The Winona Prize in Creative Writing

Get paid for your original work and become a published author before you graduate with the Winona Prize in Creative Writing.

Undergraduate students from all disciplines and majors are encouraged to apply. There are 3 prizes for $1500 awarded: 

  • Fiction
  • Poetry
  • Creative Nonfiction

Manuscripts are reviewed by the creative writing faculty. The final judges in each genre will be visiting writers from our John S. Lucas Great River Reading Series or other acclaimed authors published in the appropriate genre.

Winners will be announced by February and published in Satori during the spring semester.

Copies of the Satori literary magazine are set out on a table with a vase of flowers.
2024 Winona Prize Winners
Learn more about the contest through the eyes of the 2024 winners: Sydney Porter, Jack Mulvaney and Alex Peachey.
How to Submit

To be eligible, you must be: 

  • an undergraduate student enrolled full-time at WSU
  • in good academic standing
  • have completed a creative writing course at WSU, such as Introduction to Creative Writing (ENG 222) or any upper-level creative writing course

All submissions must be the writer’s own work and unpublished in any form. Students may submit only one entry in each genre. 

Submissions are due to Minné 302 by Nov. 15.

Each entry must include the following items:

  1. A cover sheet with the student’s name, WSU email, phone number, and the genre of submission.
  2. A one-paragraph biography written in the third person that includes the qualifying creative writing class and professor of the class.
  3. A printed copy of the manuscript itself (not in digital form).
  4. Evidence of being currently enrolled in, or having completed, a Creative Writing course at WSU.
    • Do not submit a full transcript or Degree Audit Report (DARS). Instead, include a screenshot of the entry.
  5. If the students submits to more than one genre, they must complete steps 1-4a for each submission.

Submissions that do not meet the guidelines will be discarded. All submissions are final.

Students sit together with books during an author event on campus.
A Gift of Words
Denis Duran ’70 and Dale Duran established The Winona Prize in Creative Writing contest in memory of their mother, Rosemary Duran, who valued reading. Denis states: “Early in life you hear about the power of words, but the more I read, the more I grew to appreciate the beauty of words. There is nothing more enjoyable than a story well told.”
Contact the English Department
Department of English
Minné 304

Office Hours

Monday–Friday: 8:30am-4pm

Summer hours may vary

Ann-Marie Dunbar
Department Chair, Professor

507.457.2431

Email Ann-Marie Dunbar
Claudia Richard
Office Manager

507.457.5440

Email Claudia Richard