All First-Place winning Poem or Page submissions will be included within the 2019 issue of the Midwest Review. Not only will you receive accolades and prizes for this contest, you will also be published in our journal. So, do not hesitate to submit your work!
What are our criteria for a winning poem or page? Hook us! We’re looking for the same thing agents and editors look for when you submit material to them—that instant good impression showing attention to craft. But any agent or editor is also looking for that “something extra” and so are we. It might be a wondrous word choice or line of words, a great “voice” on the page, a piece of action that’s riveting, a fact that wows the reader, a piece of imagery, or any number of things of your choosing. Give us something credible, yet original. Make us worry or wonder. Startle us…and in turn, you’ll startle our Midwest Review readers also.
Contest open ONLY to those attending the Writers’ Institute, April 12-15th, 2018.
For categories 2-5, if you have a prologue, submit the prologue’s first page because that’s the first page of your work.
Please use 12-point Courier or Times New Roman typeface, with 1-inch margins on all 4 sides. Please double-space; 1.5 spacing will be disqualified. Please list your category on the entry, front or back. Put your name and address on the back side of the page; do not put your name on the front. You may fill up the page, though please keep 1-inch margins on all 4 sides.
$15 per entry, all categories. Please pay through our Registration Office, 608-262-2451.
Entries must be postmarked by March 13, 2018. Send your entries labeled as POEM OR PAGE CONTEST ENTRY to Writers’ Institute Contest, 21 N. Park St. Rm. 7312, Madison, WI 53715. If you wish to be notified that we’ve received your entry, enclose a Self-Addressed Stamped POSTCARD (SASP). We regret that we are unable to return any of your material.
Enter as many categories and as many times as you wish. Prizes will be awarded. Winners and runners-up will be announced at the conference and celebrated this year at our Poem or Page Luncheon, and we will have their material displayed at the conference. You will also be asked to sign a release form for publication within the Midwest Review for the 2019 issue. After publication of the 2019 issue the rights to your material revert back to you for any future publication.