CAESURA High School Writing Contest Guidelines

General Guidelines

Caesura is accepting entries in original fiction, non-fiction, poetry, short film, and journalistic reportage from currently enrolled high school students.

• All work must be previously unpublished. This includes personal blogs and social media.
• Rights revert back to the author/creator upon publication.
• Founded in 1990, Caesura is the literary magazine of Indiana Wesleyan University. As such, we are unable to publish any material containing profanity.
• We will not accept any work created with assistance by AI.
• We do not accept multiple submissions. Please only send one submission across all categories.
• We do accept simultaneous submissions. However, please promptly withdraw your submission if your work is accepted at another publication.
• We’ll announce the short list of Finalists and Winners in the month of March. Winners in each category will receive a $50 award, plus a scholarship to attend IWU.
• All Winners and Finalists will be published in Caesura, either in print or online.
• Both Winners and Finalists will be invited to the Indiana Wesleyan University campus on April 23rd to present/read their work.

Genre-Specific Guidelines

Prose

• Submit one piece of short fiction or creative nonfiction, up to 1,000 words in length.

Poetry

• Submit up to five poems, not to exceed 5 pages in total length.Short Film
• Submit an original short film of a duration between 2 and 5 minutes in length.

Journalistic Reportage

• Submit a short article of journalistic quality, up to 2000 words in length.