Arts and Entertainment

Pa. Center for the Book seeks submissions for Wordstruck Micro Essay contest

Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Pennsylvania Center for the Book’s second annual contest, "2021 Wordstruck: Micro Essays on Literature that Redefined You," invites Pennsylvania students in grades 10-12 to submit a 200-350-word essay that describes how a self-selected piece of literature redefined their behavior, attitude, worldview, and/or personal perspective.

One winner will be awarded a $250 prize. Second and third place winners will receive $150 and $100, respectively. Last year, students from the Pennsylvania cities of Newtown and Indiana were recognized for their essays in response to poetry by Christopher Marlowe, fiction by Fredrik Backman, and nonfiction by Audre Lorde; these 2020 winning essays can be read on the Wordstruck webpage.

Submissions for the 2021 Wordstruck contest will be accepted online only during the submission period, from Dec. 1, 2020, to Apr. 9, 2021.

For official submission guidelines, please visit the Wordstruck section of the "How to Submit" page on the Pennsylvania Center for the Book website.

The Pennsylvania Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress, encourages Pennsylvania’s citizens and residents to study, honor, celebrate and promote books, reading, libraries and literacy. In addition to Wordstruck, it also administers the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize; Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award; Public Poetry Project; A Baker’s Dozen: The Best Children’s Books for Family Literacy; Poems from Life; Words of Art; and the interactive Literary & Cultural Heritage Maps of Pennsylvania.

For more information about the Wordstruck contest, visit the "Wordstruck: Micro Essays on Literature that Redefined You" page of the Pennsylvania Center for the Book website, or contact Nicole Miyashiro, editor, at nmm16@psu.edu.

Last Updated November 11, 2020