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2026 GOLDEN NIB WRITING
CONTEST FOR TEENS!
FICTION - NONFICTION - POETRY
Congratulations to the following winners of the 2025 Teen Nib Competition!
Fiction
1st place: Adelaide Thompson for "Reflections"
2nd place: Allan James for "Crumbs"
3rd place: Sofia Hertzog for "The Lotus Child
Nonfiction
1st place: Alina Jiang for "What Is Lost"
2nd place: Ian Jiang for "Treating Blindness"
3rd place: Ariana Blake for "Cycles of Seasons, Fathers and Sons"
Poetry
1st place: Tris Meagher for "Self-portrait in Abstract Thought"
2nd place: Ariana Blake for "Just My Empty Guts"
3rd place: Sofia Hertzog for "Little Emperor"
CATEGORIES: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry
RULES
- Only students attending high school (Grades 9-12) in the state of Virginia are eligible to enter this contest.
- Only original, unpublished work will be accepted. (See exceptions below.) Submissions that have won first place in other writing contests or were written with the help of AI are not eligible. We do accept entries that were published either on a personal blog or in a school publication, such as the school newspaper or anything else published by the school for students.
- The submission form linked below must be completed and submitted, along with the entry, to VWCTeenNib1@gmail.com. Use a subject line format of “[Category]_LastName” (example, Fiction_Tabb). Again, the entry and the Cover Sheet linked below must be attached as separate documents to the email (linked below).
- Only one submission per category is allowed. Multiple submissions by the same person in a single category will disqualify all of the submissions. If a teen is entering more than one category, they should submit each entry as separate emails, with a cover sheet for each entry.
- The Virginia Writer’s Club reserves the right to post winners on our website and publish winning entries in our annual Golden Nib and Teen Nib Journal to be released early next year.
- Submissions not in accordance with rules or format will be disqualified.
- First place winners are awarded $100; second place, $75; third place, $50. Entries that do not include a FULL "snail mail" address on the Cover sheet linked below will be rejected for not following guidelines.
FORMAT
- Fiction and non-fiction entries must be 1,500 words or less. Poetry entries must be 40 lines or less. Entry must be in .txt or .docx format only.
- All pages must show contest category, submission title, and page number in the header.
- Entries are judged anonymously. If the author’s name or any identifying information appears on any page, the entry will be disqualified. The author's name should only be provided on the cover sheet attached to the email.
- Additional formatting: fiction and nonfiction entries must use Times New Roman, 12 pt font, double-spaced, 8 1⁄2 by 11-inch page size, left alignment (not justified or centered), and 1-inch margins on top, bottom, and sides. New paragraphs should be indented instead of adding an extra space between paragraphs. Poetry should be single-spaced, with double spacing between stanzas. Poetry may be centered but must use Times New Roman font.
Entries, along with the Cover Sheet linked below, must be emailed to VWCTeenNib1@gmail.com as attachments by midnight, May 31st.
All Teen Nib entries MUST be accompanied by the following cover sheet and emailed to VWCTeenNib1@gmail.com: