Though run through the English department, the Geneseo writing contest is open and welcoming to every type of writing, be it creative or analytical, from any program across campus. The deadline for this contest is 4 p.m. on April 15, so you still have time to submit for the chance to win a Geneseo writing award.
Co-coordinator of Geneseo’s INTD 105 critical writing and thinking program and associate professor of English Gillian Paku is the organizer and overseer of this contest.
"This contest is the broadest celebration that we have of student writing at Geneseo,” Paku said. “It’s run out of the English department, but it is not an English department contest. It is genuinely open to any student and the writing can come from any major. We try to make any of the categories broad enough that anyone can enter this contest.”
These categories include opportunities to submit diverse work, including a research paper, critical essay, first-year critical writing from INTD 105, an essay in diversity studies, self-reflective writing, drama and screenwriting, poetry, literary fiction and creative non-fiction.
Students are welcome, even encouraged, to submit work created in or for a class. All submissions are anonymous and judged anonymously, which Paku hopes will make submission easier on students.
“We generally want everyone who enters to be judged based on the merits of their work, not clouded by name recognition,” Paku said. “We have anonymous judges, so entries are anonymous, and judges are anonymous. The principle behind it is that any willing volunteer from the English department can judge, but we try not to have a professor who is particularly connected with a particular category judge that category. So, the resident poet does not judge the poetry category.”
Paku’s primary motivation is offering all students the opportunity to submit if they so wish. She hopes to celebrate students for their hard work.
“Writing is still the most common way of communicating in academia, whether that’s creatively or analytically,” Paku said. “The contest is run because we value students’ voices, and we want to celebrate students who work hard communicating their thoughts in a public sphere. This is about giving an audience to writing that I think students have often been hardworking and thoughtful about.”
To this end, Paku continuously evaluates the guidelines and restrictions on the competition to ensure that the school’s values are echoed throughout.
“I periodically evaluate the categories, so over the last few years, for example, we’ve taken the essay in diversity studies and broadened the definition out to be diversity in its full richness as defined by Geneseo’s mission statement,” Paku said. “The self-reflective category was new two years ago when the college began to increasingly get behind the value of self-reflective writing.”
This contest isn’t only for the benefit of students, however. Paku noted that professors who judge the competition often feel gratified by the work submitted.
“The experience of reading a category in the writing contest is actually really uplifting for professors who do it because it’s students who care,” Paku said. “It really does let us celebrate the kinds of student effort offered. It’s not easy to write that well, and it’s good for that work to be out there and to have people celebrate it.”
Any and every student who dreams to have their hard work acknowledged should submit—and as soon as possible, since, again, the deadline is April 15 at 4 p.m.
“We want to celebrate somebody,” Paku said. “We want to give you lots of opportunities to put your work out there and sort of recognize the effort and the skill that goes into that.”
Interested students can submit here. Separate entries are allowed in individual categories, but students may only submit one work per category. Please contact paku@geneseo.edu with any further questions.
Winners will be honored remotely this year due to pandemic restrictions. Remember, your work will be judged anonymously. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain—good luck!