Read the 2020 Wild Women winners here.
Wild Women Story Contest
(Spring/Summer issue)
Deadline: March 8 (International Women's Day)
Release (updated): May 15th-ish
Grand Prize Winner
The Girl Who Visited the Alligator Queen
by Couri Johnson
Honorable Mentions/Contributors
A Distant Home by Nan Jackson
A Married Woman Walks into a Bar by Lucy Jane Bledsoe
A Selkie’s Tale by Hannah Yang
Ann, Without by Broderick Eaton
Beyond the Mountains by Mahalia Solages
Bone Memory by Melissa Min
Boxes That Won’t Fit by Heather Anderson
Bruised Ego Trip by Becky Jensen
Dust and Blood by Janet Ruth
Gretel’s Revenge by Sue Storts
Hooves at the Precipice by Jacqueline Sheehan
Inviting Her In by Peter Young
Maintenance by Kristina Van Sant
My Old Kentucky Home by Ellen Pauley Goff
On the Outside, Moving On by Nora Bonner
pretty by Sophia Slattery
Resurrection Mary by Kipling Knox
Saint Iriana, the Cow-Herder by Red Hawk
The Hunt by Anne Morales
The Nature of Her Identity by Jude Rittenhouse
The Obituary I Wish I’d Written by Brooke Herter James
To Auckland by Mellisa Pascale
To Helen and River of AA by Lila Quinn
Too Big For My Britches by Sarah Kotchian
Untethered by Mary Kate Wilcox
Women Arise Now ~ Water to Fire by Genét Bosqué
2021 Semifinalists
9 Bernards and 3 Brunos by KC Willardson
13 Months by Kelley Smith
100 Tiny Exorcisms No. 67 by Stephanie Wright
A Distant Home by Nan Jackson
A Fine Romance by Angela Patten
A Married Woman Walks into a Bar by Lucy Jane Bledsoe
A Selkie’s Tale by Hannah Yang
A Very Good Girl by Amanda Irene Rush
A Woman After Thirty by Mel Konner
About Rose by Matthew Meagher
Ann, Without by Broderick Eaton
apartment 401 by Julie Fitzpatrick
Apple Pie by AZ Pascoe
Artifice by Jean Wollam
At the Altar of the Voodoo Saint by Barbara Caver
Authorities by Paula Sergi
Being Yellow by Caroline Aung
Bereich 43 by Stephanie Wright
Beyond the Mountains by Mahalia Solages
Bone Memory by Melissa Min
Boxes That Won’t Fit by Heather Anderson
Bruised Ego Trip by Becky Jensen
Christina’s World by Donna DeLeo Bruno
Christmas in Boston by Maura Smith
Dancing by Janice Tuck Lively
Double Dare Ya by Amy Lee Lillard
Dust and Blood by Janet Ruth
Easy by Julie Fitzpatrick
Edge of Summer by Paula Lacey
Einan of the Glade by Lisa Fransson
EmLee by Jan B. Parker
Form by Anne Hampford
Gretel’s Revenge by Sue Storts
Hair by Chris McNally
Hooves at the Precipice by Jacqueline Sheehan
House Aria by Virginia Smith
How to Get Lost by Laura Girardeau
I Got the Fuck Out by Gloria Diaz
In Praise of Fearless Women by Grace Solomonoff
In the Tearing Wind by Susan Browne
Instincts by Chris Wiebe
Inviting Her In by Peter Young
Jupiter by Amy Galloway
Like No Other by Kelly Grey
Maintenance by Kristina Van Sant
#MeToo Trinity by Karen Heiken
Mine for the Taking by Maria Thompson
Monsters by Angela Cheveau
My Old Kentucky Home by Ellen Pauley Goff
Natural Death by Diane Goettel
Notes to My Love by Judy Frankel Stahl
Ode to my mother before daylight by Al Dennis
On the Outside, Moving On by Nora Bonner
One Night on a Lonely Road by G.G. Silverman
Pink Lip Stick Is Still Safe by Rachel Pfennig Hales
Politics in Women by Emily Price
Portal by Renata Golden
pretty by Sophia Slattery
Recovery by Nancy Buell
Resurrection Mary by Kipling Knox
Ride by Susan Wadds
Saint Iriana, the Cow-Herder by Red Hawk
Sanctuary by Koleen Lori Green
Sigil by Leslie Guardado
Smile by Ashli Bumgardner
So You May Sleep Again by Erin Cecilia Thomas
Solo Me by Lisa Hendershot
Sonnet for the Girls by Lisa St. John
Stage Directions by Paula Sergi
Tattoo by Lucy Griffith
The Beach by Teresa Sumpter
The Color of Snow by Ellen Cunningham
The Creative and Courageous You by Erin Marie
The Crone and the Matriarch by Karen Jo Bullock
The Dance Before the Tomb by Mary Rogers
The First Time I Was a Feminist by Aria Dominguez
The Girl Who Visited the Alligator Queen by Couri Johnson
The Happy Tree by Beverly Rose Joyce
The Horn of Africa Café by Susan Pearson
The Hunt by Anne Morales
The Nature of Her Identity by Jude Rittenhouse
The Obituary I Wish I’d Written by Brooke Herter James
The Relative Truth by Susan E. Oringel
The Weight Problem by Ciara Miller
The Wild Finds Its Home by Cheyanne Blue Sitten
The Wood of Secret Riches by Lisa Fransson
To Auckland by Mellisa Pascale
To Helen and River of AA by Lila Quinn
To the Woman I Haven’t Hugged for Over a Year by Ashley Nagel
Too Big For My Britches by Sarah Kotchian
Untethered by Mary Kate Wilcox
Women Arise Now ~ Water to Fire by Genét Bosqué
Contest Description
We are looking for empowering stories with female main characters (written by anyone) that celebrate the Wild Woman: women who are the heroines of their own lives.
Rebellious, subversive, and untamed; maidens, mothers, and crones; Holy women, healers, explorers, artists, and teachers: the Wild Woman takes on many, many forms because every woman is different, and every woman is wild at heart.
We want stories about finding the wild, reclaiming the wild, experiencing the wild, being the wild. We especially love stories about the ways women use their power to create and shape the world, and stories about discovering—or remembering—this power in the first place.
These can be fiction, nonfiction, or poetry—as usual, if it tells a story, it fits!
Click here to return to the Guidelines page and to enter.
If we are not owning our power, it means someone else is.
It means we have handed the controls to a third party—our partner, our boss, a parent, or society as a whole.
The result is that we perpetuate a sense of ourselves as the victim, rather than the heroine, of our lives. . . .
Victimhood is our cultural norm. It’s how women in the patriarchy are raised to feel. We have not been raised to believe
we are the source of our own power,
the determiners of our own emotional state.
But in truth, that’s exactly who we are.
All it takes to know this, is to plug back into our radiance.
—Regena Thomashauer, aka “Mama Gena”
The School of Womanly Arts
*****
All around the world, women are stepping forward
to invite back their authentic, creative,
wonderfully unique selves.
We are shedding the old, faded clothes of war,
domination, competition, jealousy, and repression.
We are rising like the sun, shining big and bright as the full moon. We are saying yes to the power of fierce love, compassion, constant authenticity, and vulnerability.
2020 WINNERS
Grand Prize
Eve: I Did It on Purpose by Melina Vanchieri
Honorable Mentions/Contributors
28 Days by Alyea Pierce
A Well-Cut Coat and Bright Smile by Patricia Schultheis
Choices by Pamela O’Hara
Climbing the (White) Ladder to Success by Leeanne R. Hay
Every Witch a Woman by Natasha Ayaz
Exonerves by Lisa Fransson
Femininity & Pleasure: Observations on Wingfire by Jessica Burdg
Free by Jacqueline Gryphon
Genesis by Yael Hacohen
Hercules by Anil Classen
I Want to Teach Camille by Jessica McDougald
In Love by Vlada Teper
on the day i shaved my head by Kaitlyn Zeran
Phoenix by Thea Swanson
Rewilding by Tracy Rose Stamper
Rice Wine and Blowdarts by Bonnie J. Morris
That Kiss by Sue Staats
The Day I Flew by Mariah Julio
The Renovation by Vanessa Park
Your Daughter Is a Full Moon by Sabrina Strand
2019 WINNERS
Grand Prize
The Missing Jesus by Neta Harris
Honorable Mentions/Contributors
A Lingering Vision by Henry Heitmann
After the Hunt by Gwyndolyn Neuwirth
An April Night by Vanessa Rowan Whitfield
At the Edge of the Earth by Kara Thompson
Bleeding Heart by Kesi Augustine
Bounced from Bunco by Nicole Tichon
Customs by Nancy T. McGlasson
Drama Queen by McKenzie Moser
Headline: Rival Gangs' Mothers Unite for Peace by Juley Harvey
How I Survived a Night with a Serial Killer by A. C. Bosco
How May Cracked Open the Universe by India Choquette
January 1 by Suzanne J Chick
Officer of Adaptation to Climate Change by Dean Gessie
Ornithology by Janet Hilliard-Osborn
Questions by Rachel Weaver
Revival by Kathleen Gerard
Shedding Skin by Erica Tolin
The Girl They Gave to Winter by Tina Blade
Truth or Consequences by Samantha Beaty
Woman Off the Grid by Sandy Lender
The Nature of Her Identity” Jude Rittenhouse
Stories let us empower others.
And get the inaugural Wild Women issue here.
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