Creative Writing Festival

Registrations accepted online until:

• with submissions - Monday, October 23, 2023 | Deadline extended to Wednesday, November 1, 2023
• without submissions - Wedneday, November 22, 2023 

Advisors are encouraged to register for all participants attending from their school, instead of having each participant register singularly.  Please have the answers prior to registering:

Advisor email, name, address, phone, school, how did you hear about this event, accommodations/comments, number of students attending with submission, number of students attending only, number of teachers attending with submission, number of teachers attending only

Each applicant submitting work will verify proof of originality through online registration system.  The online registration link will be provided to you in your registration confirmation.

For the Students

• Workshops are designed for students in grades 9-12.
• Students' work will be discussed in assigned workshops.
• Workshops are limited, and student writers will be assigned in advance to the workshop in which their work is critiqued.
• Non-submitting participants may attend any session.
• Each submission will be carefully read and considered.
• A professional writer will make written comments on the original manuscript.
• The schedule designating the workshop assigned and meeting link will be available via the link in your registration confirmation, one day before the event.

Note: Because of the great number of entries in some categories such as poetry, our faculty cannot always discuss every work submitted.

For the Teachers

UW-Whitewater staff members and visiting writers will coordinate special teachers' writing workshops to be held concurrently with the students' workshop. Offerings are subject to interest and facilitator availability. Teachers who wish to submit their own work for consideration in a Teachers Writing Workshop should submit their work by the submission deadline.

Your online registration and payment are always safe and secure.  We accept MasterCard and Visa credit card payments in our online registration system.  We will NOT accept credit card payments over the phone.  We will accept checks made out to "UW-Whitewater" and mailed to UW-Whitewater Camps and Conferences, 800 West Main Street, Room 2005 Roseman Hall, Whitewater WI 53190.

Confirmation Emails

Once you register, a confirmation email will be sent to your email account with details on how to submit and upload creative work. Contact cesevents@uww.edu if you do not receive this confirmation email.  Please make sure you have a working email address on file with us to be able to receive important announcements and updates about this event.

Erik Larson

Erik Larson is the author of eight books, six of which became New York Times bestsellers. His latest books, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz and Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, both hit no. 1 on the list soon after launch. His saga of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, The Devil in the White City, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and won an Edgar Award for fact-crime writing; it lingered on various Times bestseller lists for the better part of a decade. Hulu plans to adapt the book for a limited TV series, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese as executive producers. Erik’s In the Garden of Beasts, about how America’s first ambassador to Nazi Germany and his daughter experienced the rising terror of Hitler’s rule, has been optioned by Tom Hanks for development as a feature film.

He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied Russian history, language and culture; he received a masters in journalism from Columbia University. After a brief stint at the Bucks County Courier Times, Erik became a staff writer for The Wall Street Journal, and later a contributing writer for Time Magazine. His magazine stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, and other publications.

He has taught nonfiction writing at San Francisco State, the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, the University of Oregon, and the Chuckanut Writers Conference in Bellingham, Washington, and has spoken to audiences from coast to coast. A former resident of Seattle, he now lives in Manhattan with his wife, a neonatologist, who is also the author of the nonfiction memoir, Almost Home, which, as Erik puts it, “could make a stone cry.” They have three daughters in far-flung locations and professions. Their beloved dog Molly resides in an urn on a shelf overlooking Central Park, where they like to think she now spends most of her time.

• A participant may submit in only one category (poetry may have up to three titles per submission). See below.  
• Participants will submit one file online using the Creative Writing Festival - Submission and Proof of Originality Form.  A link will be available in the confirmation receipt and email once registration is completed.
• All manuscripts must include the author's name, and title of the piece, be double-spaced, and adhere to file name requirements, and to category page lengths.
• Submission must be saved as a pdf or mp3 file (not to exceed 25,000 KB) with category code, last name, and first name as the file name.  Codes are found next to the categories below.  Example:  P.Doe.Jane would be the file name for Jane's poetry submission.  
• Files exceeding 25,000 KB must be posted on a website and a link provided in a pdf for submission.  YouTube can be used.
• We suggest posting the recording on a website (YouTube or other) and providing a PDF of song lyrics for submission.
• Drama/Screenplay entries must submit a video of the screenplay. It is suggested to post the recording on a website (Youtube or other)  and provide the screenplay in a pdf for submission.
• Submissions must be received by Monday, October 23, 2023 | Deadline extended to Wednesday, November 1, 2023. Entries submitted after the deadline will not be considered for review. 
• Participants can bring hard copies of their submissions for those auditing to read. Ten (10) copies are often sufficient.
• Submitting students must attend the session they are assigned to.
• All students will receive written feedback via email from the facilitators after their workshop sessions.
• At times, a facilitator is unable to attend their assigned session, due to unforeseen circumstances or technical difficulties.  We will do everything possible to find a replacement and prevent needing to cancel a session.
• UW-Whitewater is required to report any submissions that indicate neglect, abuse, violence towards others, or self-harm.