The 2024 GBF High School Poetry Contest!
We are proud to announce that our annual high school poetry contest is now OPEN for submissions! This year, students are asked to craft a poem on the topic of “Envisioning a Better Future.”
Winners will be unveiled at the Gaithersburg Book Festival on May 18, 2024, at Bohrer Park at Summit Hall Farm (506 S. Frederick Ave., Gaithersburg, MD 20877). First and second place winners will receive $250 and $100, respectively. Third place and fan favorite winners will receive $50 and $25, respectively.
To participate, students must reside in Maryland, Virginia or the District of Columbia, and be enrolled in grades 9-12 at a public or private school, or be in a homeschool program, for the 2023-2024 school year.
Please help spread the word: Here’s a PDF flyer you can share with students, teachers and parents!
“We’re excited to feature the High School Poetry Contest as we celebrate 15 years of the Gaithersburg Book Festival. Students continually impress us with the phenomenal poems they have submitted during the past five years of the poetry contest. We’re looking forward to the futures they will imagine in their 2024 contest entries.”
– Jud Ashman, Mayor and Festival Chair
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
- Topic: “Envision a Better Future”
- Be submitted as a Word document (.doc or .docx)
- Typed in 12 pt. Times New Roman
- No more than one page in length
- File name should be the title of the poem only (e.g., The_Red_Fern.doc). The file name should not include the student’s name or the school.
- Poems must be the original work of the student and not previously published online or in print.
- By submitting work to the contest, students grant the Gaithersburg Book Festival a non-exclusive license to publish, distribute, transmit and exhibit the poem, and any portions thereof, via any medium without financial compensation.
Poems must be submitted electronically via web at https://fs30.formsite.com/GBurgMD/GBFpoetrycontest/index.html by midnight ET on Thursday, February 22, 2024.
Up to 12 poems will be selected as finalists and posted on the Gaithersburg Book Festival website prior to the Festival. Finalists will also be asked to record a video of themselves reading their poems, which will be posted on Gaithersburg Book Festival website. A release will be required.
Complete rules and regulations can be found online at https://www.gaithersburgbookfestival.org/gbf-programs/poetry-contest/. Questions can be emailed to writingcontest@gaithersburgbookfestival.org.