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 We encourage all national and international writers to practice their craft by submitting previously unpublished poems and short stories to be juried.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.
2019 PSS Entry Form
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Postmark Deadline: January 18, 2019
Meet Our 2018 Jurors
Rick Lupert
Rick Lupert has been involved with L.A. poetry since 1990. He is the recipient of the 2014 Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center Distinguished Service Award and was a co-director of the Valley Contemporary Poets for 2 years. He created the Poetry Super Highway (http://poetrysuperhighway.com/) and hosted the weekly Cobalt Cafe reading for almost 21 years. His first spoken word album “Rick Lupert Live and Dead” featuring 25 studio and live tracks was released in March, 2016. He’s authored 20 collections of poetry, including “Donut Famine”, “Professor Clown on Parade”, “Romancing the Blarney Stone”, “Making Love to the 50 Foot Woman”, “The Gettysburg Undress” (Rothco Press) and “Nothing in New England is New”, and edited the anthologies “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 the Jewish Poetry column “From the Lupertverse” for http://www.JewishJournal.com/. He is regularly featured at venues all over the world.
Chauna Craig
Chauna Craig is the author of the story collection The Widow’s Guide to Edible Mushrooms. Her fiction has appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines, including Prairie Schooner, Sou’wester, SmokeLong Quarterly, Seattle Review, and Flash Fiction International. Her stories have been honored with Special Mention in the Pushcart Prize anthology and descant’s Sandra Brown Fiction Prize. She teaches creative writing and women’s studies at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Congratulations to Our 2018 Poetry & Short Story Contest Winners!
Poetry Awards:
- Westmoreland Award: “Cave Felem” by Earl Keener – Bethany, WV
- First Place: “At The Bluff” by David Dillon – West Glover, VT
- Second Place: “Burial” by Paul Marx – Towson, MD
- Third Place: “Lost in the Shuffle” by Carol Williams – York, PA
- Honorable Mention: “Interior Dialogue” by Louise Kantro – Modesto, CA
- Honorable Mention: “Can’tilevered – The Shadow to the Skald” by Earl Keener – Bethany, WV
- Honorable Mention: “The Proper Study of Mankind 101” by Carol Williams – York, PA
Short Story Awards:
- Westmoreland Award: “The Tightrope Walker” by Jamie Brian – Jeannette, PA
- First Place: “Evening Star” by Sandra Gould Ford – Pittsburgh, PA
- Second Place: “Delivery” by Laura Lovic-Lindsay – Lyndora, PA
- Third Place: “Amazons” by Linda Barnhart – Womelsdorf, PA
- Honorable Mention: “A Student in Anthro” by Danielle Ann Lesnock – Winter Garden, FL
- Honorable Mention: “In the Compnay of Flags” by Sharon Pruchnik – Windber, PA
- Honorable Mention: “Emanuel” by Sarah Santoni – Bridgeville, PA