The Spokesman-Review’s 2025 high school outdoor writing contest is accepting submissions

The Spokesman-Review’s annual high school outdoor writing contest is accepting submissions.

The 2025 contest is open to high school students from the newspaper’s circulation area in Eastern Washington and North Idaho.

Entries must be on the topic of “outdoors.” This includes subjects such as hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, boating, nature and conservation. Any literary style – including essays, humor, fiction or poetry – is acceptable.

Other contest rules:

• Contestants must be in grades 9-12 and from the newspaper circulation area in Eastern Washington and North Idaho.
• Stories must be original and created in 2025.
• Entries may be no longer than 1,000 words.
• Entries may be emailed to outdoors@spokesman.com. In the subject line, please write “High school writing contest.” Include the writer’s name, school, grade, home address and telephone.
• Stories must be received by Dec. 1 at 5 p.m.

Please send entries as a Microsoft Word or similar word processing document.

Newspaper staff will pick the best entries and award one $50 first-place prize and at least two $30 runner-up prizes. Winning entries will be published in the Sunday Outdoors section in December.