Notre Dame Magazine’s Young Alumni Essay Contest is here again. The 2017 competition is open to those who received a University of Notre Dame bachelor’s degree in the years 2008 through 2017.
The fifth annual contest will be judged by this magazine’s editors. Entries must be original, previously unpublished, creative nonfiction essays. A submission should range in length from 800 to 1,500 words, and it must be the work of a sole author.
The editors are seeking evocative first-person works that would appeal to a college-educated audience.
The first-place winner will receive a cash prize of $500; second-place winners will receive $250. The first- and second-place winning essays will be published in Notre Dame Magazine in 2018. Should the judges decide to award one or more honorable mentions, the winner(s) will receive $50 and publication at magazine.nd.edu.
Email entries will be accepted through midnight Tuesday, September 12, 2017. See Young Alumni Essay Contest 2017 rules for official contest rules and instructions on how and where to submit an essay.
This magazine has issued a total of $6,000 in prize money to the 40 winners of the previous four essay contests. First-place honors have been awarded to Rachel Roseberry ’11 for her 2013 essay “Fear itself”; John Corgan ’11 for his 2014 essay “Grace is a hobble-wheeled bicycle”; Michael Augsberger ’10 for his 2015 entry “Home marathon”; and Rachel Plassmeyer Bené ’10 for her 2016 essay “Just one second in the highlands.”