If you’re not a STEM student, it can feel like there are no significant extracurricular activities to do. While STEM-focused peers are out there building robots or doing research, what is a hopeful writer, an avid reader, or history buff supposed to do? For all your humanities and liberal arts inclined students, don’t worry! Here is our curated list of writing contests for high school students.
Although the level of difficulty and competition will vary for each competition, you never know until you try. The worst case scenario? You’ll have a great piece to add to your writing portfolio and experiences. And the best? You’ll find your writing has won the hearts of many and have a significant addition to your resume.
So what are you waiting for? Get out those quills, pens, and keyboards and let’s get to writing!
If there’s a contest that we’re missing on our list, please let us know!
1. Ocean Awareness Student Contest
The theme is “Making Meaning out of Ocean Pollution,” and it challenges you to research, explore, interpret, and say something meaningful about the connections between human activities and the health of our oceans. Prizes range from $100-$1,500.
Grades: Middle school – High school
Deadline: June
2. Rattle Young Poets Anthology
This is an anthology to look back on the past and view your younger work with pride. The author of the poem must have been age 15 or younger when the poem was written, and 18 or younger when submitted.
Ages: 18 or younger
Number of submissions: “Thousands” are submitted, 50 are chosen.
Deadline: June
Any and all types of writing are welcome. Long short stories, short short stories, prose poetry, traditional poetry, blackout poetry, creative accounts of your life and experiences, essays about yourself, essays about what you love, plays, scripts, letters, lists, rants, lyrics, journal writing.
Ages: All
Deadline: Open Year-round
4. Princeton University Poetry Contest for High School Students
The Princeton University Poetry Contest recognizes outstanding work by student writers in the 11th grade. Prizes: First Prize – $500, Second Prize – $250, Third Prize – $100.
Grades: 11
Deadline: Fall
5. The Bennington Young Writers Awards
Students in the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades enter in one of the following categories: poetry (a group of three poems), fiction (a short story or one-act play), or nonfiction (a personal or academic essay). First-place winners in each category are awarded a prize of $500; second-place winners receive $250.
Grades: 10-12
Deadline: Fall
Teen literary magazine published quarterly.
Seeking writers ages 13-18 to submit fiction, novel excerpts, poetry, plays, nonfiction, new media, and cross-genre.
Ages: 13-18
Deadline: Fall
7. The New Voices One-Act Competition for Young Playwrights
Submit your best one-act play (one per playwright!) to the New Voices competition and you can potentially win cash, software from fabulous sponsors Final Draft and Great Dialogue, and even publication!
Ages: 19 or younger
Submission period: Fall
8. Princeton University 10 Minute Play Contest
Eligibility for this annual playwriting contest is limited to students in the eleventh grade. Prizes: First Prize – $500, Second Prize – $250, Third Prize – $100. The jury consists of members of the Princeton University Program in Theater faculty.
Grades: 11
Deadline: Fall
Through Lewis University, Jet Fuel Review is run entirely by students under the supervision of faculty advisers Dr. Simone Muench and Dr. Jackie White.
Jet Fuel Review is looking for quality in writing, whether it be in poetry, prose, non-fiction, or artwork.
Submission periods: August to October; January to March
10. Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
Since 1923, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards have recognized the vision, ingenuity, and talent of our nation’s youth. Through the Awards, students receive opportunities for recognition, exhibition, publication, and scholarships.
Students across America submitted nearly 320,000 original works during our 2016 program year across 29 different categories of art and writing.
Grades: 7-12
Submissions period: September to December
11. One Teen Story
One Teen Story is an award-winning literary magazine for readers and writers of young adult literature. Subscribers receive one curated and edited work of short fiction each month in the mail or on their digital devices.
Ages: 13-19
Submission period: September to May
The editors of the Claremont Review publish the best poetry, short stories, short plays, visual art, and photography by young adults. We publish work in many styles that range from traditional to modern.
We prefer pieces that explore real characters and reveal authentic emotion.
Ages: 13-19
Submission period: September to April
13. Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Hollins University, the Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest is in its fifty-second year. The contest awards prizes for the best poems submitted by young women who are sophomores or juniors in high school or preparatory school. Prizes up to $5,000 are awarded to winners. Winners are chosen by students and faculty members in the creative writing program at Hollins.
Grades: 11-12
Deadline: October
14.VSA Playwright Discovery Competition
Each year, young writers with and without disabilities, in U.S. grades 6-12 (or equivalents) or ages 11-18 for non-U.S. students, are asked to explore the disability experience through the art of script writing for stage or screen.
Writers may craft scripts from their own experiences and observations, create fictional characters and settings, or choose to write metaphorically or abstractly about the disability experience. Winners in these divisions will receive $500 for arts programs at their schools.
Grades: 6-12 OR Ages: 11-18
Deadline: October
15. YoungArts
The National YoungArts Foundation identifies and nurtures the most accomplished young artists in the visual, literary, design and performing arts and assists them at critical junctures in their educational and professional development.
Additionally, YoungArts Winners are eligible for nomination as a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts, one of the nation’s highest honors for high school students who exemplify academic and artistic excellence.
Ages: 15-18 OR Grades: 10-12
Deadline: October
16. The Critical Junior Poet’s Award Contest
The Critical Pass Review is now accepting submissions online for its Critical Junior Poet’s Award Contest, an editor’s choice award for exceptional promise in the art of poetry. Applicants between the ages of 13 and 18 can enter for free. The winner will receive a $100 cash prize, a $20 iTunes card, a CD of master poets reading their poetry, publication of his/her winning work in The Critical Pass Review‘s Summer 2016 issue, and more.
Ages: 13-18
Submissions period: November to March
17. The Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers
The Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers recognizes outstanding young poets and is open to high school sophomores and juniors throughout the world. The contest winner receives a full scholarship to the Kenyon Review Young Writers workshop.
Grades: 10-11
Deadline: November
18. Santa Fe University of Arts & Design High School Creative Writing Competition
The Glazner Creative Writing Contest is an opportunity for high school juniors and seniors to compete for a chance at publication in Santa Fe University of Art and Design’s online journal, Jackalope Magazine. To enter, students must submit up to 10 pages of work in any genre to our contest email address (contest@santafeuniversity.edu).
Grades: 11-12
Deadline: November to December
19. Young Authors Writing Competition (Columbia College Chicago)
The Young Authors Writing Competition is a national competition for high school writers of fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry. It began as a local contest in 1995, and since then has expanded into a national competition that has received tens of thousands of submissions from students across the country. 1st Place: $300, 2nd Place: $150, and 3rd Place: $50.
Grades: 9-12
Submission period: November to January
20. Odyssey Con
The OddContest is an annual competition for speculative (science fiction, fantasy, or horror) stories or prose poems no longer than 500 words. Prizes: $50 to first place; Odyssey Con membership and free books to top 3.
Ages: 18 or younger
Deadline: January
Selected writers will be invited to New York, expenses paid, for our Young Playwrights Conference to work with some of this country’s most exciting professional theater artists, and to hear their plays read in our Off-Broadway Readings Series.
Ages: 18 or younger
Deadline: January
22. University of Iowa – Hemingway Festival High School Writing Contest
Accepting Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction, Poetry, and Essays.
Winners and Finalists will be recognized at the 7th Annual University of Idaho Hemingway Festival, and cash prizes will be awarded in each category. Winners will also be considered for publication in an online University of Idaho publication. There will be one winner and one Finalist in each category with one Overall Grand Prize Winner. Cash prizes up to $500.
Grades: 11-12
Deadline: January
Interlochen Arts Academy is a high school boarding school and summer camp. It online literary journal accepts submissions from high school students in five categories: Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, Screen/Stageplay and Hybrid form. Up to 6 pieces total.
Grades: 9-12
Submissions Period: February to March
24. Aerie International Journal
Aerie International was born of a desire to offer outstanding young writers and artists an opportunity to share, edit, and publish their work internationally. What makes this journal unique is that it is designed, edited and published entirely by high school students. Students whose work is selected received $100 in addition to a copy of the magazine.
Grades: 9-12
Deadline: February
25. Chapman Art and Writing Holocaust Contest
Focusing on themes central both to the Holocaust and to ethical decision making in our world today, the contest gives students from public, private and parochial schools the opportunity to share their creative works in response to survivors’ oral testimonies.
Participating schools may submit a total of three entries from three individual students in the following categories: art, film, prose, and/or poetry.
Grades: 9-12
Deadline: February
26. Writopia Lab Worldwide Plays Festival
The festival includes plays written in workshops at Writopia’s labs across the country and plays submitted to our competition from playwrights around the world from playwrights in 1st through 12th grade (ages 6 to 18). Plays are professionally produced in New York.
Grades: 1-12 OR Ages: 6-18
Deadline: February
27. The Blank Theater’s Young Playwrights’ Festival
Since 1993, 12 plays are chosen by a panel of theatre professionals from submissions across America. Winning playwrights are provided careful mentoring and direction from industry professionals to help prepare their work for public performance and hone their skills, talent and confidence. Nowhere else in the nation can young playwrights receive the prize of seeing their vision come to life on stage in a professional production featuring known actors from film, television and theatre. The plays are crafted by seasoned professional directors and each is given several public performances in a month-long Festival.
Ages: 9-19
Deadline: March
28. Austin International Poetry Festival (AIPF)
Each year the Austin International Poetry Festival (AIPF) recognizes youth poets by publishing their work together in a truly diverse anthology. We welcome international poets from kindergarten through high school grade level or age to submit up to three poems.
Grades: K-12
Deadline: March
29. Winter Tangerine
Winter Tangerine is a literary journal dedicated to the electric. To the salt. The sugar. We want bitter honey, expired sweets. We want catalysts. Accepting submissions of poetry, prose, drama, visual art, and short film.
Ages: All
Submission period: April to October
30. The Adroit Prizes for Poetry and Prose
The Adroit Journal, published at the University of Pennsylvania is open to all writers. The Adroit Prizes for Poetry and Prose are awarded annually to two students of secondary or undergraduate status whose written work “inspires the masses to believe beyond feeling the work.” In other words, we strive to receive the absolute best work from emerging young writers in high school and college, and the best of the best will receive these two lovely awards.
Grades: 9+
Submission Period: To be announced
Hanging Loose Magazine is a professional magazine that welcomes high school submissions. Payment plus 2 copies. Send 3 to 6 poems, or 1 to 3 short stories, or an equivalent combination of poetry and prose to High School Editor, Hanging Loose, 231 Wyckoff Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217. Identify yourself as a high school age writer.
Grades: 9-12
Deadline: Open Year-round