Named in honor of Mississippi University for Women alumna Eudora Welty and one of the W’s early creative writing journals, Ephemera, the $200 prize will be awarded to up to 5 entries. All prizewinners will be honored at the Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium at Mississippi University for Women on October 25, 2024. They will be invited to lunch with symposium authors, receive their award, and give a brief reading. Winning entries and honorable mentions will also be published on our website. School groups are invited to the Symposium and all sessions will also be streamed live.
Students must be enrolled at a high school (or be home schooled) in Mississippi in grades 10-12 for the 2023-24 school year. Students from nearby schools in Alabama (within approximately 100 miles of Columbus) or from a school sponsored by a W alum are also eligible. To sponsor a school outside Mississippi, the W alum needs only to attach a brief letter, indicating her/his graduating class or year(s) of attendance.
Children and close relatives of faculty in the Department of Languages, Literature, and Philosophy or of the judges are ineligible. Students who graduated high school prior to September 1, 2024 are no longer eligible.