The 2016 Nation Student Writing Contest

The 2016 Nation Student Writing Contest

The 2016 Nation Student Writing Contest

Entries will be accepted through Monday, September 26, 2016.

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Meet the Winners!

The Nation launched an annual Student Writing Contest to identify, support, and reward the numerous smart, progressive student journalists writing, reporting, and blogging today.

This year, we’re asking students to answer this question: It’s clear that the political system in the United States isn’t working for many young people. What do you think is the central issue for your generation in Election 2016?

Essays should not exceed 800 words and should demonstrate fresh, clear thinking and superior quality of expression and craftsmanship. We’ll select 10 finalists and two winners total—six from college students, six from those in high school. Each winner will be awarded a $1,000 cash prize and a lifetime Nation subscription. The finalists will receive $250 each and subscriptions. The winning essays will be published in The Nation magazine and at thenation.com. The 10 finalists will be featured at thenation.com.

Entries will be accepted through Monday, September 26, 2016 at 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time. Winners will be announced on Monday, November 7.

The contest is open to all matriculating high-school students and undergraduates at US schools, colleges, and universities, as well as those receiving high-school or college degrees in calendar year 2016. Submissions must be original, unpublished work. Each entrant is limited to one submission. Past and present Nation interns are ineligible, as are family members of Nation staff.

Submissions and questions can be e-mailed to [email protected]. Please include the essay in the body of the e-mail. All e-mailed submissions will be acknowledged. Each entry must include author’s name, address, phone number, e-mail and short biography and school affiliation—and say “student essay” in the subject line.

Please help spread the word!

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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