Adult Literary Arts
The Westmoreland Arts & Heritage Festival is proud to sponsor our annual Poetry & Short Story Contest, open to anyone writing in English. We encourage all national and international writers to practice their craft by submitting previously unpublished poems and short stories to be juried. Since 1975, our non-profit organization has striven to bring the arts and humanities to the community of Westmoreland County. Our Poetry & Short Story Contest allows us to do so while providing an exceptional forum for writers and poets to present their original work.
Two jurors are selected each year. One juror is chosen to evaluate poetry submissions and a second juror is responsible for reviewing short stories. Winners are notified by the end of March and their works are then displayed at our annual Westmoreland Arts & Heritage Festival for visitors to read. All cash prize winners and honorable mention recipients are also invited to read their works live onstage at the Festival.
2022 Poetry & Short Story Downloadable Entry Form
2022 Poetry & Short Story Online Entry Form
If you are typing directly onto the entry form, you must download the application to your computer before adding the requested information. Close the application and reopen the downloaded application from your computer. Once you add the information re-save the document before printing or attaching to an email. If the signature field is missing, try updating your Adobe. This usually fixes the issue.
Postmark Deadline: APRIL 22, 2022
Meet Our 2021 Jurors
Rick Lupert (Poetry Juror)
Rick Lupert has been involved with poetry in Los Angeles since 1990. He is the recipient of the 2017 Ted Slade Award, and the 2014 Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center Distinguished Service Award, a 3 time Pushcart Prize Nominee, and a Best of the Net nominee. He served as a co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets for 2 years, and created Poetry Super Highway. Rick hosted the weekly Cobalt Cafe reading for almost 21 years. His spoken word album “Rick Lupert Live and Dead” featured 25 studio and live tracks. He’s authored 25 collections of poetry, including “The Tokyo-Van Nuys Express,” “Hunka Hunka Howdee!” and “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion” (Ain’t Got No Press) and edited the anthologies “A Poet’s Siddur”, “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah” and the noir anthology “The Night Goes on All Night. He also writes and draws (with Brendan Constantine) the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” and writes a Jewish poetry column for JewishJournal.com. He has been lucky enough to read his poetry all over the world.
Jon Wesick (Short Story Juror)
Congratulations to Our 2021 Poetry & Short Story Contest Winners!
Poetry Awards:
- Westmoreland Award: “And There Are Dogs” by Louise Kantro – Modesto, CA
- First Place: “Sur le Pont D’Avignon” by Carol Clark Williams – York, PA
- Second Place: “My Father is in my Closet” by Peter Barton – New York, NY
- Third Place: “When All is After” by Peter Barton – New York, NY
- Honorable Mention: “Making Amends” by Deborah Doolittle – Jacksonville, NC
- Honorable Mention: “Ubi Sunt” by Candace Kubinec – Greensburg, PA
- Honorable Mention: “The Church Brew Works on the Hill” by Candace Kubinec – Greensburg, PA
- Honorable Mention: “Black and Red” by Daniel Moreschi – Wales, UK
- Honorable Mention: “Fleeting Flutters” by Daniel Moreschi – Wales, UK
- Honorable Mention: “Summer on the Airport Road” by Sylvia Relation – Barre, VT
- Honorable Mention: “Good Fortune” by Sylvia Relation – Barre, VT
- Honorable Mention: “200 AM” by Barbara Purbaugh – South Bend, IN
- Honorable Mention: “Broken” by Barbara Purbaugh – South Bend, IN
Short Story Awards:
- Westmoreland Award: “The Blackwater Bird” by Kylie Rose Jasper – Blairsville, PA
- First Place: “A Story About a Man and His Dog” by Lydia Host – Wallingford, PA
- Second Place: “More Gold” by Barbara Purbaugh – South Bend, IN
- Third Place: “Boucher Alley” by Linda Barnhart – Womelsdorf, PA
- Honorable Mention: “Pandora and the Minivan” by Sharon Pruchnik – Windber, PA