OWC Writing Contest in 2020 will focus on mystery. Submissions will be accepted from December 16, 2020, through midnight, PST, January 31, 2021. Submit through Submittable using the link on our website.

Fees are $10 for OWC members, $20 for nonmembers, $5 for high school or college students.

First Prize: A two-day stay at Colonyhouse or a virtual mentorship session with published author.

Second Prize: A virtual mentorship session.

Third Prize: A full critique of your submission by a published author.

Honorable Mention: 1-year OWC membership.

Submit here

Rules

10 pages of a mystery novel in 12-point times or similar typeface

Standard margins

No author name in manuscript

Attached manuscript named with title of entry

Use this link to submit to the contest

Judge

We are are pleased to have Valerie J. Brooks as our final judge. Valerie is a longtime member of OWC who has generously contributed her time and talents to developing writers. She is the author of an acclaimed femmes-noir series, as well as an in-demand workshop teacher. Watch for an upcoming workshop for OWC.

Contest winners will be announced and will read from their entries at our Virtual Contest Gala on Zoom in March 2021, date and time to be announced.

Contest Judge

Acclaimed author Valerie J. Brooks writes femmes-noir psychological thrillers where the women are badass and take center stage. The first in the Angeline Porter Trilogy Revenge in 3 Parts was a finalist for the Nancy Pearl Book Award and a winner in the International Readers’ Favorites Thriller Awards. New York Times bestselling author Kevin O’Brien called her second book Tainted Times 2 “a real nail-biter from first page to the last.”

After studying film noir in college, Valerie found her noir voice for fiction. She received an Elizabeth George Foundation grant and was the recipient of five writing residencies. Brooks teaches workshops and classes in how to write noir. She reviews mystery, suspense and thriller novels, podcasts, and streaming shows on her blog.

Brooks lives in the McKenzie River Valley in Oregon with her husband, Dan, and their Havanese pooch Stevie Nicks.

Many of us are missing the Annual Founders Day Celebration held each August at the Colonyhouse.

Through the years we’ve met other writers, talked of writing, listened to authors read their work, attended workshops and shared good food.

If you’ve participated in past Founders Day celebrations and you have a special memory of a past Founders Day please share it with us.

The deadline is September 5, 2020. Please limit your submission to 500 words. E-mail your reminiscence to marlenehow@comcast.net.

We will publish a special Founders Day Celebration Colonygram in late September.

As you reminisce about past celebrations please consider sending a check for $20 (our usual cost of Founders Day) to help with house-upkeep expenses during this time.

OWC has officially launched on Instagram. Find us at @oregonwriterscolony.

Posts will appear on both Instagram and OWC’s FaceBook account. There are several poems there now, and more are coming.

Please send pics of you at your desk with a short blurb about your writing life under COVID-19. If you are launching a book or have an announcement, please send a pic of the cover and/or a pic of you and a very brief blurb. (Keep sending member news for the website to Send Us Your Member News.)

We have a couple of book announcements that will be going out this week.

Send your Instagram or Facebook submissions to info@oregonwriterscolony.org