CWW Now Accepting Submissions for Awards

Work published by Wisconsin writers in 2015 is eligible in seven categories for Council for Wisconsin Writers’ (CWW) Wisconsin Writers Awards. Categories include: book-length fiction, nonfiction and poetry; short fiction and nonfiction; a set of five poems including at least two published in the contest year; and children’s literature. (Outdoor writing may now be submitted to the long or short non-fiction category).

First-place winners will receive $500 and a weeklong writers’ residency at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point. Honorable mentions will receive $50.

Entries for this year’s Wisconsin Writers Awards must be postmarked no later than Feb. 1, 2016. Authors who enter must be current Wisconsin residents. The entry fee is $25.

Nominations are also open for CWW’s Major Achievement Award, of $1,000, honoring the work of a Wisconsin writer who deserves special recognition for literary merit. No entry fee is required for the submission of nominating letters, also due by Feb. 1, 2016.

CWW also sponsors an Essay Award for Young Writers (1,500 word maximum) for Wisconsin high school students; there is no entry fee, and the award is $250 this year for the winning student. Members of the board will judge. Entries for the student essay contest must be postmarked no later than Feb. 1, 2016.

Specific guidelines, entry forms, and important additional information for each award category are available at wiswriters.org/awards.htm.