“I have something to say to the world, and I have taken English 12 in order to say it well.”
—W. E. B. DU BOIS
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
The Norton Writer’s Prize will be awarded annually for an outstanding essay written by an undergraduate. Literacy narratives, literary and other textual analyses, reports, profiles, evaluations, arguments, memoirs, proposals, mixed-genre pieces, and more: any excellent writing done for an undergraduate writing class will be considered. One first-prize winner and two runners-up will be selected in 2019.
The winner will receive a cash award of $1,500. Two runners-up will each receive a cash award of $1,000.
The deadline for submissions is June 15, 2019.
Competition for the Norton Writer’s Prize is open to undergraduates enrolled during the 2018-2019 academic year in an accredited 2- or 4-year college or university. Employees of Norton and their children are not eligible, nor are children of Norton authors. Please refer to the official contest rules at the bottom of this page for further eligibility requirements.
Each entry must be accompanied by a cover letter on departmental stationery from a nominating instructor. Electronic submissions must include an attached scanned cover letter of departmental stationary. Each instructor may nominate only one student essay. The nominating instructor must provide a one-paragraph summary of the essay’s merits and should type out his or her name, address, phone number, email address, and title. Please refer to the official contest rules at the bottom of this page for more details.
Submissions may be made electronically or by mail. Each student may submit only one essay.
Printed & Mailed Student Essays: must be printed out single-sided and double-spaced with all pages numbered. Entries should be between 1,000 and 3,000 words in length. The student’s name should appear on a separate piece of paper and should not appear on any headers or footers. Students must provide a cover sheet with their name, permanent address (where they can be reached during summer months), permanent phone number and email address, projected year of graduation, and title of the paper. Please refer to the official contest rules at the bottom of this page for more details.
Entries must be postmarked no later than June 15, 2019, and sent to:
The Norton Writer’s Prize
Attn: Marilyn Moller
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10110
Multimedia, Electronic Submissions: must be between 1,000 and 3,000 words in length. Students must provide their name, with permanent address (where they can be reached during summer months), phone number and email address, projected year of graduation, and title of the paper in a separate email accompanying the document. Please refer to the official contest rules at the bottom of this page for more details.
Electronic entries must be sent no later than June 15, 2019, with the subject line: Writer’s Prize Nomination and emailed to:
NortonWritersPrize@wwnorton.com
Winners will be notified by March 1, 2020.
Norton reserves the right to publish submitted essays, but all students will own the copyright to their work.
Please click here for official contest rules.
