Write an essay about something in your daily life that has quietly broken down but remains in use. Perhaps it’s a favorite chair with a wobbling leg, a jacket with a missing button, or a smartphone with a cracked screen. Begin with the object itself, describing its flaws in detail, then follow the thread outward: What does your continued reliance on it reveal about your habits, your history with broken things, and your relationship to loss? Consider how the imperfect object serves as a stand-in for resilience, denial, or attachment. Let the essay move between the object’s material reality and the emotional truths it props up.
Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.