This spring, a student at an ACM college will receive more than just accolades for writing an outstanding short story. There will also be a check for $1,000 waiting.
The recognition, and the cash, will be for the winner of ACM’s 41st annual Nick Adams Short Story Contest. Named after the young protagonist of two dozen stories by Ernest Hemingway, the contest was established with funds from an anonymous donor as a way to encourage fiction writing at ACM colleges.
Clare Boerigter, winner of the 2012 Nick Adams Short Story Contest.
Photo courtesy of Clare Boerigter
The ACM has announced a call for submissions for the 2013 contest. Students currently enrolled and in good academic standing at an ACM college are eligible, and entrants submit stories to their campus English Department. Stories need not have been written especially for the Nick Adams competition, but they cannot have been previously published off-campus. Students should contact the chair of their college’s English Department for information about the on-campus submission deadline and procedures.
Each college will select the four best stories submitted by its students to enter in the contest, and a small committee of faculty drawn from ACM colleges will select the finalists. A professional writer serves as the final judge, selecting the prize-winning story.
The 2012 Nick Adams Contest prize went to Clare Boerigter, a student at Grinnell College, for her story “Gusanos.” Boerigter gave a presentation and read excerpts from her story at the ACM Student Symposium on Off-Campus Study last April.
Gina Frangello, novelist, editor, and faculty member at both Columbia College Chicago and Northwestern University, served as the final judge for the 2012 contest. She joined a distinguished group of writers who have been Nick Adams judges over the past four decades, including Maya Angelou, Saul Bellow, Larry Heinemann, Bharati Mukherjee, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Tyler, John Updike, Stuart Dybek, and Audrey Niffenegger.
Links:
- Nick Adams Short Story Contest
- Read about the 2012 Nick Adams Contest, including Clare Boerigter’s winning story, “Gusanos,” and a video of her presentation at ACM’s Student Symposium
- Past Nick Adams winners
- 2012 final judge Gina Frangello and the complete list of Nick Adams Contest final judges
