Springfed Writing Contest

2024 Springfed Arts Writers Contest will accept submissions by email from February 15, 2024 through April 15, 2024
Poetry & Prose Prizes
1st Prize $150
2nd Prize $100
3rd Prize $75
RULES: This Members Only contest is funded and sponsored by Springfed Arts. Submission Guidelines:  Free submission for current Springfed Arts members only. No name on poetry or prose submission pages.  Prose (prose includes fiction, nonfiction & memoir) must be double-spaced 10 pages or less. (An excerpt of a longer piece may be used.)  A cover page should include your name, address, phone, email, and title of piece.  Poetry should include 3 poems no more than 5 total pages, with name, address, phone, email, and titles of poems on cover sheet.  All submissions must be typewritten.  All submissions must be emailed to info@springfed.org as a Word Document.  Join or renew a membership online.  There is no contest application form.  Your membership will suffice.  Deadline: must be emailed by midnight of April 15, 2023. Entries must be unpublished.  Manuscripts that do not follow the above rules will be discarded. Your manuscript is non-returnable.  Winners will be announced in the May newsletter and will be invited to read on a date and location to be announced.

Our poetry judge is Dorianne Laux. Our prose judge is Jacquelyn Mitchard.
Springfed Arts entrusts preliminary judges who cull through all submissions.  We send 15 finalist poem entries to the poetry judge and 5 finalist prose entries to the prose judge.

Email Contest Submission to: info@springfed.org

Springfed Arts 2023 Poetry Finalists
1st place    If We Look by Melinda LePere
2nd place    Love Enough for Now by Alexander Payne Morgan
3rd place    Like Learning a New Language by Linda Sienkiewicz
Honorable Mention    Lake Qarun by Nadia Ibrashi
Honorable Mention    When We Talk About the Movie, Casablanca, My Father Remembers Every Line… by Linda Nemec Foster
Poetry judged by Eric Torgersen

Springfed Arts 2023 Prose Finalists
1st Place    My Father’s Hat by Nadia Ibrashi
2nd Place   The Way I See It by Lauryn Hugener
3rd Place    Erstwhile by Brian Drumm
Honorable Mention    Learning to Ride by Mary Minock
Honorable Mention    Cinderella Swing by Paul L. Bancel
Prose judged by John Jeffire
There were 25 total contest entrants (12 poets and 13 prose writers).

Winners read their winning entries, Monday, October 2, 6pm at Royal Oak Public Library, 222 E. Eleven Mile Rd, Royal Oak, MI 48067.  Coffee and cookie kiosk.  Free and open to the public.

Springfed Arts 2022 Poetry Finalists
1st place    February by Patricia Barnes
2nd place    La Traviata at the Vienna Opera House by Diana Dinverno
3rd place    The Coldest Month by Derek Eugene Daniels
Honorable Mention    Family Snapshots by Kathleen M. Friedrichs
Honorable Mention    Of mines, and fingers and pies by Michelle Morouse
Poetry judged by Dunya Mikhail

Springfed Arts 2022 Prose Finalists
1st Place    Rings by John Jeffire
2nd Place   Weather Bad Enough to Keep You Indoors by Phillip Sterling
3rd Place    Japanese Cemetery by Deborah Ann Percy
Honorable Mention    This Time by Elissa Driker
Honorable Mention    Alone in the Woods by Michelle Morouse
Prose judged by Linda Sienkiewicz
There were 38 total contest entrants (22 poets and 16 prose writers).

Springfed Arts 2021 Poetry Finalists
1st place    The Second Worst Thing by Linda Sienkiewicz
2nd place    Mediterranean by Nadia Ibrashi
3rd place    My mother listens to her kitchen radio in Detroit in 1955 by Michelle Morouse

Honorable Mention    We Are Driving by Lonnie Hull DuPont
Honorable Mention    The Gutting by Jeremy Proehl
Honorable Mention    Petals (Haiku) by Derek Eugene Daniels
Poetry judged by Kathleen McGookey

Springfed Arts 2021 Prose Finalists
1st Place    Broke by John Jeffire
2nd Place   Daffodils Are Not Wildflowers by Deborah Ann Percy
3rd Place    Bearing the Standard: Reflections from a Wannabe Butter Thief by Anne Forgrave

Honorable Mention    My Patient, My Aunt by Nadia Ibrashi
Honorable Mention    NEXUS: a novel by Kristin Bartley Lenz
Prose judged by Jacquelyn Mitchard

There were 63 total contest entrants (26 poets and 37 prose writers).

Springfed Arts 2020 Poetry Finalists
1st place    The Fallen-Aways by Mary Minock
2nd place    Someone Who Believes in You by Jeffrey Hermann
3rd place    Glory to Him by Nadia Ibrashi

Honorable Mention    The Singer Machine by Randy K. Schwartz
Honorable Mention    Inland Lake Weeds of Michigan by Michelle Morouse
Poetry judged by Cecilia Woloch

Springfed Arts 2020 Prose Finalists
1st Place    Revelation at Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari by Diana U. Dinverno
2nd Place    Right Front Corner by Michelle Morouse
3rd Place    Salt by John Jeffire

Honorable Mention    Call Me Maxie! by Phillip Sterling
Honorable Mention    Elm in the Desert by Harah Frost
Prose judged by Anne-Marie Oomen

There were 44 total contest entrants (24 poets and 20 prose writers).

Springfed Arts 2019 Poetry Finalists
1st place    Cobalt by Alinda Dickinson Wasner
2nd place    If Detroit Were a Woman by K. Michelle Moran
3rd place    Driving to Gravelly Point by Randy K. Schwartz

Honorable Mention    Porkobello’s by James Joseph Macmillen
Honorable Mention    California Dream by Linda Nemec Foster
Honorable Mention    Good Night’s Sleep by Ginny Grush
Poetry judged by Dennis Hinrichsen

Springfed Arts 2019 Prose Finalists
1st Place    The Door Swings Open by Kristin Bartley Lenz
2nd Place    Why Do People Tell Me Things? by John Jeffire
3rd Place    Unlikely Gifts by Cynthia Jalynski

Honorable Mention    Sunday Afternoon at the Bookstore Cafe by Harah Frost
Prose judged by Kelly Fordon

There were 51 total contest entrants (29 poets and 22 prose writers).

Springfed Arts 2018 Poetry Finalists
1st place     Uff da by Kevin Griffin
2nd place    Coal Run, Kentucky by Liza Young
3rd place    Berries by Susan Knoppow
Honorable Mention    Borders by Alinda Wasner
Honorable Mention    A Traffic Intersection Falls in Love by James Joseph MacMillen
Poetry judged by Terry Blackhawk

Springfed Arts 2018 Prose Finalists
1st place     Paris (an excerpt) by John Jeffire
2nd Place    Bite by Melissa Grunow
3rd Place     Magic Shift by Diana U. Dinverno
Honorable Mention     Liking Each Other the Same by Mary Robertson
Honorable Mention     Her Name Was Patricia by Dinah Lee Brinson
Prose judged by Keith Taylor

There were 48 total contest entrants (32 poets and 16 prose writers).


Springfed Arts 2017 Poetry Finalists

1st place     The Mounting Evidence Against Monotheism by Jeffrey Herman
2nd place     How a Poem Keeps a Poet by Melinda LePere
3rd place    Firefly by Susan Knoppow
Honorable Mention    Say You Walk Away by Jenifer DeBellis
Honorable Mention    Drinking Alone with Li-Bo by Mary Schmitt
Honorable Mention    At Holocaust Museum, Moscow 2015 by Alinda Wasner
Honorable Mention    The Darkness by K. Michelle Moran
Poetry judged by Robert Fanning

Springfed Arts 2017 Prose Finalists

1st place     Last Resort by Phillip Sterling
2nd Place     Tulip by Karen Simpson
3rd Place     The Telegram by Diana Dinverno
Honorable Mention     The Sinner of Timbuktu by Nadia Ibrashi
Honorable Mention     The Kitten and the Goddess by Alexander Morgan
Prose judged by Steve Amick

There were 67 total contest entrants (41 poets and 26 prose writers).


Springfed Arts 2016 Writing Contest Finalists

Poetry Finalists 2016
1st place    Swings by Susan Knoppow
2nd place    Ornament by Caroline Maun
3rd place    A Subtle Passing by Mary Stebbins Tait
Honorable Mention     Spiderweb by Patricia Barnes
Honorable Mention     A Taxonomy of Every Little Thing by Jeffrey Hermann
Poetry judged by Matthew Olzmann

Prose Finalists 2016
1st place    The Trouble with Betty by Bobbie Crawford
2nd place    The Curtain by Paul Bancel
3rd place    The Prisoner by Nadia Ibrashi
Honorable Mention     Factory Outlet by Phillip Sterling
Honorable Mention     Coed (an excerpt from a memoir) by Mary Minock
Prose judged by Eric Jerome Dickey

There were 51 total contest entrants (34 poets and 17 prose writers).

Springfed Arts 2015 Writing Contest

Poetry Winners

1st place Ann’s Cup by Alex Morgan

2nd place Ampersand by Mary Butler

3rd place Sunday in the Park, Claire, Michigan by Sophia Rivkin

Honorable Mention:

Lost in Song by Mary Minock

For Janet: Four Questions and Reflections by Greg Loselle

Poems judged by Wyn Cooper

 

Prose Winners

1st place Maybe A Bite or Two by John Jeffire

2nd place Always Wear Your Boots by Liza Young

3rd place Old Fish by Phillip Sterling

Honorable Mention:

Sacred Silence by Jenifer Smythe DeBellis

Take Me by Paul L. Bancel

Prose judged by Irina Reyn

______

Springfed Arts 2014 Writing Contest Finalists

Prose finalists

1st place          Rooms of Wonder by Karen Simpson                     

2nd place         The Latrine by Alexander P. Morgan          

3rd place         The Gaslight by Ellen Halter

Honorable Mention  

A Brief Vacation by Maria A. Costantini

The Flowers by John Jeffire

Prose judged by Jack Driscoll

Poetry Winners

1st place          After Our Country Grandmother Died by Mary Schmitt

2nd place         In The Henry Ford Museum Archives by Mary Minock

3rd place         Cicada by Sophia Rivkin

Honorable Mention

Our Lady of the Rosary by Ken Meisel

Damballah by Melinda Weinstein

Can Words Create or Define Reality During Storms? by Donna Vinstra   

Poems judged by Jim Daniels

There were 66 total contest entrants (43 poets and 23 prose writers).

Springfed Arts 2013 Writing Contest Finalists

Prose finalists
1st place The Fetishist by Nadia Ibrashi
2nd place Excerpt from River Rouge by John Jeffire
3rd place Bones in a Box by Alexander Morgan
Honorable Mention The Right Thing by Linda Sienkiewicz
Honorable Mention The John Holland Story by Jon Zech
Prose judged by Robert Olmstead

Poetry Winners
1st place Florida by Terry Blackhawk
2nd place Once in a Blue Moon by Elizabeth Mitchell
3rd place Prayer for Poojah by Nadia Ibrashi
Honorable Mention Monarchs by Kevin Griffin
Honorable Mention If It Wasn’t for Snow by Liza Young
Poems judged by Denise Duhamel

There were 75 total contest entrants (48 poets and 27 prose writers).

Springfed Arts 2012 Writing Contest Finalists

Poetry winners

1st place:  The Two by Christine Rhein

2nd place:  Going to the Grave of Son House by Randy K. Schwartz

3rd place:  The Woman of a Thousand Worries by Patricia Barnes

Honorable Mentions:

Joan of Arc by Mary Schmitt

A Small Girl by Lucinda Sabino

 (Poetry contest judged by E. Ethelbert Miller)

Prose winners

1st place:  Lorna in Kinshasa by Jon Zech

2nd place:  Renaissance Man by Lori Eaton

3rd place:  Big In The Bars by Carol Carpenter

Honorable Mentions:

Gut Wrenched in Barnstown by Linda K. Sienkiewicz

Before You Can Change Your Mind by Jenifer DeBellis

(Prose contest judged by Michael Zadoorian)

Springfed Arts 2013 Writing Contest Finalists

Prose finalists
1st place The Fetishist by Nadia Ibrashi
2nd place Excerpt from River Rouge by John Jeffire
3rd place Bones in a Box by Alexander Morgan
Honorable Mention The Right Thing by Linda Sienkiewicz
Honorable Mention The John Holland Story by Jon Zech
Prose judged by Robert Olmstead

Poetry Winners
1st place Florida by Terry Blackhawk
2nd place Once in a Blue Moon by Elizabeth Mitchell
3rd place Prayer for Poojah by Nadia Ibrashi
Honorable Mention Monarchs by Kevin Griffin
Honorable Mention If It Wasn’t for Snow by Liza Young
Poems judged by Denise Duhamel

There were 75 total contest entrants (48 poets and 27 prose writers).

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