Please send as much poetry or prose as you like. Whole manuscripts are welcome. Send writings of which you are the sole author and that were not written earlier than 1999. Published and unpublished writings are equally welcome. To get a sense of our aesthetics, see our previous volumes. All work will be read first by the editors, and Joyelle McSweeney will be the final judge. Multiple entries are welcome. The deadline is January 10th, 2025. The winner will be declared here in late winter 2025. In the event that none of the entries meets our standards, no winner will be declared, however this has happened only once in our fifteen years. The winner will be published in Volume 15 of The Winter Anthology and receive a $1000 honorarium. Finalists will also be considered for publication.
To enter electronically, go to thewinteranthology.submittable.com/submit
The winner of the 2023 Winter Anthology Contest, judged by Nick Flynn, is Jeanine Walker for her Poem “First Evening, On a Lake”
past winners
2022, judged by Ann Lauterbach: Tony D’Arpino for his poem Trees of Iceland.
2021, judged by Stephanie Strickland: Anna Lena Phillips Bell for her poem “Emerald.”
2020, judged by Ange Mlinko: Timons Esaias for his story “Of the Books of Shahanay.”
2019, judged by Sarah Gridley: no winner chosen.
2018, judged by Cole Swensen: Aaron Fagan for his poem “We Are Cenotaphs.”
2017, judged by Dan Beachy-Quick: Laton Carter for his poem “The Starling.”
2016, judged by Donna Stonecipher: J. Bowers for her story “Fred W. Loring and His Mule, ‘Evil Merodach’ 48 Hours Before Death.”
2015, judged by Richard Kenney: Julie Gonnering Lein, for her poem “Rime in the Screen.”
2014, judged by Srikanth Reddy: Meg Matich, for her poem “Cantilevered Star,” and Andrew Seguin, for his poem “Last Visit to Chalon.”
2013, judged by Andrew Zawacki: Robert Shuster for his story “A Solution to the Barber Paradox.”
2012, judged by Cole Swensen: Steven Toussaint for selections from his long poem “Fiddlehead”: “the sentient flies,” “and woke in a flood,” and “the sapphirous eye of transits.”
2011, judged by Lisa Russ Spaar: Lillian-Yvonne Bertram for her poem “With a Candle for a Head.”