2025 Writing Contest Winners!

The 2025 SWW Annual Writing Contest Results

Beyond Boundaries

The 2025 SouthWest Writers Writing Contest Winners have been announced!  This year’s contest included 18 writing categories. The winners were invited to include their stories in the SouthWest Writers Contest Anthology which is now available!

First, a huge congratulations to everyone who entered the contest! Entering a contest is a big step for a beginning writer or even a more experience one. No matter where you are on the writing journey, this was a way to test your work in public. You are a winner because you took a chance on yourself and your writing.

SouthWest Writers (SWW) encourages aspiring and experienced writers of all cultures and backgrounds to enter. We welcome a diversity of creative expressions and points of view. Writers did not have to be a member of SWW or live in the Southwest to enter.

Most of the winning authors agreed to have their winning entries published in an anthology.  Beyond Boundaries is now available on Amazon.

The categories and winners are below.

  Flash Fiction

First Place: Announcement      by Ellen Welker

Second Place: Afterward       by  Alane Brown

Third Place: How Much?   by  Suzanne Stauffer

  • General Short Fiction

First Place: Hera in the Wild   by Maralie Waterman

Second Place: Gold in the Mountains  by Kellie Lundmark

Third Place: Aloha    by Helene Senac

Third Place: Threshold  by Alane Brown

  • Short Mystery/Crime/Thriller

First Place: Alone in Warsaw    by Mark Edward Jones

Second Place: Robert Frost Is To Blame   by Inna Valerie Lyon

Third Place: The Fork   by Alane Brown

  • Short Science Fiction/Fantasy

First Place: Summon the Jackalope     by Sarah Mock

Second Place: Droids Like White Elephants     by Nancy Schrock

Third Place: Animated     by Sarah Mock

  • Short General Speculative/Horror/Paranormal

First Place: When the Fog Calls        by Dita Dow

Second Place: The Raftman’s Tale   by Dita Dow

Third Place: The Haunting of Alexandra Blackwood       by Dita Dow

  • Short Middle Grade Fiction

First Place: Sleepover at the Zoo      by Mary Therese Ellingwood

Second Place: The Curious Friendship of Patch and Barney   by Linda Harkey

Third Place: The Bike—1945    by Vicki Kay Turpen

  • Short Young Adult Fiction

First Place: Love in a Boy’s Heart     by Jeffrey Stephen Otis

Second Place: Exposure     by Sarah Mock

  • Short Nonfiction: Memoir

First Place: Inventing the World’s Best Bird Feeder   by Larry Kilham

Second Place: The Secret Pet      by Kstein

Third Place:  Home Dance    by Amelia Greco-Welden

  • Short Article/Essay/General Nonfiction

First Place:   The Farmers of the Colorado River      by Sarah Mock

Second Place: When a Deer is Not a Deer   by  Terry Nichols

Third Place: Goodbye, Grub    by  Terry Nichols

  • Opening Chapter Unpublished General Fiction

First Place: The Purest Heart       by Bonnie Hobbs

Second Place: Obsidian        by R. Slover

Third Place: Cow Hunters, 1875       by Robert Temple

Third Place: Sunset’s End      by VP Felmlee

  • Opening Chapter Unpublished Mystery/Crime/Thriller

First Place: Weapons of Mass Destruction  by  Dan Chiras

Second Place: The Judge’s Wife    by  Linda Krug

Third Place: Balloon Fiesta Murders     by Don Weston

Third Place:  100          by  Wolf O’Rourc

  • Opening Chapter Unpublished Speculative Fiction

First Place: Mother’s Mountain       by  Claire A. Murray

Second Place: To The Stars     by Alane Brown

Third Place: Chapter 1: Splashdown    by  Carol Rawie

  • Opening Chapter Unpublished Nonfiction Memoir

First Place: This Little Light  by Kendra L. Rickert

Second Place: Hilsen   by Daniele Longo

Third Place: Last Day  by Tammie Lamphere-Alberti

  • Opening Chapter Unpublished General Nonfiction

First Place: Pilgrimage into the Unknown   by Sarah Kotchian

Second Place: A Brief Guide to a Better Death with Hospice Support   by Ellen Kim

  • Free Verse Poetry

First Place: Mendocino in December    Kathleen Holmes

Second Place: My Body, My Boundary         Miranda Martori

Third Place: Full Moon Farewell        Alane Brown

 

  • Haiku

First Place: Ghost Ranch Dances   by Michael Hibner

Second Place: Chama Box     by Michael Hibner

Third Place: Firstborn          by  Sherry Moon

 

  • Limerick

First Place: The Young Lady from Bath     by  William S Stotts Jr.

Second Place: A Man from Vermont          by William S Stotts Jr.

Third Place: Girl from Slidell         by Mark Fleisher

  • Short Screenplay

First Place: The Bones of His Shoulders    by Stanley Ray

Second Place: Horse     by Bonnie Adams