Announcing the Winners of Iron Pen XV

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).

Iron Pen 2023: Rules, Info, Prompt Announcement

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:

Register for “How to Start a Story: Writing Snapshots to Stories” – Prose Workshop, led by Aida Zilelian Today!

How to Start a Story: Writing Snapshots to Stories – Prose Workshop, led by Aida Zilelian

Thursday, March 2, 2023, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. CST | Me

Snapshots are self-contained moments that tell a deeper story. In this class we will engage in various activities to write snapshot stories. We can use these stories to create a sequential montage or elaborate into a longer developed story.