The annual Brookhaven Creative Writing Contest is open to enter until Friday, April 3. Students are allowed to submit up to three poems, one story, one creative nonfiction essay and one one-act play. The maximum length of each submission category is 3,500 words, 67 lines, 2,500 words and 3,500 words, respectively. Each entry should include a cover page with the title of the entry and the category it is being submitted for, the students’ full name, Dallas College ID, current mailing address, their contact phone number and their Dallas College email address.
Monetary prizes will be available to winners of the collegewide contest. Entries are only accepted if the participant is enrolled in credit courses at Dallas College, all work must be original and written during the time of enrollment. Four campus winners, one for each category, will move on to a Dallas College wide contest. Winners of the collegewide contest will move on to a national contest hosted by the League for Innovation in the Community College, an international nonprofit organization that focuses on cultivation of community college environments. Any community college student can enter the national contest on their own if they are sponsored by a faculty member of their school.
Brookhaven has had two winners of the contest in the past: Erin Marissa Russell, who won first place in 2009 and Kamila Vargas, who won second place in 2023.
“We don’t get as many submissions as we used to, so the odds of winning are high,” Aaron Clark, English faculty and Creative Writing Club Sponsor, wrote in an email to The Brookhaven Courier. “Brookhaven has had two students win the national contest for short story in the last 15 years. Not bad! And when Brookhaven students submit to the local contest, they typically perform very well in the collegewide contest. So we need entries! Brookhaven has talent!”
Contest Guidelines
Maximum length
- Fiction: 3,500 words
- Poetry: 67 lines
- Essay: 2,500 words
- One-act play: 3,500 words – including stage direction/production notes
Cover page requirements
- Title of entry and category
- Student’s full name
- Dallas College student ID
- Current mailing address
- Current contact phone number
- Current Dallas College email address
