The Great River Writers Retreat winner is selected from an applicant pool of writers from Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin across multiple genres, and allows the winner to spend a week working on a specific writing project they have underway.
The Great River Writer’s Retreat Contest will open for all writers on January 1, 2023 and close on May 31, 2023. The retreat dates for 2023 are July 25-31, 2023 at the Benet House Retreat Center in Rock Island, IL.
Thanks so much to everyone who participated in Iron Pen 2023. We received many terrific entries, and our excellent judges—Samantha DeFilippo (nonfiction), Rachel Rixen (fiction), and Deanie Vallone (poetry), who are last year’s winners in each category—had very difficult decisions to make in their evaluations. We appreciate everyone’s time and talents in making this year’s contest one of the biggest we’ve ever had (120 people registered for Iron Pen XV).
Thank you all very much for participating in the fastest writing contest in the Midwest! We appreciate your writing courage & quick imagination, and we look forward to seeing all of your terrific submissions.
Before we get to the prompt (which will also be available via phone on the MWC’s outgoing voice message at 309-732-7330, via the home page and the Iron Pen page on the MWC website, and on our Facebook page), a few guidelines and other important bits of information: