At the Council for Wisconsin Writers (CWW), we support the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) Contest Code of Ethics for our contests.
CLMP Contest Code of Ethics
CLMP’s community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to 1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors; 2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines—defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and 3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public. This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.
Since all our contests require prior publication (with the exception of the Student Essay Contest), CWW does not use blind judging. However our judges are chosen from a pool of qualified writers and teachers who reside outside the state of Wisconsin. Judges will be asked not to consider entries from relatives, friends, and entrants with whom they have personal or professional relationships. Entries disqualified on these grounds will not be returned to the entrants.
Contest Judges (2021)
Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award
Judge: Kevin McIlvoy
Kevin McIlvoy has published five novels, A Waltz (Lynx House Press), The Fifth Station (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill; paperback, Collier/Macmillan), Little Peg (Atheneum/Macmillan; paperback, Harper Perennial), Hyssop (TriQuarterly Books; paperback, Avon), At the Gate of All Wonder (Tupelo Press); and a short story collection, The Complete History of New Mexico (Graywolf Press). His short fiction has appeared in Harper’s, Southern Review, Ploughshares, Missouri Review, and other literary magazines. His short-short stories and prose poems have appeared in The Scoundrel, The Collagist, Pif, Kenyon Review Online, The Cortland Review, Prime Number, r.k.v.r.y, Waxwing, and various online literary magazines. A collection of his prose poems and short-short stories, 57 Octaves Below Middle C, has been published by Four Way Books (October 2017). He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in fiction. For twenty-seven years he was fiction editor and editor in chief of the national literary magazine, Puerto del Sol. He taught in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program in Creative Writing from 1987 to 2019; he taught as a Regents Professor of Creative Writing in the New Mexico State University MFA Program from 1981 to 2008. He has served as a fiction faculty member at national conferences, including the Ropewalk Writing Conference (Indiana), the Rising Stars Writing Conference (Arizona State University), the Writers at Work (Utah) Conference, and the Bread Loaf Writing Conference (Vermont). He has been a manuscript consultant for University of Nevada Press, University of Arizona Press, University of New Mexico Press, Indiana State University Press, University of Missouri Press, and other publishers. From 2017-2020 he served as a fiction editor for Orison Books. He served on the Board of Directors of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. He has lived in Asheville, North Carolina since 2008.
Edna Meudt Poetry Book
Judge: Allison Joseph
Allison Joseph lives in Carbondale, Illinois, where she directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Southern Illinois University.
Born in London, England to parents of Caribbean heritage, Allison Joseph grew up in Toronto, Canada, and the Bronx, New York. A graduate of Kenyon College and Indiana University, she serves as poetry editor of Crab Orchard Review, the publisher of No Chair Press, and the director of Writers In Common, a writing conference for writers of all ages and experience levels. In 2014, she was awarded a Doctor of Letters honorary degree from her undergraduate alma mater, Kenyon College.
Her books and chapbooks include What Keeps Us Here (Ampersand Press), Soul Train (Carnegie Mellon University Press), In Every Seam (University of Pittsburgh Press), Worldly Pleasures (Word Tech Communications), Imitation of Life (Carnegie Mellon UP), Voice: Poems (Mayapple Press), My Father’s Kites (Steel Toe Books), Trace Particles (Backbone Press), Little Epiphanies (NightBallet Press), Mercurial (Mayapple Press), Mortal Rewards (White Violet Press), Multitudes (Word Poetry), The Purpose of Hands (Glass Lyre Press), Double Identity (Singing Bone Press) Corporal Muse(Sibling Rivalry Press) and What Once You Loved (Barefoot Muse Press). She is the literary partner and wife of poet and editor Jon Tribble. She has also published fiction and nonfiction, and travels frequently to read from her work at various festivals, conferences, and universities.
Her latest full-length book of poetry, Confessions of a Barefaced Woman, was published by Red Hen Press in 2018. Confessions of a Barefaced Woman was chosen as the Gold/First Place Winner in the poetry category of the 2019 Feathered Quill Book Awards. Confessions of a Barefaced Woman is also a 2019 nominee in the poetry category of the NAACP Image Awards. Confessions of a Barefaced Woman is also a 2019 finalist for both the Montaigne Medal and the Da Vinci Eye Book Award, sponsored by the Eric Hoffer Book Awards.
Zona Gale Short Fiction
Judge: Hasanthika Sirisena
My essays have appeared in the Michigan Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, Kenyon Review Online, WSQ, and anthologized in This is the Place (Seal Press, 2017). My fiction has been anthologized recently in Every Day People: The Color of Life (Atria Books, 2018), and named a notable story by Best American Short Stories in 2011 and 2012. I have received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and am a Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award recipient. I am currently an associate fiction editor at West Branch literary magazine and visiting fiction faculty at the MFA Program in Writing at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. I am currently an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Susquehanna University, an associate fiction editor at West Branch, and visiting faculty at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. My short story collection The Other One was the winner of the Juniper Prize for Fiction and was released in 2016. My essay collection Dark Tourist won the 2020 Gournay Prize and will be released in December 2021 by Mad Creek/Ohio State University Press.
Niedecker Poetry Award
Judge: Leslie Monsour
Born in Hollywood, California, Leslie Monsour grew up in Mexico City, Chicago, and Panama. She was educated at Scripps College in Claremont California, Canal Zone College in Panama, and received her BA in English literature at the University of Colorado in Boulder with a minor in Hispanic literature.
Monsour has been a reference assistant at the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California, a news reporter for Pacifica radio, a book critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and a research consultant for documentary films. She has been a poetry instructor for the bilingual and gifted programs of the Los Angeles school system and the Writers’ Program at U.C.L.A. Extension, and has taught master classes in poetry for the College of Creative Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the Extension program of U.C. Berkeley, The English Departments of El Camino and East Los Angeles Colleges, the PEN Center USA Emerging Voices program, and the alumnae of Scripps College.
Blei/Derleth Nonfiction Book
Judge: Harriet Brown
Harriet Brown is a Professor of Magazine, News, & Digital Journalism at the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, and a sought-after speaker on college campuses around the country. She has written for the New York Times Science section, the New York Times Magazine, O Magazine, Psychology Today, Scientific American, and other publications. Her most recent book is Shadow Daughter: A Memoir of Estrangement (Da Capo, 2018). She has also written Body of Truth: How Science, History, and Culture Drive Our Obsession with Weight—and What We Can Do About It (Da Capo, 2015) and Brave Girl Eating: A Family’s Struggle with Anorexia, which won a Books for a Better Life Award. In 2011 she won the University of Iowa’s John F. Murray Prize in Strategic
Communications for the Public Good, for her work as an advocate for those with eating disorders.
Levin Short Non-Fiction
Judge: Ed Kemmick
Ed Kemmick worked as a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist for almost 40 years. Except for four years in his home state of Minnesota, he spent his entire journalism career in Montana. He founded Last Best News, a digital newspaper based in Billings, in 2014, and retired in 2018. In late 2019 he published his second book, “Montana: The Lay of the Land—The Best of Last Best News.” He has helped judge numerous journalism contests in Montana and neighboring states.
Tofte/Wright Children’s Literature
Judge: Michelle Houts
Michelle Houts is the award-winning author of a dozen books for your readers, ranging from picture books to middle-grade novels. She’s an active speaker, engaging school children across the United States, presenting to teachers and librarians at conferences and supporting up-and-coming writers via her own workshops and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
Contest Judges (2019)
Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award, 2019 Judge: Kevin McIlvoy
Norbert Blei/August Derleth Nonfiction Book Award, 2019 Judge: Michael Martone
Kay W. Levin Award for Short Nonfiction, 2019 Judge: Sean Davis
Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award, 2019 Judge: Allison Joseph
Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award, 2019 Judge: Leslie Monsour
Tofte/Wright Children’s Literature Award, 2019 Judge: Karen Cushman
Zona Gale Short Fiction Award, 2019 Judge: Hasanthika Sirisena
Contest Judges (2018)
Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award, 2018 Judge: Bob Olmstead
Norbert Blei/August Derleth Nonfiction Book Award, 2018 Judge: Michael Martone
Kay W. Levin Award for Short Nonfiction, Judge 2018: Sean Davis
Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award, 2018 Judge: Sean Thomas Dougherty
Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award, 2018 Judge: Susan Spear
Tofte/Wright Children’s Literature Award, 2018 Judge: Karen Cushman
Zona Gale Short Fiction Award, 2018 Judge: Jill Alexander Essbaum
Contest Judges (2017)
Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award, 2017 Judge: Bob Olmstead
Norbert Blei/August Derleth Nonfiction Book Award, 2017 Judge: Leila Levinson:
Kay W. Levin Award for Short Nonfiction, Judge 2017: Cathryn J. Prince
Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award, 2017 Judge: Sean Thomas Dougherty
Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award, 2017 Judge: Nickole Brown
Tofte/Wright Children’s Literature Award, 2017 Judge: Angela Johnson
Zona Gale Short Fiction Award, 2017 Judge: Jill Alexander Essbaum
Contest Judges (2016)
Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award, 2016 Judge: Indu Sundaresan
Norbert Blei/August Derleth Nonfiction Book Award, 2016 Judge: Leila Levinson:
Kay W. Levin Award for Short Nonfiction, Judge 2016: Cathryn J. Prince
Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award, 2016 Judge: Patricia Smith
Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award, 2016 Judge: Tyehimba Jess
Tofte/Wright Children’s Literature Award, 2016 Judge: Angela Johnson
Zona Gale Short Fiction Award, 2016 Judge: David James Poissant
Contest Judges (2015)
Zona Gale Short Fiction Award, 2015 Judge: David James Poissant
Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award 2015 Judge: Patricia Smith, Howell, NJ
Kay W. Levin Award for Short Nonfiction 2015: Kerry Cohen, Portland, OR
Tofte/Wright Children’s Literature Award 2015: Jenn Crowell, Forest Grove, OR
Norbert Blei/August Derleth Nonfiction Book Award 2015: Scott Korb, New York, NY
Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award 2015: Lee K. Abbott, Lincoln, NM
Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award 2015: Jericho Brown, Decatur, GA