2021 Undergraduate Creative Writing Awards
Deadline: Noon, Sunday, February 28, 2021

The English Department is pleased to announce its annual undergraduate literary competitions in Short Fiction and Poetry. Depending on available funding, there will be 2-3 prizes in Fiction and 2-3 in Poetry this year. Past prizes have ranged from $100 to $1000.

Contest rules are as follows:
Short Fiction: Submit no more than one unpublished story (7500 words, maximum length)
Poetry: Submit up to 200 lines, as a single unpublished poem or a group of unpublished poems

Only University of Illinois undergraduate students are eligible. To be considered for a prize, submissions must adhere to the following rules:

• All submissions must be sent via email as an attachment to John Dudek. 
• The subject line of your email message must read as follows: “UNDERGRAD POETRY: Last name” or “UNDERGRAD FICTION: Last name” 
  • If you enter in both categories (poetry and fiction), you will need to send separate emails.   
• In the body of your email, please include:
  • Your name
  • address
  • phone number
  • e-mail address
  • status (undergraduate student)
  • UIN
• Your entry is to be contained in one attached .docx file. The name of this file must be the contest category followed by your last name, such as “FICTION JONES.docx” or “POETRY JONES.docx” Your name should not appear within the document itself.
• Please direct any questions to John Dudek, Associate Director of Creative Writing.