BR&S Prose Prize

Each year, all prose submissions (short fiction, essay, creative nonfiction) will be considered for the Black Rock & Sage Prose Prize. Please follow the general submission guidelines. There is no entry fee.

The winning author will receive a cash prize and publication in the new issue of Black Rock & Sage.

All submissions will be judged anonymously by the BR&S senior editorial staff, and judges’ decisions will be final. Judges reserve the right to withhold prizes in the case that no entries meet their standards.

Winners of the BR&S Prose Prize

2022: Tanner Pratt

2021: Mason Wissert

2020: Kortnie Pimentel

2019: Jake Otsi

2018: Steph Bachman

2017: Steph Bachman

2016: Christopher Swensen

2015: N/A

2014: Jeffrey Howard

2013: Taylor Kensel

2012: Sharon Collins

2011: Bill Chalmers

2010: Joshua Mayes

Ford Swetnam Poetry Prize

Poems submitted by ISU undergraduate students will be considered for the Ford Swetnam Poetry Prize competition. Please follow the general submission guidelines, and be sure to let us know that you are an undergraduate. There is no entry fee. The winning author will receive a cash prize and publication in the new issue of Black Rock & Sage.

The scholarship was endowed in 2002 by Professor Ford Swetnam, an ISU Distinguished Teacher, a dedicated mentor to student writers, and a fine poet. In his poem “Elegy for Ford,” Michael Sowder, a former Utah poet laureate, writes of Ford, “He, the older, better poet and guide / was leading me and I saw him like Virgil.” On Ford’s death in April 2002, many friends contributed funds to the endowment in his memory. 

Writers submitting entries should keep in mind Ford’s stipulation that “the winning poem will show some intellection/reflection about its subject, and will employ some formal device which will discriminate it from prose, rant, howl, or cookie-cutter workshop poetry.”

BR&S senior staff do not select the winner of this wonderful award; instead the judge for each year’s contest will be announced after final selections are made. Past judges for this contest have included Mike White (University of Utah), Ben Gunsberg (Utah State University), and Idaho State University’s own Susan Swetnam (Ford’s wife and professor emeritus, Idaho State University).

Winners of the Ford Swetnam Poetry Prize

2022: Caleb Greenwell

2021: E.E. Curtis

2020: Reich Downs

2019: Karley Morgan

2018: Karley Morgan

2017: Tyanne Hintze

2016: Mary Morrical

2015: Maggie Gardner

2014: Mike Nichols

2013: Michon Vanderpool

2012: Brian Burnham

2011: Mitch Christensen

2010: Stephen Hunt

2009: Tyler Chadwick

2008: Kerynn Davis

Judges of the Ford Swetnam Poetry Prize

2022: Lance Larsen

2021: Sunni Brown Wilkinson

2020: Laura Stott

2019: Natalie Homer

2018: Dr. Jeffrey Howard

2017: Michael Sowder

2016: Mike White

2015: Laura Stott

2014: Ben Gunsberg

2013: Susan Swetnam

2012: William Johnson

2011: Jim Irons

2010: Rick Ardinger

2009: Paul Lindholdt

2008: Greg Nicholl