The Everett Southwest Literary Award
Every two years, the UCO Department of English hosts the Everett Southwest Literary Award. This contest is open to writers residing in or writing about Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas. Current and former employees, faculty and students of UCO are not eligible to participate.
The Everett Family Southwest Literary Award honors the late Dr. Mark Allen Everett and is just one of the many generous donations given through the Everett Family Foundation Fund.
Email questions to everettaward@uco.edu.
Prize Amounts
The first place winners receive $5,000.
The second place winners receive $3,000.
The third place winners receive $1,000.
Guest Judge
Brandon Hobson, Ph.D.
National Book Award finalist and UCO Creative Writing alumni Brandon Hobson, Ph.D., will serve as the contest’s final judge for the 2023 Everett Southwest Literary Award.
Hobson is a 2022 Guggenheim fellow. He received his doctorate from Oklahoma State University and his master's from the University of Central Oklahoma.
His novel, "Where the Dead Sit Talking," was a finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the Reading the West Award and long-listed for the Dublin Literary Award, among other distinctions. His latest novel, "The Removed," was named a Best Book of 2021 in Publishers Weekly, Time, Kirkus, Library Journal, Good Housekeeping, Harpers Bazaar and was Winner of the Western Heritage Award.
Hobson's short stories have won a Pushcart Prize and have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, McSweeney’s, Conjunctions, NOON, and elsewhere. He teaches creative writing at New Mexico State University and at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation Tribe of Oklahoma.
Previous judges of this competition include Sandra Cisneros, Rilla Askew, Allison Hedge Coke, Lee K. Abbott, Rob Roensch, and Brian Turner and Kelli Jo Ford.
2023 Contest Winners
First Place
Gay Pasley
"My Story Begins in Water"
Second Place
J. Buentello Benavides
"Border Girls"
Third Place
Matthew Pitt
"Unusual Poisons"
Past Winners
2021
First Place: Ashley Jeffalone
"Rekindled"
Second Place: Sidney Thompson
"You Don't Get to Take This Home
Third Place: Seth Wieck
"Whims of Light Wind"
Read more at the Liberal Arts Blog.
2019:
Kelli Jo Ford, M.F.A.
"Crooked Hallelujah"
Read more at the Liberal Arts Blog.
2017
Bayard Godsave, Ph.D.
"The Affinities"
Category: Novel
2015
Jenna Bazzell, M.F.A.
"Imaginary Homeland"
Category: Poetry
2012
Leslie Jill Patterson, Ph.D.
"The Stories We Tell Ourselves"
Category: Short Story
2010
John Tait
"Poplar Crescent"
Category: Novel
Read more at the Liberal Arts Blog.
2008
William Wenthe
"Words Before Dawn"
2006
Julie Hensley
"Landfall"