AWP Intro Journals Project

As a member program of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP), our department is invited to participate in AWP’s prestigious Intro Journals Project. The Intro Journals Project is a literary competition for the discovery & publication of the best new works by students currently enrolled in the programs of AWP. All undergraduate writing majors, all MA students with Creative Writing concentration, and all students in the MFA in Creative and Professional Writing are eligible to participate.

Winners of the WestConn Awards will be entered into AWP’s national competition. Winners at the national level will receive publication in a participating journal and a $100 cash honorarium. Winners will be contacted in the spring of 2010. Participating journals are Hayden’s Ferry Review, Mid-American Review, Colorado Review, Puerto del Sol, Controlled Burn, Quarterly West, Tampa Review, and Artful Dodge.

Students must follow the guidelines below for submitting nominations.

• Submissions should be mailed or hand delivered to:

Laurel Richards
MFA in Creative and Professional Writing
Higgins 205
181 White St.
Danbury, CT 06810

• Submissions must be received in the office no later than 8 am, Monday, November 23.

• Submissions must come with a cover sheet that includes the title of the work, the name of the author, the mailing address of the author, and the genre of the submission (fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry).

• Translations are acceptable, but the submission must come with evidence of permission to publish the translation.

• Submissions must be unpublished and may not be under consideration elsewhere.

• Each student may submit no more than three works of creative nonfiction, three works of fiction, and six poems. Excerpts from novels are acceptable but must not exceed 25 pages.

• Prose must be double-spaced and typed or printed on a letter-quality printer; dot-matrix is not acceptable. Poetry only may be single-spaced.

I encourage all MFA students to participate! The AWP Intro Award is one of the most highly visible awards for students, and the participating journals are choice venues.