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Call for Entries: House Organ Writing Contest

Posted by on Thursday, March 3, 2011 in April 2011, Articles, March 2011.

27th Annual House Organ Writing Contest Deadline May 9

For the 27th year, the July House Organ will be the Summer Reading Issue, filled with the winners of the House Organ Writing Contest—poems, short stories and nonfiction pieces contributed by Vanderbilt staff, faculty and students.

Every year demonstrates that Vanderbilt has a lot of people with literary talent walking around disguised as regular people, and the House Organ Writing Contest is a chance to show everybody what you can do.

Three categories

There are three categories: poetry, fiction and nonfiction.

There are no length restrictions in the poetry category.

The fiction category is limited to 4,000 words.

The nonfiction category, which encompasses journalistic writing, memoirs, feature stories, historical pieces, profiles of interesting people, or anything else that’s true, also has a 4,000-word limit.

Please indicate the category of your entry; sometimes it’s a little hard for the judges to figure out what is fiction and what is nonfiction.

All Vanderbilt staff and faculty, except those who work in News and Communications, are eligible. Medical, nursing and graduate students are also eligible.

Submissions are limited to three per category. Each entry must be submitted via email as an attachment in Microsoft Word (or other compatible format), and have the author’s name, place of employment or school, and a phone number at the top of the first page. Entries may be sent to wayne.wood@vanderbilt.edu. Please put “writing contest entry” in the subject line.

Entries may be edited for space, clarity or style before publication.

Deadline for entry is Monday, May 9. Please push the send button before midnight on that day.

The winners will be published in House Organ. In past years, it has also been possible to publish some honorable mentions, either in the print edition or online.

Address any questions to the editor, Wayne Wood, at 322-4747, or at the e-mail address above.

Checklist for entries

Author information: Name, department or school, address and phone number on first page.

Entry information: Category—fiction, nonfiction or poetry. Check to be sure your work is within the length requirement.

Entries must be sent as an attachment in Microsoft Word (or other compatible format).

Deadline is May 9.