Regardless of whether you call the West your home or you are just passing through, as a student at CU Boulder you live, breathe, eat, drink and sleep the West. Here's an opportunity to transform your unique perspective on this region into cash, simply by putting it to paper. 

Center of the American West will continue accepting entries through March 20 for its 19th annual Thompson Awards for Western American Writing. The contest is open to all CU Boulder students, graduate and undergraduate. 

Prizes are $500 in each of four categories: fiction, memoir, poetry and creative non-fiction. Students may submit entries in any or all of the four categories. The theme must touch upon some aspect or issue of the American West. To name a few examples: growing up in a Western town; visiting a national park or other place in the West for the first time; immigration; wildfire; the use of myth and stereotype in movies and books about Western people, places and events; ranching and public lands; skiing and ski resorts; prairie dogs and mustangs; water; tourism; energy development.

Please visit our website for details, entry form and to read winning entries from past years. Then contact us with your questions: academics@centerwest.org or 303-735-1399.