Hello Iron Pen Contestants!
Thanks so much to everyone who participated in Iron Pen 2025. We received many terrific entries, and our excellent judges— Kristin DeMarr (nonfiction), Peter Hadlandsmyth (fiction), and Jacob Duncan (poetry), who are last year’s winners in each category—had very difficult decisions to make in their evaluations and wonderful things to say about so much terrific writing. We appreciate everyone’s time and talents in making this year’s contest one of the most competitive we’ve ever had.
Without any further ado, here are the winners of the 2025 Iron Pen Contest, by category:
Fiction
1st Place: Dan Woessner, of Sterling, IL: “Hands”
2nd Place: Ann Dailey, of Moline, IL: “Heart and Soul”
3rd Place: Michael Rader, of Marion, IA: “The Last Weaver”
Honorable Mentions (x10): Lindsay O’Brien (Davenport, IA), Bradley Wilmeth (Des Moines, IA), Daniel Williams (Moline, IL), John Morey (Martinez, CA), Jane Carman (Gilson, IL), Samyah Fadel (Moline, IL), Grayce Angle (Springfield, VA), Jacob Duncan (Aledo, IL), Brittany Jaekel (Rogers, MN), Emma Kushnirsky (Grinnell, IA)
Poetry
1st Place: Kristen Sneed, of Iowa City, IA: “The Doves, Of Course, Still Morning”
2nd Place: Shuvra Das, of Canton, MI: “Holding Together with Passion and Love: A Triptych”
3rd Place: Abigail Culloton, of Bartlett, IL: “Everything but the Carwash”
Honorable Mention: Adrian Cole, of Silvis, IL: “The Gift Given to Us Although it Cannot Be Held in Our Hands”
Nonfiction
1st place: Katharine Wiegele, of DeKalb, IL: “Held”
2nd place: Ann Dailey, of Moline, IL: “When the World Stops”
3rd place: Philip Goldfarb Styrt, of Davenport, IA: “Studies in Contemporary Political Psychology”
Honorable Mention: Maureen Atwell, of Milwaukee, WI: “An Open Call for Writers: Fight for Love, Compassion, and Justice”
Honorable Mention: Julia Gourley Donohue, of St. Joseph, MI: Untitled
Honorable Mention: Jodi Greenwald, of Carmel, IN: “Team Mike”
Honorable Mention: Andrea Truitt, of Iowa City, IA: Untitled
Congrats to all of our winners!
The Award Ceremony and Reading is Saturday, March 22 at 12:30pm CST at the Rock Island Public Library, Downtown Branch, 2nd Floor Community Room. It will also be livestreamed to MWC’s YouTube page: www.youtube.com/midwestwritingcenter
The winners, 2nd, 3rd Places and Honorable Mentions in each category are invited to read their work (if you are unable to attend, please let us know so we can plan accordingly—thanks!); depending on time, we might have some time for other participants to read their entry to this year’s contest. If you would like to read during the event, please send an email to let us know if you plan on reading so we have an idea of how many readers to expect: midwestwritingcenter@gmail.com – Thanks!
We will have the checks, medals, and certificates at the event; if you cannot attend, we will mail them to you on Monday, March 24. We will also have our drawing for the full registration to the David R. Collins Writing Conference, and for some other prizes, at the end of the event on Saturday 3/22. Please note: you do not need to be present to win the Conference registration—anyone with a paid Iron Pen Entry will be included in the raffle, and each paid entry enters your name one time (so, for example, if you entered in all 3 categories, your name will be in the drawing 3 times).
Please help us spread the word about the event; here’s the Facebook event page:
We hope you had fun with this year’s prompt—everyone certainly did a great job of going from zero to finished piece in a mere 24 hours! Thank you all so much again! Please let me know if you have any other questions about the contest or the Award Ceremony this Saturday 3/22. Thanks again and have a good day…
All best,
MWC