The Milk House and The Daily Yonder invite submissions to the Best in Rural Writing Contest. The Milk House (themilkhouse.org) is a literary journal that features the work of those writing on rural subjects.

Ten shortlisted entries (approximately 5 fiction and 5 nonfiction submissions) will be selected by the judge after the contest deadline. These entries will have the option to publish on The Milk House in 2025. Afterwards, the judge will select the best short story and best essay.

Finally, a small panel, as well as the audience, will vote to crown which piece is the Best in Rural Writing. The decision will be split between the judge, a representative from The Milk House, a representative from The Daily Yonder and the audience vote (accounting for 2/5 of the decision). The overall winner of the Best in Rural Writing Contest will receive $500, and the runner-up $200. The winner will be announced late 2024.

The contest is open to everyone in the world. The work must be original and unpublished. Authors of the top two entries must agree to have their submissions featured by The Milk House and The Daily Yonder. After publication, all rights revert back to the author.

Submissions should, in some way, be connected to “the rural.” The manner and extent to which this is done is open to the author and not necessarily limited to rural characters or rural topics.

The judge for the 2024 Best in Rural Writing Contest is Dr. Chea Parton. Dr. Parton currently runs Literacy In Place, where she seeks to catalogue rural YA books and provides teaching resources, hosts the Reading Rural YAL podcast where she gives book talks and interviews rural YA authors and runs the Rural Teen Writing Contest

We are keen to encourage quality, so suggest writers to check their stories before submitting using Prowritingaid. They have free and paid versions and are the best writing software we know to help improve grammar, readability and check for repetition, ‘sticky’ sentences and suggest alternatives.