend a Florida high school or are homeschooled.
Submissions: Submissions may be emailed to [email protected]. The contest accepts submissions in three genres:
Poetry: A group of three to five poems in any style.
Fiction: A work of fiction of no more than 1,500 words. If the submission is an excerpt from a larger work, please indicate this on your title page.
Creative Nonfiction: A work of creative nonfiction (not an academic essay) of no more than 1,500 words.
Prizes: Judges will select first, second, and third-prize winners in each genre as well as finalists.
First Prize: $600
Second Prize: $300
Third Prize: $100
Five Finalists: $50 each
Winners and finalists will have their work published in a magazine and will be invited to an-all-expenses-paid trip to New College for a literary event in spring 2025.
In addition, winners and finalists are eligible for full- and partial-tuition undergraduate college scholarships. Winners who apply, are admitted, and enroll at New College will receive a full-tuition scholarship. Finalists who apply, are admitted, and enroll at New College will receive a 50% tuition scholarship.
Submission Guidelines/Process:
- Students may submit contest submissions on their own by sending them to [email protected].
Teachers are also welcome to submit entries on current or former students’ behalf with student’s permission (teachers must indicate that they are doing so through the submission platform), though students do not need to have a “sponsoring” teacher for their submission.
Students do not need to have taken a creative writing course to enter contest, nor do they currently need to be enrolled in an English course.
Contest entries must be in English, though if there are excerpts of other languages in the entry (e.g. portions of dialogue in other languages), that is completely fine.
Submissions must be in .doc, .docx, .pdf, or .rtf format and contain a cover page with student’s name, date of birth, high school, and submission genre. Google Docs are not accepted.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Anything! There are no limits regarding subject matter provided the submission is in one of three genres (poetry, fiction, nonfiction) the contest considers. We look forward to reading your work!
You are welcome to submit multiple entries if your entries are in different genres (e.g. one fiction submission and one poetry submission). You may not submit more than one entry in a particular genre.
Great question! Yes, you are still eligible for a scholarship if you’re a contest winner or finalist who chooses to enroll at NCF. Since Bright Futures scholarships only cover tuition costs, if you are a Bright Futures recipient who uses Bright Futures funding to cover your NCF tuition, your scholarship award can be applied toward textbooks and housing/living costs. We will work with you to ensure you can maximize your scholarship award.
About New College: Founded in 1960 and located on a beautiful 110-acre campus on sunny Sarasota Bay, New College is a community of bold and intellectually curious risk takers who thrive in an environment where their education is their own. At New College, students who pursue the Creative Writing Area of Concentration (which can be paired with any other AOC) cultivate imaginative literacy and cognitive flexibility by studying multiple genres, understanding craft from a cross-cultural perspective, and applying their creative skills both on and off the page.
NCF alumni who have gone on to have successful writing careers include Kristi Coulter ’92 (Exit Interview, Nothing Good Can Come From This), Emmy-winning television writer Carol Flint ’78 (ER, The West Wing), James Beard Award-winning food and science journalist Rowan Jacobsen ’90 (A Geography of Oysters), and professor, author, and poet Jackie Wang ’10 (Carceral Capitalism, Alien Daughters Walk Into the Sun: An Encyclopedia of Extreme Girlhood).