.png)
2025 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- Only original, unpublished work will be accepted. Submissions that have won first place in other writing contests or were written with the help of AI are not eligible.
- The author's name, grade, category (fiction, nonfiction, poetry), school affiliation, preferred contact method / info, mailing address, phone number, and short bio of at least 50 and no more than 150 words should be included clearly in the body of an email to VWCTeenNib1@gmail.com. Use a subject line format of “Category_LastName” and attach the entry as an attachment.
- Only one submission per category is allowed. If a teen is entering more than one category, they should submit each entry as separate emails.
- 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 in November.
- Submissions not in accord with rules or format will be disqualified.
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 doc or docx format.
- 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 in the submission email.
- Format entries using Times New Roman, 12 pt font, double-spaced, 8 1⁄2 by 11-inch page size, left-justified, and 1-inch margins on top, bottom, and left. New paragraphs should be indented instead of adding an extra space between paragraphs. Poetry should be single-spaced, with double spacing between stanzas.
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 should be accompanied by the following cover sheet and emailed to VWCTeenNib@gmail.com: