Nebraska students in 5th through 12th grades are invited to submit an entry into the seventh annual “Through Our Words: Creative Writing Contest in Spanish.”
Dr. Claudia Garcia, associate professor of Spanish at UNO, says students are organized into different categories according to their ages and each will have a different genre.
For example, 5th and 6th graders will submit mini-poems, no longer than 140 characters. And 7th and 8th grade students will write short stories that are 300 words long.
Garcia says the stories must be inspired by a work of art that is housed either at Joslyn Art Museum or El Museo Latino.
"The Joslyn Art Museum has a nice website and some of their material is there. We always want to encourage the students to visit the museum because this adds one more layer. But this is open to everybody in the state of Nebraska. And we realize that sometimes people don’t have the chance to actually drive down to Omaha and go to a museum. So you can always use the paintings as you find them on the website.”
Garcia says older students will be writing a non-fiction personal narrative with the theme and subtitle of “Diversity: a personal story.”
She says students who place first and second in each category and genre will earn a small award.
Applications can be submitted through October 12th to csgarcia@unomaha.edu. Applicants should include “Creative Writing Contest” in the email’s subject line.
Winners will be announced at the beginning of November.