And the winners of our 2025 Short Story Contest are…

1st place: &nbsp;“Otter Point” by Noah Morelock
2nd place: &nbsp;“The Lake” by&nbsp;Kathryn Faulkner
3rd place: &nbsp;“Speaking with Mountains” by Laura Dixson

Every November is National Novel Writing Month. Once again, the UT Libraries joined in the fun by hosting our own short story contest.

The short story contest was created as a way to inspire students, faculty, and staff to write creatively. Those who participate in the short story contest are given a choice of prompts they must use to create a unique and imaginative story.

Staff from the Judith Anderson Herbert Writing Center join library staff for a kickoff event to get students started. Submitted stories are sent to a set of judges who read each story and score them based on a set of criteria.

Submissions were inspired by our prompts:

Center your story around a character discovering a hidden door or path.
Tell a story in the form of a police report, news article, or journal entry about an incredible (or impossible) event.
Using only dialogue, depict a conversation between an artificial intelligence or non-human entity and a human being about what it means to tell a story. Your reader must struggle to tell which is which.

We’re pleased to announce the winners: