PAST CONTESTS: Autumn '24: Writing. See Award Winners and All Submissions

Contests

Red tree among muted trees

PAST CONTESTS: Autumn '24: Writing. See Award Winners and All Submissions

Convey the ephemeral beauty of autumn in the genre of your choice, poetry or prose, fiction or nonfiction. Let yourself be inspired by the colors, settings, tones, and traditions of the season. 

[Photo credit: "The Last of Fall" by ckodama24, YWP archive]


It's a complex season of interchangeable names (is it autumn or fall to you?) and back-and-forth weather with its echoes of summer and hints of winter. It's a time of beginnings (a new school year and the range of emotions that go with it, from trepidation to excitement) and endings (falling leaves, shorter days). Share your take on the season!


CONTEST DETAILS

  • Three $75 prizes for writing; three $75 prizes for visual art
  • For ages 13-19. You must have a YWP account (It’s free to join!)
  • Respond to the challenge in any literary genre
  • Must be your original work and not published elsewhere. No AI.
  • No limit to number of submissions
  • Prize winners and honorable mentions will be published in the November 2024 issue of our digital magazine, The Voice.
  • Contest deadline: Oct. 25, 2024


    Click here for the Visual Art Contest

     

Winners

  • Do You Still ...?

    Do you still find comfort 
    In the way the leaves change 
    Green to orange to red to green again?  
    Do your clothes still smell like apples and spices?  
    Do you still drink cider 

  • Candy-Colored Leaves

    "You're changing," I whisper to myself.  

    "So am I," whispers the wind.  

    I think change is good.  

    Change is the way the air cools at night.  

    Change is the way I'm back at school again.  

  • Drive

    Take me on a drive. 

    I'll roll the window down, 

    stick out my hand, 

    let it 

    soar through the air, 

    fly on the speed, 

    fly on the wind. 

     

  • Aurelia and Aspen

         When Aurelia heaved open the heavy, lace-decorated, black curtains in her room, she expected to see something beautiful outside, like that ancient oak tree from when she was two years old, with its twisted branches th

Submissions

  • Poem 260

    I saw you today

    For the first time in months

    It feels like I haven’t seen you in ages

     

    I used to hope

    We stayed apart

    Never faltering too close to one another

    But as I look into your eyes

  • The Changing

    I love the sound of the wind rustling the leaves in the trees

    The same leaves that in due time turn red and orange and yellow

    The same leaves that protect us with food and warmth and air to breathe

     

  • Fall People

    Fall people are

     

    The silhouette of the man

    on the edge of the silhouette of the dock

    holding a silhouette of a fishing pole

    into a lake

    full of pink and blue watercolors

  • Pumpkin season

    I’m four years old and it’s pumpkin season again. 

    I’m holding tightly to my best friend’s mittened hand 

    and feeling the wind whipping at my face, 

    turning the tip of my nose pink, 

  • Marfa TX

    Every day that year 
    I would look up at the sky 
    At night it was black and blue 
    With white stars 
    Glowing bright above 
    The Marfa lights 
    The streetlights glowed 
    Bright and bold

  • Fall

    Late at night
    Under the comfort of the fall air
    I would sit on the roof
    Watching the stars in the sky 
    As the smell of the different seasons 
    Comforts me 
    With the same music as all those years ago

  • Autumn or Fall?

    Autumn or fall?

    It depends on how you look at it;

    For some, it is used interchangeably.

    For others, "fall", simply because it is easier to spell and quicker to say

    But also

    Because it is, after all,