16th Annual Writers Competition
Do you have a memoir brewing? Got good pages filed away? Feeling inspired to finish that story? Winter is a fine time to hone your writing or create something brand new—and the 2025 Writers Competition is a way to find discerning readers.
Write On The River, in partnership with the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center, will award $1200 in cash prizes to writers of fiction or nonfiction. Submissions are 1000-word maximum, either a complete work or beginning pages. Anyone residing in Eastern Washington is eligible to submit entries January 1 through March 3.
See guidelines and criteria below.
Submissions opened January 1, 2025 and are due by Midnight, March 3, 2025.
2025 Competition Guidelines
Submit up to 1000 words of FICTION: novel, short story, “flash fiction,” or NONFICTION: essay, memoir, humor, etc. The judges will evaluate your entry on its overall quality, looking for writing that has impact, depth and clarity. Whether fiction or nonfiction, the reader’s interest should be satisfied (by a complete piece) and/or intrigued (by the start of a longer work).
Please read the following information carefully.
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Entries not adhering to these guidelines will be disqualified.
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Membership in WOTR is not a requirement for any submitting Washington writer living east of the Cascades, but it is a requirement for an entrant living elsewhere in Washington. No out-of-state submissions will be considered.
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Submit prose entries only. Watch the WOTR website for upcoming 2025 poetry competitions.
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Entries must be previously unpublished and the original work of the submitting party.
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All entries must be double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman, with standard 1-inch margins. Entries must not exceed the 1,000-word maximum.
- Entries must be provided electronically in PDF format.
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Do not include your name anywhere on the manuscript.
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The first page must contain a title and page number. ADDITIONALLY, at the top of your first page put F for fiction, or N for nonfiction, and the term “complete” (fully contained in the submission) or “start” (the opening of a novel, novella, short story, nonfiction book, memoir etc.) Each succeeding page must contain the title and page number.
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You may submit multiple entries, each with a separate entry form completed and fee paid, but you can only win one prize per category.
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Directors of Write on the River and current competition judges (in genre categories which they are judging), are not eligible for prizes.
$20 per writing submission
$20 additional for 3 writing critiques per submission
SUBMISSIONS ACCEPTED FROM
JANUARY 1, 2025 UNTIL MIDNIGHT MARCH 3, 2025