2025 Contest Theme: Rural (Re)Imagined: Connecting Past, Present, and Future
For this year’s contest theme, we invite pieces to consider the changes that rural places have undergone throughout history and how that might shape their changes in the future. How have rural people and communities risen to challenges that they’ve encountered? What challenges might they need to overcome in the future and how will they do it?
While submitted pieces don’t need to be connected to theme, we are excited and hoping to read rural young folks’ vision of the rural future.
The submission portal opens today – July 1, 2025 – and will close December 8, 2025. This contest accepts poetry, short fiction, and essays of 2,000 words or less.
Submission Rules/Guidelines
* Manuscript is DOC or PDF file (NO Google docs)
* Manuscript Contains Title
* Manuscript is anonymized (the author’s name has been removed from the attached document)
* Manuscript contains page numbers
* 12 pt. Times New Roman or Arial font, double-spaced, one-inch margins
Submissions that do not follow these guidelines will be automatically disqualified.
Rights: Winners retain all rights to their work. We ask for non-exclusive rights, meaning you are free to take your story elsewhere even after we publish it. Previously published stories are welcome too, so long as the author holds the rights to grant usage to Literacy in Place.
Meet this year’s judges!
Tanya Aydelott is a Pakistani-American author who spent her childhood in the Middle East and Tennessee. She holds an MFA in creative writing for children and young adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and is an associate editor for Cast of Wonders, a young adult speculative fiction podcast. Her short fiction has been published in FORESHADOW: Stories to Celebrate the Magic of Reading and Writing YA, Dark Moon Digest, Tales & Feathers Magazine, Podcastle, and Flash Fiction Online; she has also contributed to the Nerdy Book Club blog and to Spinning Towards the Sun: Essays on Writing, Resilience and the Creative Life. Visit her online at tanya-aydelott.com.
Nora Shalaway Carpenter is an award-winning author, writing educator, and audiobook narrator. Her newest novel Fault Lines won the 2024 Green Earth Book Award for YA Fiction, the 2024 Nautilus Book Award Gold Medal for YA, and a 2024 Whippoorwill Book Award Honor. Her books have made numerous prestigious lists, including “Best of the Year” by NPR, Kirkus Reviews, Bank Street Books, the Texas Library Association TAYSHAS state reading list, and the Library of Congress’s Discover Great Places Through Reading list. Her works have won accolades including the Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, the Whippoorwill Award for authentic rural fiction, and the Nautilus Award championing “better books for a better world.” She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and serves as faculty for the Highlights Foundation’s Whole Novel Workshop. A neurodivergent author with an invisible disability, she champions busting stereotypes of all kinds. Visit her at noracarpenterwrites.com and find her on Substack @norashalawaycarpenter
Jen Ferguson (she/her) is Métis and white, an activist, a feminist, an auntie, and an accomplice armed with a PhD. She believes writing, teaching and beading are political acts. Her debut YA novel, The Summer of Bitter and Sweet(Heartdrum/HarperCollins) won a 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award and is a 2023 Stonewall Honor Book. Jen’s second YA novel Those Pink Mountain Nights has four starred reviews and is a Junior Library Guild Gold Selection. A Constellation of Minor Bears, about three teens grappling with balancing resentment against enduring friendship—and how to move forward with a life that’s not what they’d imagined, is a USA Today Bestseller with two starred reviews. She is currently writing an adult speculative novel about the so-called end of the world.
Prizes
First Place winner will receive:
- Publication on Literacy In Place
- A virtual author visit from Rob Costello (see below)
- A signed book from each judge for the winner’s teacher’s classroom library
- A guest spot on the Reading Rural YAL podcast
Rob Costello (he/him) earned his MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts but before that, he cleaned toilets and flipped burgers for a living. He dealt cards in a casino. He processed trade documents for an international bank. He dispatched police and emergency services, and answered 911 calls. He’s been a receptionist, a secretary, and a chief of staff. He was a social media manager for a while and even a speechwriter. His most recent book is An Ugly World for Beautiful Boys.
Second place winner will receive:
- Publication on the Literacy In Place website
Winners of Last Year’s Rural Teen Writing Contest:
WINNER – Britta Nilsson, a junior, from Georgia for her poem “The Ribcage”. Stay tuned for the Reading Rural YAL episode featuring her work. Her prizes include an author visit from Nora Shalaway Carpenter and a class set of of one of her books.
RUNNER-UP – Sallie Choi, a sophomore, from rural Arizona for her personal essay, “Of Goats and Kids”
Her prizes include a feature on Reading Rural YAL and a signed copy of a book of her choosing written by one of our judges.
HONORABLE MENTION – Genevieve Frander, a seventh grader, for her short story, “The Precipitation that Earned My Appreciation.”
Previous Winners
- 2023 Winners
- WINNER – Deborah George for “Sweetest Memories”
- RUNNER-UP – Laurel Aronian for “So Long Schoolhouse”
- HONORABLE MENTION – Riya Chandra for “Brownish”
- 2022 Winners
- WINNER – Allison Strange for “Fate for a Cat“
- RUNNER-UP – Kevin Evilsizer for “Heart Strings”
- HONORABLE MENTION – Luke Urban for “Roof Top Farmer”
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