Calling all CU Boulder graduate and undergraduate students: We are pleased to announce the 20th annual Thompson Awards for Western American Writing Contest is open for entries, due 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, March 19.
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 is an opportunity to transform your unique perspective on this region into cash simply by putting it to paper. And you can do so in whichever genre suits your creative impulse: poetry, memoir, fiction, creative nonfiction or academic nonfiction. You can even enter work in each of the categories.
What is Western writing?
It’s writing about the West. And what is that? In many ways that’s for you to decide. It could be the spiny ridge of the continental divide; or a random rodeo you stumbled upon on a road trip; or the road trip itself; or branding time on the ranch; or your experience growing up in a border town; or the skinning of a deer; or environmental conservation; immigration; or public lands management. The potential topics are endless!
Five $500 prizes will be awarded to CU Boulder students in spring 2019 for writings on Western American topics in the following categories:
- Fiction: Including short stories and excerpts of novels, plays and screenplays
- Poetry: Single poems only (no collections)
- Memoir: Autobiographical essays
- Creative Nonfiction: Journalism, journalistic essays and writing aimed at a wide general audience
- Academic Nonfiction: Research papers or other academic writing
Search your hard drive for poems, stories and papers you have written on Western-related topics—or write something new—and enter the contest. With no entry fees, there is nothing to lose. So go ahead and #WriteWest!
Open to CU Boulder students only.
For contest rules and more information, visit centerwest.org/academics or call 303-735-1399. For more information on the Center of the American West, visit centerwest.org or call 303-492-4879.