Hello Iron Pen 2026 Contestants:
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 Iron Pen page on the MWC website, and on our Facebook page), a few guidelines and other important bits of information:
MWC Press is doing a special online sale for the holidays–all of the below titles (including the entire Foster-Stahl Chapbook Series to date) are only $5 (+shipping) through 12/31/25!
Thank you all for submitting your manuscripts to us for the Foster-Stahl Chapbook Series. We apologize for the delay in making this announcement, and we appreciate your patience. We are grateful to everyone who gave us the opportunity to read and consider their work. The excellence and range of the manuscripts we read made the selection process at once terrific and extremely difficult.