Stories let us empower others.
Wild Women Story Contest
(Spring/Summer issue)
Deadline: March 8 (International Women's Day)
Release: May 15
2023 Grand Prize Winner
Life on the Ledge by Amy Soscia
2023 Honorable Mentions/Contributors
Aching for More by Armen Bacon
After Hiker Midnight by Kayla Agnir
Brass by Ingrid L. Taylor
Confession of a Female Bodybuilder by Mia Cara Kinsella
Happy Birthdays to Me! by J. Michele Moll
heart circle by M. Kate Allen
Heat Map by Hannah Hindley
Hips by Laurel Maxwell
Intergenerational by Lila Quinn
Middle Bear by Vanessa Rowan Whitfield
Putting Down a Horse by Marie A. Unini
Provisioning Between Lives by Joanne Gram
Rebecca’s Piano by Diane Allerdyce
River Bottom by Molly Akin
The Body of a Bird by Elise Ball
The Club by Liz Kelner Pozen
The Crows at Countryside by Heather Murray
The Day She Decided to Wear No Clothes by Joanna Zarkadas
The Lunar Light Within by Jess Whetsel
The Protector by Margaret Speck Ogawa
The Wise-Ass Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree by Don Carter
The Witch by Katherine Royce
Unlearning Their Forced Desire for Me to Become
Someone I’m Not by Aurora Bones
Weedology and the Wild by Sarah Schiff
Wilderness Bride by karla k. morton
Semifinalists
A Good Horse by Jennifer Laxton
A Nature Poem by M.K. Brake
A Surviving Light by Brittany Moody
A Weenie by Any Other Name by Rita Ariyoshi
Aching for More by Armen Bacon
After Hiker Midnight by Kayla Agnir
At the Edge of the Picture by Ann Shenfield
At the Nationals Game by Abby E. Murray
Backfire by Dawn Yackzan
Barry’s Gate by Ann O’Mara Heyward
Big Grrl by Yaya Cole
Black Pearl by Kelly Lattin
Boundless Waves Against Shut Eyes by Shakira Croce
Brass by Ingrid L. Taylor
Buckle Bunny by Kathryn Graves Yoder
Confession of a Female Bodybuilder by Mia Cara Kinsella
Covenless by N.M. Bailey
dance by Bree Hellwig
Dancing in the Rainbow by Susan Heibert
Dear Daughter by Prana Mandoe
Detour by Beverly J. Orth
Doing Rage by Lois McCullen Parr
Down in the Dump by Karin Evans
Dry Sink by Mina Manchester
Early One Romantic Morning by Debra J. Owen
Eclipse by Gaea Bailey
Education by Casey Winslow
Eleanor and Isak by Deborah Stewart Chinn
Elegy for Julia by Carrolline Rhodes
Eras(h)er by Alisa Burpee
Fight Like a Girl by Justine Payton
Happy Birthdays to Me! by J. Michele Moll
He Interrupts Me by Isabel Oakley
heart circle by M. Kate Allen
Heat Map by Hannah Hindley
Helping Hands by Mary Bess Dunn
Hips by Laurel Maxwell
Hold My Drama, Please by Jill Cunningham
In a Blink Tree by Halima Abdi
In Training by Teresa Burns Gunther
Intergenerational by Lila Quinn
It Lay in Pieces by Joanne Gram
Jessie Talked to God by Maggie Felisberto
Joy Ride by Lisa Lutwyche
Juanita Falls into Her Story by Adela Najarro
Let Blood by Elizabeth Earley
Life on the Ledge by Amy Soscia
Middle Bear by Vanessa Rowan Whitfield
More Bursting Than Juicy by Sophy C Chaffee
Moving On by Sandra Jackson-Opoku
My Beautiful Chaos by Claudia Davis
No Never, No More by Isabel Wolfe-Frischman
Parables of Growth by Delilah Shapiro
Pearl Snaps by Sally Cobau
Period Piece by Ann O’Mara Heyward
Pressing Warmth by Joanne Gram
Propolis by Joe Gutesha
Provisioning Between Lives by Joanne Gram
Putting Down a Horse by Marie A. Unini
Quiet Poems by Katharina Javier
Rebecca’s Piano by Diane Allerdyce
Red by Rebecca Brock
Reflect by Laurel Maxwell
River Bottom by Molly Akin
Setting the Bar by Megan Williams
Sister Patrice by Barbara Neely
Strange Fruits by Aria Emerson
Tender Is the Girl by Jikai Zheng
The Black Star by Cassie Burkhardt
The Body of a Bird by Elise Ball
The Box by Jeffrey M. Feingold
The Club by Liz Kelner Pozen
The Crows at Countryside by Heather Murray
The Dairy Doll by Robin Caine
The Dark Queen by Janet Ruth
The Day She Decided to Wear No Clothes by Joanna Zarkadas
The Death of a Marriage by Tina Jenkins Bell
The Joy of Sakura by Margaret Speck Ogawa
The Lamentation of Rhode by Colleen Glen
The Legend of Lizzie Gold by Alan Jaye
The Lunar Light Within by Jess Whetsel
The Mother’s Choice by Samantha N. Chencharik
The Odd Woman and the City by Liz DeGregorio
The Protector by Margaret Speck Ogawa
The Ride by Lourdes Thuesen
The Sabbath Queen by Sarah Antine
The Voyeurs by Margaret Chula
The Wild Made Free by Brittni Kirkpatrick
The Winter Creek by Jill Wooddell Aller
The Wise-Ass Doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree by Don Carter
The Witch by Katherine Royce
Un-bound by Elizabeth V. Best
(Un)Becoming Carolyn by Kate Leboff
Unlearning Their Forced Desire for Me to Become
Someone I’m Not by Aurora Bones
Unseen Malady by Carol J. Scamman
Uvula: A Love Story by M.K. Brake
Weedology and the Wild by Sarah Schiff
When She Comes Back by Sophie Petit
Wilderness Bride by karla k. morton
With Thanks to Amanda Gorman—Still by Wynne Brown
Contest Description
We are looking for empowering stories (written by anyone) whose main characters embody the Wild Woman spirit.
The Wild Woman takes on many forms: rebels, subversives, and the untamed; maidens, mothers, queens, and crones; Holy women, healers, explorers, artists, and teachers.
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.
2022 Winners
Grand Prize
Ashore by Branden Boyer-White
Honorable Mentions/Contributors
Abduction by Tyler Wells Lynch
Anthropologist by Bergita Bugarija
Breaking the Seal by Marianne Leone
Carnage by Soraya Safavid
Confessions of a Skeleton Bride on Día de los Muertos by Stacey R. Forbes
Divorce Slut by Ashley Michelle C.
Elsewhere by A.L. Rowser
Georgia-Carolina Bridge, in a Floor-Length Dress by Amy Richerson
Magic by Janet Ruth
Monarch by Emily Jon Tobias
Nightflight to Venus by Sarah Kontopoulos
Of Lavender and Mint by Phyn Vermin
On the Descent by Vanessa Baehr-Jones
prophecy by Jess Luna
Softly by Mary Pauer
Tattoo Poem by Maria Nazos
The Wife by Charlotte Edsall
Vessels of Light by Sandra L. Meade
Visiting the Queen by Barbara Tylla
What I Took from the River by Anja Semanco
What if We Were Named After What We Bring Each Other? by fenestra
What to Expect When You’re Quite Certain You Don’t Want
to Be Expecting by E. Marla Felcher
Yellow Footprints by Allison Fischer
You—& My Abstract Theory of You by R.J. Keeler
2021 WINNERS
Grand Prize
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
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
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