Environmental Writing Competition: SAGE

Submit now to SAGE's Young Environmental Writers Contest 2012!

Awards: First Prize: $500; Second Prize: $300; Third Prize: $200
One writer under 20 will receive a Special Mention.
All finalists will be published on SAGE Magazine's website and considered for our annual print publication.

Judging: SAGE Magazine staff will select finalists. Finalists will be judged by a panel including some of the country's foremost working writers and journalists, including:

Bill McKibben, Author, Educator, and Environmentalist
Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, Staff Writer
Steve Hawk, Sierra Magazine, Executive Editor; Surfer Magazine, Former Editor-in-Chief
Jon Mooallem, The New York Times Magazine, Contributor
Scott Dodd, OnEarth.org, Editor; Columbia School of Journalism, Adjunct Professor

Submission Fee: There is none! We are generously supported by a grant from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Submission Guidelines: Send us essays, short stories, memoirs, poetry, graphic novels, reporting, sky-writing, all forms of environmental writing accepted (including excerpts from longer works). Writers under 20 must include their age to be considered for special mention.

Eligibility: Open to all non-professional writers. All writing submitted to SAGE Magazine after 10/01/2011 will be automatically considered for the competition.

Fine Print: SAGE takes no rights to publication, meaning contest participants are free to submit and publish their work elsewhere. Editors will consult with winners to edit submissions for publication. SAGE reserves the right to declare a tie and to award only as many winners and finalists as are appropriate to the quality of work represented in the magazine.

Deadline: April 20th, Midnight, Eastern Standard Time
Please send final submissions to SageMagazine(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @ in sending e-mail)
Winners and Finalists Announced May 15th, 2012
FAQs

What does "non-professional" mean? How does it relate to the "young writers" part of the contest announcement?

SAGE wanted to encourage young environmental writers, but had trouble setting an age limit. Plus, we figured that if there was someone out there who wanted to start an environmental writing career later in life--well, that's great too! Hence: while we assume most submissions will come from young writers, we decided to make "non-professional" the key eligibility requirement. Non-professional means that you have either not previously published for pay or that you are just starting a paid writing career. We will generally consider writers who have published a limited amount, but reserve the right to discretion on this matter.

Would you accept pieces that have been published elsewhere?

We can't consider pieces to which other publications own rights, and we're unlikely to consider a piece that has been published for pay (that would make you a professional writer--see above). However, we will generally consider pieces that have appeared in other campus publications.