This Year's Contest Theme:Creative Writing
This Year's Contest Medium: The Lyric Epigraph
This year's contest invites high school students to connect their original creative writing with Neihardt’s lyric poetry by use of a lyric epigraph. Students will want to begin by reading Neihardt’s lyric poems - particularly "Hymn before Birth," "Child's Heritage," "April Theology," or "Let Me Live Out My Years" – and select a few lines which might serve as an impetus for their own original short story and use those lines as an epigraph to their own story. Students will want to select lines from a poem which incorporate a theme or image that resonates in the poem and will help their reader connect with the short story or add complexity to a particular element in the short story.
In literature, an epigraph is a quotation from another source – poem, novel, book or something someone said – which introduces the larger themes of the piece it precedes. The epigraph helps focus readers’ attention on a particular topic, idea or tension at play in the writing… it could be said to set the stage. After registering, contest participants will be provided copies of the poems, contest rules and manuscript guidelines.
Awards
- 1ST PLACE: cash award of $100, entry published in The Neihardt Journal, permanent recognition with name inscribed on a perpetual plaque displayed at the John G. Neihardt Center State Historic Site, opportunity to present at the annual Neihardt Spring Conference - the annual literary event focusing on Neihardt's writing and life.
- 2ND PLACE: cash award of $75.
- 3RD PLACE: cash award of $50.
Timeline
- Contest announced Fall 2007.
- Registration will begin online September 15, 2007.
- Entries may be submitted between January 1, 2008 to February 1, 2008, at 5:00 p.m. online at www.neihardt.com.
- Winners will be notified in early March, 2008.
- Awards will be given the last Saturday in April, 2008.