Jordan Gerard/Winonan

The Winona State University English department is offering a creative writing contest for undergraduate students, giving participants a chance to win $1,500.

“The Winona Prize in Creative Writing” is funded to a donation of money through an anonymous donor.

English professor Elizabeth Oness said the department has hosted other contests in past years, such as ones for a freshman writing award and a scholarly essay.

“It’s great for people who are interested in creative writing opportunity,” Oness said. “And what our donor wanted, he really did want this to be available to a wide number of students, and the number of students who have taken English 222 in different disciplines really do write very well, so we wanted it to be open to them.”

English 222 is a general course, in addition to being a required course for English majors and minors.

There are three categories for the contest: fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction. Students submitting their work to the contest are allowed to enter one entry in each category if they choose.

Full-time undergraduate students who have taken English 222 or completed another creative writing course are allowed to enter.

“They have to have at least 12 hours fall and spring. We didn’t want someone who was just taking one creative writing class a semester,” Oness said. “It’s not open to grad students. He really wanted this to be for undergrads.”

The deadline to submit entries, with a cover page is Nov. 2 to the English department office.

Manuscripts will first be read by creative faculty and the winning entries will be chosen by visiting authors from the John S. Lucas Great River Reading Series or other authors who have been published in the appropriate genre.

The winners will be announced Feb. 1, 2016 and each will be awarded with their cash award. They will also have their work published in “Satori,” Winona State’s literary and arts magazine.

Oness said if the donor is pleased with the way the contest goes, it will be ongoing for at least the next year.

The English department has been promoting the contest since its announcement with emails and posters, because Oness said she wants a lot of students to submit pieces so the donor feels satisfied in his donation.

“I want to make sure to get as many students to submit as possible. We know that we can reach English majors through email, but because of it being open to 222 students, those students are a little bit harder to reach,” Oness said. “We are so grateful and happy for this opportunity. There’s so much emphasis on the sciences these days. Creative work feeds our souls.”

Journalism and English student Kim Schneider said it is nice to see the English department faculty encourage students outside of class.

“As students, we are so busy that it’s hard to find time to track down lit. magazines that we’d like to submit to. This way we can submit locally to professors that we know well,” Schneider said. “I think a lot of English majors will enter the contest. Since we are required to take classes like poetry writing, story writing and nonfiction writing, I think a lot of us have a lot of work lying around that could easily be submitted.”

Schneider added that she plans on entering pieces, though she was not sure which ones.

“I’m definitely entering the poetry category,” she said. “I’m also thinking about fixing up one of my essays from nonfiction writing to submit for that category.”

Her nonfiction piece is about one of her best friends who was diagnosed with cancer in high school.