Exclusive to USC Dornsife students and alumni
Deadline: September 15, 2024
GET INSPIRED BY OUR NEXT THEME — CALIFORNIA
As an alumnus/alumna or student of USC Dornsife, you are invited to enter the USC Dornsife Magazine Creative Writing Contest by submitting your own creative writing, inspired by our next magazine theme: California.
The winner will have their work published in USC Dornsife Magazine, which has won more than 45 awards for excellence and is distributed to 70,000 alumni, faculty, staff, parents and friends of USC Dornsife.
Entries will be judged by Dana Johnson, chair and professor of English and director of the USC Dornsife PhD Program in Creative Writing and Literature; David Ulin, professor of the practice of English, editor-in-chief of USC Dornsife’s literary magazine Air/Light, author and former book critic of the Los Angeles Times; and Susan Bell, editor-in-chief of USC Dornsife Magazine. Both Johnson and Ulin have served as judges for National Book Award and for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In addition, Ulin has twice been a Pulitzer Prize judge and Johnson has served as a judge for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award.
We reserve the right to edit entries in consultation with the writer.
The winning entry will be published in the Fall 2024 / Winter 2025 issue of USC Dornsife Magazine, accompanied by a short bio of the author. We may also publish the winning entry in our e-newsletters to students, faculty and staff and alumni and post it on the USC Dornsife website.
Good luck! We look forward to reading your entries.
Rules
- The contest is open to USC Dornsife alumni and students (undergraduates and graduates) — except those whose primary source of income is from writing.
- Deadline to submit entries is September 15, 2024.
- You may enter creative writing in any of the following genres: fiction, poetry, memoir or essay.
- All entries must be original, previously unpublished work.
- Your entry must be inspired by the theme of the Fall 2024 / Winter 2025 issue of USC Dornsife Magazine — “California.” (Please feel free to be creative in your interpretation of the theme — you may explore it from any angle.)
- Entries must not exceed 500 words.
Submissions are closed